The UK Cherub is a two-person 12 foot racing dinghy with asymmetric spinnaker and twin trapezes. Just twelve feet long, weighing around 70kgs fully rigged for sailing, the UK Cherub combines spectacular performance with the “on the edge” handling characteristics only found in true lightweight skiffs.
The UK Cherub rules are simple and allow for maximum flexibility for designers, allowing boats to be created to incorporate sailor's own ideas. Also meaning the class develops over time as techniques, materials and ideas improve. All this makes the Cherub one of the most interesting and innovative of all dinghies: The challenge extends from the sailing skills to setting up the boat to suit the sailor, and maybe even designing and building, too.
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UK Cherub Inlands 2010 - Report
The weather gods certainly smiled benignly on the Cherub Inlands at Queen Mary SC with warm temperatures and an increasing breeze over the two days culminating in a couple of quite full on final races. On Saturday three races were held in a reasonably steady 8-12 knots of breeze.
In race 1 Andrew and Jill Peters in Usagi were first around the windward mark but succumbed to an early capsize letting Graham and Eddie Bridle in Riot Van lead for the majority of the race. Usagi though was slowly catching and overtook Riot Van on the last leg to win. In race 2 Usagi led from start to finish with Dean and Simon in Eleanor getting a good second, Riot Van finishing third. In race 3 a slightly increased breeze suited Stu Turner and Nick Pratt in Ronin and they took the win by a boat length from a fast finishing Usagi. Davro had finally emerged from a post Ministry of Sound sleep and posted an excellent 3rd in the Pasta Frenzy. The first 97 rules boat for the day was Phil Kirk and Tom Kiddle in Born Slippy.
On the Sunday the Cherubs had their own start on the club racing course giving QMSC members a close up view of the fantastic 05 rules cherubs complete with their masthead asymmetrics, twin trapezes and t-foils (there are a couple of great second hand boats available on the class website!) Overtaking the RS400’s who started 5 minutes ahead showed the turn of speed these 12 foot skiffs can produce given a decent breeze.
Normal service was resumed in the first two races with Usagi taking 2 firsts and the Inland Championships for the second year. Each race was hard fought with in particular Eleanor and Ronin also leading for significant periods of the racing. The increasing breeze was making for some challenging corner turning and the QMSC sailors were getting some spectacular cherub action to watch. By the final race the wind was upto a good force 4, firmly into Pasta territory. Riot Van and Ronin duelled for the lead but Dave and Maff in Pasta were never far behind. A race ending capsize by Ronin freed Riot Van for certain victory, however the thrill of riding the days biggest gust downwind meant Riot Van over stood the finish and had to drop the kite and reach across. This opened the door for The Pasta Frenzy who, showing a mean turn of speed themselves, blasted across the finish line to take the win. Adem and Chris in Monkey Magic showed some good boat handling to stay the course and claim third.
Many thanks to QMSC for arranging such superb conditions and for the excellent race management.
Results are under the sailing>results tab on the QMSC website
| SailNo | Club | HelmName | CrewName | Race 1 | Race 2 | Race 3 | Race 4 | Race 5 | Race 6 | Total | Nett |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3202 | QMSC | Andrew Peters | Jeraldine Peters | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | (8.0 DNF) | 14 | 6 |
| 3204 | Brightlingsea | Graham Bridle | Eddie Bridle | 2 | 3 | (8.0 DNC) | 3 | 4 | 2 | 22 | 14 |
| 2698 | QMSC | Stu Turner | Nick Pratt | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 5 | (8.0 DNF) | 23 | 15 |
| 3208 | Whitstable YC | Dean Ralph | Simon Jones | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | (8.0 DNC) | 24 | 16 |
| 2660 | David Roe | Matt Kiddle | (8.0 DNC) | 8.0 DNC | 3 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 30 | 22 | |
| 2655 | Datchet | Adem Ikibiroglu | Chris Rust | (8.0 DNC) | 5 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 33 | 25 |
| 2674 | Thornbury | Phil Kirk | Tom Kiddle | 5 | (8.0 DNC) | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 35 | 27 |
Poole YC Regatta
An action packed weekend at Poole Yacht Club with multiple classes and fleets sharing the harbour resulted in some tight course laying in some exciting wind conditions.
The plan was for 3 races back to back, using a complicated outer loop windward leeward with a reach out and back to it. The bottom reach to the finish was a particarly 'interesting' white sailer in decent breeze. The Saturday started with a postponement waiting for the wind. When the wind arrived it quickly built to 12-15knts.
The first race started with most Cherubs on the line, sharing it with the local asymmetric fleet. After the initial beat followed a broad reach to the outer loop. Here was where matters got interesting. This was for two reasons:
a) the outer loop was tiny, about a minute downwind with the kite up b) the outerloop was set right in the middle of the slow boats course, so full of toppers, mirrors and GP14's who were making there way in lines upwind on their opening lap.
Result, frenetic activity, many near collisions and plenty of dramatic avoidance techniques required by all (including swimming for some) In between all of this, a decent race for the lead developed between Usagi and Riot Van. Not far behind there was a good tussle for position between Ronin and Badgers. Ronin showed exceptional pace footing and speeding upwind with Badgers pointing well and nailing some well positioned tacks. Result of race one was Usagi taking the bullet, Riot Van dropped back a bit, with Badgers in 3rd and Ronin 4th.
By race 2 the wind had built to 18-20knts. There was a long wait between races during which Usagi and Riot Van practiced for the sychronised capsizing event to be inaugurated at this years Nationals whilst Badgers tried to remain composed by doing some hooning and corners practise. The course remained the same, mirrors etc still present, only with more wind the closing speeds were increased! Racing was again tight throughout for the first couple of laps until mistakes took their toll and caused to spread the fleet out a bit. Badgers used their weighty experience to keep the sails pointing upwards and lead to a clear win. Ronin, Usagi and Riot Van swapped places behind with Ronin generally in front until a particularly viscious gust knocked them down and their dagger board decided it had enough of Ross bouncing on it and cracked. This left Usagi free to finish 2nd with Riot Van a fairly distant third.
The course was re-set for race three giving a longer and clearer outer loop. Only three cherubs started this race, the wind was still fairly pokey at 15-20knts with some nice sustained gusts. Badgers had clearly got over their first win nerves and cruised to have another clear win taking line honours ahead of the local RS800 and asymnetric fleet, Riot Van kept their sails relatively dry to finish second. Usagi completed some vital capsize recovery training (having capsized more in this one race than in 4 seasons of RS200 racing) and finished an even more distant third.
Cherub 2303 (The Cats Whiskers) a 1970's era Forman 4 which has recently been salvaged and brough out of retirement was being sailed in the medium handicap by Noycey's Dad and Girlfriend. They spent the day chasing GP14's playing cat and mouse with them around the course as the wind went up and down, but managed to score 2 easy bullets. This boat will be going to the nationals so we want to get as many oldies there as possible to continue the classic revival.
After sailing the fleet spent the evening sat out on the club patio eating hog roast, drinking beer and generally being merry!
Sunday dawned very windy, after a long postponement waiting for the water to arrive the majority of the Cherub fleet had decided to call it a day and pack up for long journeys home. Badgers was ready for action, but in the end opted out of launching as the only asymetric boat in an effort not to break anything ahead of Thornbury.
As memory serves, the final results looked like this…
1 - Badgers Nadgers - 3,1,1
2 - Usagi - 1,2,3
3 - Riot Van - 2,3,2
Many thanks to all that helped out to ensure all the fleet members had a great weekend, be that providing floor space for resting sleepy heads or assisting with boat transportation (you know who you are 
)
This weekend see's the travellers series going to Thornbury… looks to be windy again! See you there.
