Shiney Beast takes it

After Cherub Nationals at Stone Sailing Club reports Jim Champ

The Cherub Nationals were held together with the Canoes, and hosted by a friendly, relaxed and highly efficient Stone Sailing Club.

Day one featured two races in lightish airs after a late start. Amongst much place swapping Andy and Alex Paterson took two firsts, Gavin Sims & Simon Goodwin two seconds, and Patrick Cunningham & David Hamilton two thirds.

Day two featured the best winds of the event, building to a very decent blast through the Blackwater chop. Sims and Goodwin took the first race, and had a considerable lead in the second when they were unlucky enough to snap their bowsprit. The Patersons picked up three seconds, and Andrew Kinchin and Simon Roberts, who had been OCS in the first race won the other two. More drama ensued when Cunningham and Hamilton pitchpoled only feet in front of Tim Dean and Claire Spens. Dean very nearly managed to miss them, but just caught the tip of Cunningham's daggerboard, with the inevitable result.

Day three's series race was held in light airs, and the Patersons took a fairly convincing win from Sims and Cunningham, apparently not losing too much speed with his borrowed replacement daggerboard.

This left a nice symmetry from last year, in that Sims was left required to win all the races on the last day to stop Paterson winning - last year Paterson had had to (and did) do exactly the same thing.

In the afternoon we sailed what, thanks to the speed of the Cherubs and Canoes, might have been a long distance race, but wasn't an especially long duration one! Andy and Alex Paterson took home the trophy for that one.

So on day four last years duel was due to be repeated. The day started pretty miserably, with a lot of rain and not much wind. In the first race Sims took an early lead, but Paterson slipped through at the windward mark. On succeeding laps Sims and Kinchin were battling so hard that they took themselves the wrong side of the course, letting through Martin Hurst and Jon Garfiott to take second, while the Patersons took both first and the Championship.

In between races there was a massive squall which provided the best sailing of the Championships, but also torrential rain.

Unfortunately the wind had dropped again for the last race. Alex Adams and Jim Champ pulled off a superb pin end start, closely followed by Sims and Paterson at the windward mark. Paterson got through to second, and these places stayed until the leeward mark. At this point the wind dropped completely, and tha race was shortened
leaving a tiny 50 yard hop to the finish. Tiny but for the tide and the lack of wind. Sims got across quite quickly, eventually followed by the Patersons. After a considerable delay the former National 12 sailors Ben Brown and Daryl Wilkins used all their suddenly relevant experience to pick up two places at the last gasp. Kinchin then just pipped Adams, whose highly prebent rig was eminently unsuitable for the conditions!

Results (Top 6)
Place, Boat Name, Sail No, Helm, Crew, Club, Pts, Design
1st , Shiney Beast , 2676 , Andy Paterson , Alex Paterson , Gurnard SC , 8.0
, Paterson 7
2nd , Mango Jom , 2682 , Gavin Sims , Simon Goodwin , Neyland SC , 11.0
, Butt Plug
3rd , Nautilus Pompilius , "247" , Andy Kinchin , Simon Roberts , Bewl
Valley , 18.0 , Slug
4th , Little Red Number , 2678 , Patrick Cunningham , David Hamilton ,
Stone SC , 23.0 , Paterson 7
5th , Fuzzy Logic , 2675 , Martin Hurst , Jon Garfitt , Notts County , 28.0 ,
Velocipede
6th , Fizzy Shark , 2662 , Tim Dean , Claire Spens , Mayflower SC , 28.0 ,
Pasta Frenzy

Technical Overview.
The Paterson designs were undoubtedly favoured in the predominantly lightish conditions, having good upwind speed and able to go very deep downwind. They both used a tall Superspar/Caws rig with moderate pre-bend, quite flat mainsails and masthead spinnakers. Sims' and Goodwin's boat, designed and built and featuring sails and spars built by Sims, was undoubtedly extremely quick in moderate conditions, and it seems likely that the bowsprit breakage in race four cost them the series, as they would have won race 4, and race 5 would also have been to their liking. Their rig is the tallest of the top contenders, with a lot more prebend in the topmast, and the monofilm mainsail is fuller than the Caws sails. Kinchin's and Robert's boat, designed and built by Roberts with a home built mast, has a quite different rig with a lower home built mast setting Batt Sails which or notably much fuller than those used by Sims or Paterson. They use the straightest mast of the three.