UK-Cherub Forum
Cherub Chat => Calendar Events => Topic started by: peter_barton on April 16, 2009, 02:41:25 PM
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Glyn Charles pursuit race @ Hayling Sat 25th April.
We are up for it, anyone else?
215 boats last year!
Scenic tour around Chichester Harbour marks.
Fundraising event in aid of the John Merrick’s Sailing Trust.
http://www.hisc.co.uk/entry_gc_2009/gcnews_page.htm (http://www.hisc.co.uk/entry_gc_2009/gcnews_page.htm)
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We have been considering taking the fireball down for this one, usually gets loads of boats, but is dependant on double stacking with others from our club, as the sunday at hayling is the fireball peter milne memorial open....
SO might see so people there but not 100% yet
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Sorry we will have to bail on this one. Shame as I really really really want to sail at Hayling...
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Dont want to upset you even more at not going but its actually a good event to do cost wise as well - usually opens at Hayling cost £30-35 but this one day-er is £8 for double handers! So pretty chea for a days sailing at Hayling.
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The best value is FED Week which gives a whole week of Hayling action for £25. Jackpot!
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Sorry Lucy is working. Have a good one though!
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i'm going to be there at the back end of a b14,
bargain of a event for only a £5 entry fee for me and the crew!! :o
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We will be there... in our furball though..
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Looked like and awesome event from the photos. I'm a bit annoyed I couldn't make it. There must have been some epic sendage going on! I can't find either team Ronin or team Ratface in the results :-\
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Ronin was definately there:
(http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/photos/29er/yandy37672.jpg)
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I saved that photo to my desktop earlier today. I just really like it! "Cherub shows 9ers who's boss and flys over them on port". Played.
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We got munched!
Nice shot! Glad they caught our one moment of glory. Hopefully there arn't any others of us as I am likely to be on the cb!
That is us crossing World Youth Champ James Peters (773) off the start line, he pulled out a big lead on all the other 29ers (and us) and went on to win the race. We had the same start as the 29ers and fancied going right with the added advantage of sailing our own lane away from them and the benefit of a little port bias.
The wind was over 20kn for the race which left us a bit slow being over powered and also struggling on boat handling, particularly getting thru the wind cleanly on tacks in chop. We were pretty messy and had plenty of swims. We had interesting cat & mouse with Debbie and Hoppy who had started late in their Fireball. We would charge past them, splot, Fireball cruise by, repeat....
Had a bit of a situation with the Winner bank when sailing a high angle out of the windward mark. We ploughed a 12'' grove (cb as gauge) thru the shingle in a wave trough twinning with the kite. Inside Chichester harbour can be anything but flat at high tide, especially when it starts ebbing into a SWer! We kept the boat going but with the cb at a unhealthily raked angle we retired.
Interesting with the 29er though. We would normally hope to beat them but now we see that over a certain windstrength they can continue sailing hard after we start to struggle with more power than we need.
I was coaching K6s on the harbour today (Sunday). It was a lovelly sunny 12-15kn. Maybe next year...
Ratface retired with broken cb.
I guess if there were 143 entries a lot of DNFs have been left off the results.
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Interesting with the 29er though. We would normally hope to beat them but now we see that over a certain windstrength they can continue sailing hard after we start to struggle with more power than we need.
Sounds like you could of done with my set of 13.5>m?
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Shame about your board Pete. Damage report? Sounds like you had good blast all the same!
Small sails are the way forward. Fuzzy's 12.5s were more than enough on Friday! I'll be sporting two rigs when everything is sorted.
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Sounds like you could of done with my set of 13.5>m?
Definitely, maybe less - back to 12.5 but twin wiring. I think in anything over say 17kn we would be faster with a no.2 rig like the 18's. But that is another level of commitment....
Shame about your board Pete. Damage report? Sounds like you had good blast all the same!
Yep, an early season wake up call and raised a few qu's re boathandling & depowering. Damage appears nothing too serious fortunately, easily fixed. We were worried she was going down!
Actually it reminds me of the 18'. If you were caught out with the big rig on in too much wind it was very hard to tack. (Use very hard steering, run fast across, probably have to back the jib with a 'backing line' - use a backing line on the Cherub???)
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I suspect most, if not all know this already. Self tackers are not very nice in big breeze. They're always powered up and unless you nail the tack (made harder by more challenging conditions anyway!) it's very easy to get stuck half way though. After a capsize the always powered up jib is a pain!
I like this idea of a backing line. Fuzzy might be getting one soon!
Interesting with the 29er though. We would normally hope to beat them but now we see that over a certain windstrength they can continue sailing hard after we start to struggle with more power than we need.
That and they have a VERY floppy masts and the boat is far easier to sail than your custom built high performance machine!
Yep, an early season wake up call and raised a few qu's re boathandling & depowering.
This is interesting and demonstrates why making the right rig choice (not that yours is wrong) is so critical when building a boat. I think the nationals showed us that Ronin is a light/medium wind performer. Is this due to stiffer mast section and this makes it more of a handful when it's windy?
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It was an awesome sail :)
Shame we started 9 mins late (with the 29ers and cherub) otherwise i think we could of done rather well - fireballs we are normally up with were all inside the top 10.....but hey, that'll teach hoppy to rig the spin halyard wrong ;)
Think it was a good wind strength for the fireballs to do well - we managed to keep with all the faster boats we started with, and even caught the K6s who we managed to start after. And we was amusing to be with Pete and Roz at every mark then see them disappear intot the distance to be at the next mark with them lol :D
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Smaller sails: Older cherubs were struggling for power much of the time, so the sails tended to be a bit full. We found handling in ballistic winds easier with the flatter and more adjustable bigger sails. On Atum with full cunno on the leech of the main would go floppy like a board sail. We havn't quite managed that with the new boat because the top cringle is too far from the bolt rope and mega cunno causes the top bit of mainsail to get a bit fuller than completely flat. Basically I don't think that slightly smaller sails makes any difference compared to getting the main seriously flat.
Self tackers on a tack: We ease off the jib a lot going upwind when it is ballistic, and especially in the run up to a tack. Stalling mid tack is something we seem to be getting a bit better at not doing, but it does still happen from time to time, especially in a funny short-chop seaway.
Backing lines: Pasta Frenzy had these, and we considered it, but Lucy can grab the jib car directly. One second is usually enough. I remember sailing Aqua with Cookie one quite windy day at Castle Cove and we couldn't get through the wind. I could not understand it. Later Lucy explained that one of the things she does in big winds is hold the jib car for a nanosecond to help the bow round if the tack is looking messy.
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Sounds like a blast.
We've had tacks which were difficult to get through but that was mainly caused by the sinking feeling at the back end. It dramatically changes the stability of the boat and it's intention to complete the tack.
We are lucky that Slippery has smaller flat sails and is reasonably managable in some breeze.
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Centrboard damage could start a whole new thread. We caught something solid on the final day at Weston over easter and were luckily to not be going fast. no damage to the case but a few chunks out of the board. The point of impact was 2cm above the tip so we nearly missed it.
it's definately worth having a strong case and a weak point in the board that can be repaired more easily.
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The pressed shackle fitted to the Bow of Born Slippy chose the force 5 at buoy 23 on the Medway to elongate this weekend. Solid white caps, wind with tide. Had an awesome ride down to the bottom mark then found everything had gone floppy.
On the several miles tacking back against a 6 knot tide to the club with next to no rig tesnion we concluded that we can easily depower the big sails.
Step 1 - Make them very flat.
Step 2 - Let off some uppers.
Step 3 - Let off the kicker LOTS.
We mamnged the trip home single wire with a set of sails that fully measure!
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Interesting reading the comments about tacking - we have found this the biggest challenge (so far) in our limited cherubing. Unless our technique dramatically improves we will be sailing a diamond shaped windward leward course. We spent saturday RS200 sailing at Bough Beech. More gusts and shifts than you could shake a stick at - perfect for 200's but I wouldn't have relished it in a cherub.
Re the comment regarding Ronin's performance, I suspect our boat will be similar in that the rig is based on a tree trunk and will be difficult to depower but quite speedy in light/medium. I suspect the question of speed in a breeze will be academic anyway for quite some time.
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Step 1 - Make them very flat.
Step 2 - Let off some uppers.
Step 3 - Let off the kicker LOTS.
Surely lots of uppers flattens off the top of the sail? I guess that letting of uppers lets the mast bend more?
I found that letting the sail out does the trick as well.
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Ross your right in the thought that more uppers does flatten the sail but it also stiffens the mast up as well meaning the leech doesnt flick open, in really windy stuff we only have enough caps on to stop the mast going forwards
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It's called a self-tacker but we never left the jib sheet alone apart from gybing.
In big breeze I would pullon as much cunningham as I could on Mango (32:1 purchase, I ran out of strength before I ran outof adjustment. Make sure you trust you head attachement point and tack eye). Kicker was on tight upwind, this gave us control of the main leech and gave you power and pointing with a very light mainsheet (the helm took mainsheet on Mango). Centreboard was raised (Max about a foot up so it just cleared the kicker, anymore and you would slip sideways after a tack very easily). Jib sheet always eased in a tack, the windier the further it was eased. Crew normally first out squeezing jib on as weight went on the wire. Helm quickly followed allowing jib to be set (luff required as jib sheet load very high with 2 on the wire) and main to be sheeted on as needed. We always kept out weight forward as much as possible as sinking the back end tends to stick you in irons. Crew was always alert and ready to back the jib (on strawberry I had backing lines running from the jib car to each chainplate, on mango you could just grab the car). We had fixed uppers with the leeward one going very slack when cunningham was on. Kicker and cunningham eased before the bear. Cunningham eased to make sure kite loads taken by the uppers and not the cunningham.
I didn't find the '97 rules rig easier than the '05. When its very windy the smaller sails enable you to stay out in just that bit more.... but those were never conditions that races were held. The bigger kites made it easier.
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Boat handling is definately key to getting thru the tacks, we were particularly bad at it this weekend, but in the past we did get the hang of it after a windy session and several swims, but lack of time in the boat will always come back and bite you. Part of the trouble is is Pete can't play the jib cleat at its current position (to be changed I am promised) , and we were finding that if we just threw it thru the tack the jib in was enough to blow us over. In the end we were getting thru by as we went into tack I had to drop the main mid tack. lean forwards to back the jib, then let it off enough to not pull us over then take it with me to get out on the wire and pull the main back on at same time. Not ideal! and i admit i might have muttered a couple of colourful words. Bit of kicker ease going into it helped too apart from faff of then having to get it back on again but its not like i had anyother bits of string to look after at that point.
All in all though apart from getting munched parts of it were great fun, just more practise required.