The flying Cherubs

Champion Jim Champ reports from the Inlands at Kielder Water

Race one was a triangle with a long reach broad enough to require gybing and a shorter one which was occasionally two sail.

Rather a fun course in the conditions. The wind was a very decent 4/5. Up the first beat Mango Jam (Gavin Sims and Simon Goodwin), Halo Jones (Alex Adams and Jim Champ) and Aqua Marina (Phil Alderson and Malcolm Garrington) all swapped places, but Mango came out first to the windward mark, and then built a good lead when Halo overstood the wing in a big gust and had to two sail back up to it. Mango finished up in the middle of the Ospreys that had started a good 5 minutes before them, with Halo second a bit further down the Osprey fleet!

Race two was the big one, a race from "dam to dam", the two dams in Kielder Water being around 6 miles apart. The race started with a mass start for all the classes and a windward leewardish sort of leg before all disappeared up to the far distance round several corners.

Much place swapping ensued up the beat, mostly between Aqua, Mango and Halo again, mixed in with everything from Ospreys and Flying 15s to a 5 Tonner. The leg back down suddenly blew up as we cleared a headland, and a big gust saw the Cherubs end up way low and having to drop and two sail up. Mango led at the downwind from Aqua, with Halo a little further back after a swim. Round the mark it was off up a winding valley to the far end of the lake. The wind dropped a bit and got shifty, then it dropped some more and got shiftier, and we were getting farther away from home and it seemed like a long way to sail back to retire. So we carried on. In the lighter stuff the pond sailors in Halo started to come to the front, aided by a policy of not hoisting the kite because it was obviously too light.

At times we were going along tacking every couple of minutes without changing course, so persistently were the shifts clocking one way then the other. We had thought it was painful going up, but it was far worse on the way back down. Halo eventually finished, just after the sun had disappeared behind the hills, first Cherub after some four hours, with Aqua about 5 minutes after, and the other Cherubs retiring rather than face the last mark downwind of the club.

Halo had thought they were doing surprisingly well on handicap, finishing among Moths and Ospreys and Fifteens, but had clean forgotten that although when the owner built the boat the Flying Fifteens gave the Cherub around a couple of minutes an hour, these days they give not only the 15s but even the Moths time. About all the Cherubs beat was a couple of Ospreys and one amazingly tenacious and committed GP14 sailor, who finished lit by car headlights and moonlight after some six hours sailing!

About 4am Cherub sailors were tying down boats with extra rocks in what was obviously a gathering breeze. Very gathering by 7am, as tents attempted to go flying! By rigging time it was regularly gusting 29 knots by the clubhouse anenometer, and frankly we all
thought it was underreading! Well there hasn't been a lot of breeze lately anyway, so Halo, Aqua and Mango went out. Foolish boys. When Halo got across the start line (late) both the other two were horizontal, and when they reached the windward mark very soon afterwards it seemed as if the other two were retiring.

They chucked the kite up in a handy lull, and then caught the mother of all gusts... I can honestly say I have never ever gone so fast in any sailboat - we were already flat out wiring when the gust hit and the boat leapt away and accelerated as only Cherubs can. Very soon afterwards we were going to have to gybe in front of a rocky lee shore, then gybe again back down to the leeward mark just off the dam. In what felt like well in excess of thirty knot gusts, with, we thought, the series won, we dropped the kite and sailed in.

Then we saw Mango had started and was heading up the beat. A finish would give them the series. Like us they copped a gigantic gust on the run, like us they headed downhill at ridiculous speeds, then we saw them wipe out big time with the mast going over the front. Fortunately it was only a rigging failure, with just new shrouds to buy, so the most experienced lake sailors Alex Adams and Jim Champ ended up as Inland Champions.

Results:

1. Alex Adams & Jim Champ, Island Barn SC, England, Bistro design, Fyfe (NZ)/Ctech (NZ) rig.
2. Phil Alderson & Malcolm Garrington, Peterhead SC, Scotland, Paterson 7 Design, Batt/CST (AUS) rig.
3. Gavin Sims and Simon Goodwin, Neyland SC, Wales, Buttplug Design, own built mast and sails.
4. Ben Brown and Daryl Wilkinson, Stone SC, England, Bistro Design, Batt sails.
5. Martin Hurst and Jon Garfitt,Notts County SC, England, Velocipede Design.