E-Numbers Takes to the Water

On the 23rd and 24th of January the latest Elway 5 cherub ‘E-Numbers’ successfully sailed for the first time. Even in the 4-5 knots of wind on Saturday she felt quick, balanced and stiff. She was joined on the water by sister ship ‘Exultant Jubilation’. After 2 hours of beating, spinnaker reaching, some cautious tacks and gybes the inevitable happened. Splash! ‘Gosh the water’s cold! Time to go in maybe!’ E-Numbers had behaved well. Almost everything appeared to work and be in the right place. The sails looked great and nothing creaked, groaned or broke. A few tweaks were required. The trapeze lines were a bit long and the T-foil control line needed some elastic.

After a splendid curry with Team E.J. both boats sailed again the following day. Eventually a nice force 2-3 filled in and both boats were off. Atum Bom was already on the water waiting. With the extra breeze E-Numbers took off and hared rapidly across the lake. A moment was taken to pull on the T-foil which brought the bow back in the water. With the weight back she drove along even faster and felt more settled. The boat was enjoying this but helm and crew were having to concentrate quite hard to keep everything together. After a few tacks the kite had to go up for the sleigh ride back down the lake. Again a little caution was used to complete the run with a gybe and without swimming. Later a careless bear away capsize made the decision to stop for lunch. A second on the water session gave an opportunity for Roland to take some photos.

This has been a successful weekend from which to build skills and confidence. Both crews found it very rewarding to sail the boat that they had built. A big thanks must go to Paul Croote and his Crew Ed for hosting E-Numbers and E.J. at Chew Valley S.C. and Roland for catching us and helping on shore.

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Congratulations to Pete Barton for his 4th place in the Bloody Mary in what was undoubtedly a great display of grit and resilience in atrocious conditions. Boat Preperation is important for any Regatta, and here is Pete's description of how he winterised his Cherub for the Bloody Mary.

Picking up my boat last Thurs in snow and midday sub zero temps, with no let up in the forecast the severity of our conquest dawned on me. We had had big problems keeping the boat going with ice forming last year in light winds. This year with similar temps but stronger wind and therefore more chill, the ice problem was likely to be bigger with us also having less spare hands to deal with it. I momentarily contemplated quitting but decided it would be more fun to try to up our game instead (plus I think I had managed to psych Ben to the point of no return!).

The conditions were going to take out a lot of the competition for various reasons which would open up opportunities for is if we could keep ourselves in the game. Its a renowned tough event. A win is a win. Valid even if it is only because you are the last men standing, perhaps more so.

A quick call to Pete Conway who won the BM in the 70's, in the days of real winters, gave some moral support. He won in a Moth spending the race looking at his cockpit drains, timing the rate at which they were slowly freezing up. Pete is in his late 70s and took line honours in his Asy Int Canoe in the snow at Lym today.

The CODE WHITE mission was conceived.

1) Spray covers over kicker & T-foil cleats. Last year with ice forming they became fairly unusable quite early. With heavy duty plastic (DPC membrane) and duct tape we kept spray and wind chill off the cleats.

2) Last year just sailing out to the start a film of ice formed on the racks. This year I added extra mid rack foot loops and ridged 'footstops' of pro grip to racks & gunwales (2cm wide, 3 thick = 6mm)

3) Spray deflector for jib track. Last year it froze up and often Roz had to kick the jib across and it led to a capsize 40m from finish. This year heavy duty plastic (DPC membrane) duct taped to foredeck and angled forwards deflecting spray & wind chill to keep track ice clear.

4) Extra secondary spinnaker haly cleat at mast base. Last year towards the end of the race after 7m of wet rope was hoisted thru it it became a block of ice and would not cleat which is a bit of a show stopper. So I attached this 'emergency' cleat just off the direct line for manual use, just in case.

5) Have you tried to buy salt in the last few days? Near impossible! We prepared a bucket of very, very salty water and soaked spin haly, kite, main, jib sheets before launching. We took salt out with us with a hope of a quick sprinkle at 2min to go but we were preoccupied.

6)We took de-icer sailing with us. As it turned out it was too full on to fully spare one of us for spraying but I did manage a cheeky spray of the stbd trap kit whilst 1 wiring downwind.

Were these efforts successful? Yes, definitely. Some other boats had problems and we didn't on any of this. The mods probably cost 1kg total, no big deal.

The one place I missed was the trapeze kit. I had a spate of precariously dropping to the knots on port. Ice forms on the string due to wind chill and goes into the cleat. Next time I would maybe cover them in bike tyre inners with just the cleat jaws showing.

So the ice didn't get us a but ultimately the 25k gusts did. Our Cherub handling was not up to it and swims led to more swims. But if it had been a more manageable 14-16k our preparations meant we were there ready to be counted. We gave it a keen shot and are very happy with our achievement. As far as big days out go it beat drinking Guinness at the boat show and was possibly cheaper and better for me. Next year…

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