Driftathon

William Lee reports on the Cherub racing at Kielder Water Sailing Club

The May Bank holiday weekend saw the second of the Cherub 2005 Grand Prix series. Those boats making the very long trip north (or south) were welcomed by the legendarily friendly Kielder Water Sailing Club, who hosted the event as part of their first Asymmetric Open Meeting. The whole event was sailed in unusually light winds, consistently 20 knots less than the last time the Cherubs were at KWSC!

There were four races on the Saturday. The first featured a severe wind shift, rendering both legs reaches. The wind settled for the second and third races which saw Tom Kiddle at the helm of Catanache (2669) pitting his wily mirror racing techniques against the superior light wind speed of Aqua Marina (2681). In the final race Phil and Carol made the start in Primal Scream (2686): a brand new boat which was launched for the first time and showed blistering turns of speed in frankly unexciting quantities of breeze.

After the final race the breeze filled in nicely, allowing Tom and Phil to have a quick blast in Primal Scream, and for Andy Easton (owner and crew of Catanache) and Mike Scott from KWSC take Aqua for a spin. KWSC provided a superb evening meal, which was followed by a bit of gluing of tillers (oops!) and fixing of trailer wheels.

On Sunday there was a bit more breeze but a lot more rain. Catananche had an unfortunate spinnaker pole upset, which meant she missed the racing. The first race saw Aqua take an early lead from Primal following an unfortunate start-line capsize.

In the second race Primal Scream was disappearing into the mist when thunder and lightening forced the race committee to abandon racing in favour of an early lunch. Once the deluge had stopped and the lightening had moved into the next valley the racing was restarted. The penultimate race had Primal first to the windward mark. A slow hoist gave Aqua time to get through and catch the one remaining gust of the day.

Many thanks to Kielder Water SC for another brilliantly organised event
at their superb club. I know we will be back for their Open Meeting in
September.