UK-Cherub Forum
Cherub Chat => Calendar Events => Topic started by: peter_barton on November 10, 2009, 12:25:15 PM
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It is that time of year again and it is always good for the class to have some attendance at the big winter PY events to show off the Cherub Class to other sailers, many of whom will not have seen 2005 rules Cherubs in action before. Here is a summary of the main Winter PY events;
27th Dec - Grand Prix, Grafham
9th Jan - Bloody Mary, Queen Mary
30th Jan - Steve Nicholson Trophy, Northampton
6/7th Feb - Tiger Trophy, Rutland
I am hoping to do the BM & the Tiger. Who else is up doing some?
(Also, this Sunday 16th is Lymington Town SC's annual Children in Need Charity Pursuit at 10.30 ish which I am doing. Anyone fancy joining us?)
Pete
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I agree Peter,
We have always done a few of these. Subject to some time in the new machine I hope we will be able to do a few.
If we can get 6 or more at the BM we should be eligable for a fleet prize.
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may do bm and tiger maybe also
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Subject to some time in the new machine I hope we will be able to do a few.
Subject to time machine, I hope we will be able to do a few.
::)
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I'm considering the Grafham Grand Prix ... anyone keeping me company ?
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I can't do Grafham GP but will be doing the Bloody Mary. Will be the first time in years I won't be working at the London Boat Show so can make it this time!
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Graham we may be able to make Grafam. It will depend on Deans college work, but sounds a great way of blowing all those christmas calories.
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9th Jan - Bloody Mary, Queen Mary
Whose coming?
I will be there in Ronin provided the forecast is not very light or very windy. I would like a nice warm 16 knots please.
http://www.queenmary.org.uk/ (http://www.queenmary.org.uk/)
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i cant make it due to mice eatin the progrip on cheese's racks. grrrrrr!!!
ice+no progrip could cause carnage
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That's a rubbish excuse. Progrip take minuits and they can't have eaten ALL the progrip?!
I'm not coming due to not really having a boat atm and I dont want sail a Cherub surrounded by 200 boats.
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its not rubbish if you have not got any progrip to replace it with, she was stored on her side and the mice ate all of that sides progrip lol. thats a good point about not sailing a cherub with 200 others !!!!
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Just looked at the forcast for next Saturday. It doesn't look warm but does look windy. London may be getting snow on Wednesday and Thursday. I hope the long term forcast is wrong.
Last year was bitter with minus 2C and 5-8 knots. The wind chill effect was not nice.
I suggest under progrip heating would be a nice idea.
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Well Queen Mary's intention is that the BM will go ahead. A final call will be made at 2pm and posted on the club's website.
The wind chill will be acrtic so watch you don't get frostbite :o
Still haven't made my mind up butat present I am probably erring on a no.
good luck Pete and anyone else making the effort.
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We're a definite no. I don't have any proper winter kit and don't really fancy it in a holey wetsuit with summer boots and gloves!
Best of luck Pete! ;D
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It has been a long cold evening in the garage and I have done what I can to 'ice bimble' Ronin based on last years lessons. This edition is likely to be even worse for ice due to higher wind chill from the stronger breeze. But if we can keep her ice free and moving nicely around the course when who knows......
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Congratulations on your 4th place Pete, it must have been bloody freezing. Well done just for sailing!
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Much respect Pete and well done. There are a few photos on yachts and yachting.
I think the no. of entries and finishers indicates the effect of the conditions. 61 starters and only 39 finishers.
Pete texted to say he'd finshed 4th having had 8 swims. Did you spray the hull with WD40 or something? :). I really hope the ice bimbling worked.
Thoughts that come to mind are: could you have won without the swims? , If You were swimming that much the rest of us would have ended as ice bergs!
I hope the conditions improve a bit for next weekend. Sarah and I are making our pilgramage to Victoria dock again for the London Boat Show pursuit race.
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could you have won without the swims?
Erm, sadly, YES.
But that is the nature of the beast. Taking a 2005 Cherub out in a gusty 25k of 'heavy air' was likely to require calling on our sense of humour sooner or later.
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im intrigued to know what "ice-bimbling" involves!
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I would like a nice warm 16 knots please.
I will keep my big mouth shut next time. We did get the 16k, but with frequent vicous shifty 25k gusts!
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Ice bimbles - CODE WHITE alert
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 .
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Ice bimbles cont...
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)
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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.
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Ice bimbles cont....
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 managable 14-16k our preperations 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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I think you had it lucky pete being on the shore for a lot longer than us.
by the time you passed us on that quite tight leg our entire boom was frozen the pole jaws were frozen,
and every tack lashed ice into our faces.
but we kept going we ended up being on the water 3 hours in total. took a lot of hot water to de rig the boat in the end. but it was worth it.
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Well done Pete. Thanks for the write-up.
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very interesting Pete,
I recall last year the ice was due more to freezing fog. This year it would have been more due to spray. last year we found that everything above deck level on the ent froze up but the control line cleats being below deck level were ok. The Jib cleats coped but that didn'y make any difference because all the ropes were frozen. A bucket of very salty water is a good idea as was the mobile de-icer.
Again hats off to a plucky effort and a good finish.
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You are made of v stern stuff! Ultramax respect.
I stayed in bed all day - warming up after a week away teaching in Norway. Psychiatric epidemiology in the snow for anyone?!
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Ditto... and thats more bimbling than I do in a season....
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same here, but that is hopefully soon to change, will, sorry i havent contacted you, i have not been in contact with anyone for a week due to the absurdly high call charges from mainland europe. :(
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Missed it all.... I was immersed in.... 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll'. Well done all the same.
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The year Flat Stanley won the BM they finished with the kicker gear was one solid block of ice, Guy and Alex were both covered in ice armour flaking off dry suits, the ice was an inch or more thick on the foredeck and they nearly lost it when the kite pole froze to the boom on the last hoist and Guy slipped on the ice on the floor and put his foot through the transom...
The ice bimbling sounds like class boat prep: good job.
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Jim,
Which year did Flat Stanley win? Was it big bad 1987? I was spectating that year.
"ice was an inch or more thick on the foredeck " .
Wow. Last year I put pro grip strips (2mm thick) on the foredeck due to icey light wind forecast and was suprised when ice bridged over them!
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Note to self:
1) Pete is a real hard arse!
2) Stanley is awesome
3) Use ultramax respect in conversation
Seriously good effort by guys and girls who made it out. Any result deserves a congratulations.
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Note to self:
1) Pete is a real hard arse!
2) Stanley is awesome
3) Use ultramax respect in conversation
+1 ! ;D
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Which year did Flat Stanley win? Was it big bad 1987?
It was indeed...
8 Swims
brrr don't know how you managed to sail on after that. Makes me shiver just to think about it. These days I head for the clubhouse after the second if its between November and May...
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And got congratulated and awarded with Sail juice subscription for the stern stand Cherub salute/capsize.
Good PR for the class. At least we helped the frozen spectators enjoy the day.
Well done again Pete and Ben.
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Stern stand backflip in front of the club was unfortunate with 15min to go. Sailing is generally bad at giving spectators value, we do what we can.
That windward mark was in lee of clubhouse making the approach v gusty & shifty. We dont have a bungee take up on the main/kite sheets and they were caught on leeward footloop. Main wouldn't ease enough on freeing gust and jib stalled. As we capsized we were stopped dead with our weight at the very back upwind and it came over backwards. Slightly dodgy moment with my foot in the strap which ended up on the low side of the capsized boat. It twisted out OK but I do remember looking up at the surface.
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http://www.photoshelter.com/c/ian_roman/gallery-img-show/Bloody-Mary-2010/G0000d0NYTlqEA6g/?&_bqG=38&_bqH=eJzzzjMPKvNwDK8qjzBwr8qJNzVN93PSjbT0Lwm1MjW1MjK1snKP93SxdTcAghQDv8iQnEJXR7N0tQCQqJq7Z7y7o4.Pa1AkNkUAEeMbGA--&I_ID=I0000cUsd_LHnhpE (http://www.photoshelter.com/c/ian_roman/gallery-img-show/Bloody-Mary-2010/G0000d0NYTlqEA6g/?&_bqG=38&_bqH=eJzzzjMPKvNwDK8qjzBwr8qJNzVN93PSjbT0Lwm1MjW1MjK1snKP93SxdTcAghQDv8iQnEJXR7N0tQCQqJq7Z7y7o4.Pa1AkNkUAEeMbGA--&I_ID=I0000cUsd_LHnhpE)
Had the command
"Hold onto this and everything will be just OK"
been issued?
Still arctic in Utrecht.
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Which year did Flat Stanley win? Was it big bad 1987?
It was indeed...
8 Swims
brrr don't know how you managed to sail on after that. Makes me shiver just to think about it. These days I head for the clubhouse after the second if its between November and May...
I wasn't even born then! But what a trooper Stanley is, and he is still going strong.
Well done to Team Ronin. A great result given the conditions.