Traveller - Thornbury

[phil_kirk]

Thornbury Regatta proved to be a popular event with 9 Cherubs turning out, thanks Stu for putting it on the calendar! Saturday dawned bright and breezy. The Westerly breeze made launching tricky and a number of boats didn't make the start of the first race. Cheese and E-Numbers managed to make it to the start on time and had a good race up the first beat. Both boats tacking close to the shore to avoid the fast flowing tide. This was followed by a close reach out into the river then a spinnaker run with the tide. Badgers joined the race after a late start. The second race saw 8 Cherubs on the line. The wind had increased making for exciting sailing.  To account for the change in tide the race officer had set a different course which was not so Cherub friendly! Riot Van led initially however a few swims resulted in  Zuffle (The Pasta Frenzy) passing them. Cheese, E-Numbers and Loco had a good race upwind after the start. The first downwind leg was fairly broad allowing for some kite action although the second leg proved too tight for some. After Zuffle and Riot Van, Cheese was a hot third followed by badgers in fourth. Ronin, having given up on race decided to sail down river to the Severn bridge. However after 20 minutes of beating, the crew realised the bridge was getting no closer and returned to the shore! Thornbury put on a good social in the evening with a tasty meal and Steel Band. Sunday saw lighter South Westerly wind and drizzle. Race 3 started with all the crews on the foredecks and short tacking up the shore to keep out the tide. Riot Van showed better pace in the light airs and led to the finish. E-Numbers initially in second got overtaken by Atum Bom as the breeze freshened. We don't know the details of the final race so if anyone has any anecdotes to add please make your post!

[MK]

We overtook them before the swims!

[Tim Noyce]

In race 1 we started late, managed to get passed Cheese into 2nd.... then dicked it in on the last mark trying to avoid some slow moving Lasers and Europes to let John and Diggers through to take position across the line. Then in the second race we clawed our way back to catch up with Graham and Eddy at the last mark and had a coming together with an 800 with no rights... where we dicked it in on the last mark to be overtaken by Cheese again!

From this I have learnt a very good lesson... to finish with a good result DON'T capsize on the last mark! Well done to the Cheese boys, they punished us for our mistakes and have gone on for a VERY well deserved 2nd place at an open. Well done to Graham and Eddy! You were just too quick for us yesterday, Well done on the open win!

This leaves us in an interesting position in the travellers, 3 open meetings and 3 different winners. Just as a rough thought this must put Graham and Eddy leading it, with us in or around second with a win a piece and having attended all the events so far. Sunderland next... with hopefully less brown and less tide!

[Graham Bridle]

Indeed, for race 2 the team Zuffle showed amazing pace and why sometimes just having big sails and a thin hull isn’t the way to go, the beat was still a short tack affair and Zuffle being able to point 2 degrees higher meant fewer more controlled tacks and greater speed to the buoy. The downwind dogleg left the longer reach with the 05 rules boats pointing up the mudflats and Zuffle on a perfect 3 sail angle, Maff is right, they were well ahead of us before we swam, and I doubt we were going to catch them.

Race 4 saw I think only 3 cherubs on the line, with a slacker tide and a slight shift the beat wasn’t so onerous, and a little more wind filled in.  Riot Van, Zuffle and Atum all started at the pin end in a bunch with Riot Van getting slightly ahead (courtesy of Davro not being as aggressive as any furball sailor would have been, thanks !) and an amazing tacking battle developed between Riot Van and Atum Bom who did 2 laps with Atum on Riot Vans transom all the way. In the end Riot Van staving off the challenge to take line honours.

Close racing seemed to improve the handicap results for that race, with Atum Bom bagging 3rd in that race and Riot Van 1st, placing 2 cherubs in the top 5 in a handicap series which included short tacking up the shore !

I was nervous of travelling all the way to Thornbury where tide is strong and mud is plenty, but I can honestly say it was worth every mile, Thornbury is a fantastic club with a great attitude, and with entry + food at about £30, bacon butties in the morning for a quid and a barrel of local ale, hard to see how it could be bettered, somewhere in my view we should definitely keep on the calendar.

[john_hamilton]

i think the weekend showed me and digby some serious gaps in our performance that we need to work on for the nationals, but i think it gave us a valuable lessson that, being the only cherub to actually do all 4 races, being persistant, even when the tide is at times stronger than the wind in terms of making the windward mark, counts.

the first day was outragously too windy for us to get upwind with any efficiency, it was either point and go backward (couldnt hold the power) or just crack off and go for it, this worked to some extent, but did produce some very scary boat on boat situations, namely us nearly killing the kirks in the second race (sorry) the first race's downwind leg was beautifullly set for cherubs, with some trickly laylines having to be judged due to the tide, but most made it, i think this is where we had a capsize avoiding a well sailed 800 that came out of nowhere (in my opinion) The second race was not nearly so cherub-friendly, with a spreader mark that just meant that some (particularily me and digby) just couldnt hold the kite all the way downwind, this is probably partially due to the absaloute powerhouse that is called cheese's kite aswell. It was all worth it for the kite run in the 2nd race, when badgers and cheese both popped kites as the biggest gust of te day came through, O M G, was the only think i could say after, this was quicky followed by a swim rounding the leeward mark

yes stu, there WAS a spreader mark

both races we were very lucky to just beat badgers, the general conclusion was that we need to find some stilts to trapeze with, or put on some weight for those conditions, or find some way to adapt the 97' rules  sails to fit the mast.

day 2 was a very different affair, very light winds, yet a strong tide again. i can confidently conclude that cheese, badgers and ronin had the 3 worst starts in the history of cherubing. we completely misjudged the timing of getting to the line:( the rest of the race was playing catch up, tom kiddle put up soem impressive resistance in loco perro, but cheese's slightly superior pointing got us past, the rest of the fleet were simply to far ahead to see. In the second race, we had another dreadfull start due to not being back to the start area in time, but we again caught loco, and also EJ upwind, this lead to a brilliant line of cherub kites going all the way down the laylines. we caught and overtook Zuffle on the last kite leg, but a small altercation with a 29er that left a large mark on their bow, and a broken spinnaker pole tip for us at the wing mark allowed zuffle and EJ through. there was a beat to the finish into a very short chop, during which the E5 showed exceptional boat speed over our blunt nosed dog to take the position above us.
from that day we learnt we need to work on downwind angles, i think ill copy davro, who seemed to be going as fast as everyone else, but abut 4 degrees lower!
overall a brilliant weekend of racing, thanks

[phil_kirk]

Ok, really glad you enjoyed it and got something out of your sail. 

As graham inferred short tacking up the shore in a cherub against tide is not the most efficient combination.  A high pointing, highly manoeuvreable slower boat will be much faster in these conditions.  The furballs were close to the local 700, and spitfire and ahead of the cherubs.

At the training Pete spoke about using the T foil down wind to enable you to sail lower but at the same speed.  We were trying this on Sunday when the water was flat, when following atum and were able to sail lower than them . That made up for gybing too late and going past the gybe mark. We will be working on this as it seams to be a good way to keep up with the faster boats down wind.

We look forward to practicing a bit more this weekend.

[john_hamilton]

spinnaker pole is now fixed

the t-foil thing sounds really interesting phil, we may experiment with that !

[Tim Noyce]

At the training Pete spoke about using the T foil down wind to enable you to sail lower but at the same speed. 

I have used the negative of this to good effect... turn the t-foil off and you end up pointing higher which can be very useful if trying to make a mark!