Bala '93 - Strange Bad Cheese

[Neil C.]

I started looking for some old photos of Cheese Before Bedtime in case Tom Baker might be interested in seeing how his new ship used to look. In the end I came upon a variety of photos taken at the Bala SC (North Wales) Easter Regatta - I think it was 1993. Cherubs in attendance were Cheese 2645 - then about 2 years old, the newly-launched Strangely Brown 2651, and my boat - Bad to the Bone 2534 (Now long deceased and inside "The Ashes" urn). It was a bit too windy, lots of rain and sleet and bl***y freezing. Still a good weekend though.

A variety of Cheese cockpit shots - I think we were looking for ways to improve the control systems on 2534 and wanted to see how Simon Roberts had done it.

 

[Neil C.]

More Cheese:

[Neil C.]

Here is the very shiny new Strangely Brown, another Dog. I believe she was named after a comment made by someone about the colour of the water at the Weston SC regatta the year before....

Andy Kinchin's (builder of Strangely) headgear gives you some idea of what the temperature was really like.

[Neil C.]

And very last and most definitely least here is Bad to the Bone, sporting a brand new set of Caws '91 Rules sails. Although why on earth we thought it was a good idea to wrap a brand new jib around the forestay I have no idea!!!

[JP233]

doesnt look a mile off todays cheese. differnet yes, but not too far.

[Graham Bridle]

Bad to the Bone 2534 looks nice Neil, what design was it .... and in the Ashes ? I though that as Bill Deeleys "Stictly liquor ...." no ?

[Stuberry]

Strangely Brown's foil is enormous!

[Neil C.]

Bad to the Bone 2534 looks nice Neil, what design was it .... and in the Ashes ? I though that as Bill Deeleys "Stictly liquor ...." no ?

Thanks Graham, 2534 was indeed Bill Deeley's "Strictly Liquor Love and Laughs", the 1979 Nationals winner (Deeley 2 design), but I didn't know that when I bought it. Somehow it had made its way to Scotland by the mid-'80's. I bought it for about £100 from another member at Royal Tay YC in 1990. It was in a state of some neglect, had no mast and a big hole in the floor. Ken and I fixed her up, put in an asymmetric conversion, fitted a cut-down ex-Hornet mast and eventually a new suit of sails. We called her "Bad to the Bone" after the George Thorogood song, which featured at the time in "Terminator 2" (just after Arnie beats up all the Hells Angels in the kitchen and gets on the Harley with his shades on). We did a lot of open events and a couple of Nationals in her in the early '90's. She took a lot of heavy use / abuse over a few years, ending up with the final day at the Weymouth Nats in '94 with big breeze and a big swell. There was a fairly loud bang on one of the downwind legs, but everything still seemed to work and the rig was still upright, but we then seemed to go even slower than usual and took forever to get back to shore after the last race. In fact there was a split in the hull from the starboard chainplate all the way down to the front of the daggerboard case, and the front tank was 3/4 full of water. By that time I actually had a job and a few spare quid, so we decided to move on up to a proper carbon / kevlar boat and bought the Flying Trifle (2652) in early '95. Cherub 2534 went onto the funeral pyre and became "The Ashes". We were all going to the Worlds in Sydney at the end of 1995 and if I remember rightly the idea was that The Ashes would be awarded to the nation with the best average team score. It turned out that the Aussies weren't all quite as welcoming as we thought they might be due to some internal politics going on at the time (The short version - a small faction of Aus Cherubs wanted to adopt the progressive UK rules. A much larger faction of Aus Cherubs with financial interests did not. Our presence at the Worlds fanned the flames of the conflict so there was an undercurrent of ugly sentiment amongst the NSW sailors, which we successfully suppressed by consuming large volumes of Australian lager with the friendlier Aussies - mostly the South Australia lot. The New Year's Eve party was something else, but that's another story..). So, we re-assigned The Ashes to the boat with the mightiest piece of boat destruction. Conveniently we were able to keep the trophy in UK hands by awarding it to Dave Roe who had unhappily missed out on a genuine shot at a sailing world title by suffering a breakage of every spar on the Pasta Frenzy in different races and eventually ran out of spares. Dave has some theories on this which I'm sure he would be happy to share with you over a pint of lager, as long as it's not Australian.....

Anyway, the photo collection has been keeping my scanner busy. Here's Strictly / Bad when I first bought her:

   

[Neil C.]

Here's 2534 at our "Secret training camp". We used to go up to Loch Creran, a beautiful sea-loch a few miles north of Oban, and camp in a field by the water's edge for 2 or 3 nights with the boat, a tent and a few crates of beer. We learned a lot about sailing the boat and had a good laugh with the Germans who were camped next door to us. There was also some guy who insisted on playing his bagpipes at 8am who wasn't quite so popular.

   

[Graham Bridle]

Nice one Neil, I'd recognise that transom anywhere, as a kid in the turn of the 80's SLLaL was the boat I drooled over, although I only saw it in the flesh a couple of times, in those days boat porn was delivered in the form of a poorly photocopied Cherub Newsletter through a thing called "the post".

I am fairly sure I saw it once rotting around 1981 in a boat park at Ardleigh, near Colchester - however I may have dreamt that, not certain.

It just had beautiful lines for the time, and was clearly fast, Bill's build quality was also enviable, just look at that cross grained sapele !

[simon_jones]

Talking of old boat porn, a gent approached us at the Dinghy show with a folder full of old cherub things, from what he showed us there were nationals and worlds reports plus press stuff, from the 60/70's even some old photos of cherubs sailing. This was handed to Ro so that it could be preserved for the class.

[roland_trim]

Is sat on my living room table. Will scan contents when  I have a breathing space

[Simon T]

Strangely Brown's foil is enormous!

She still has those foils! And toestraps

[roland_trim]

Strangely Brown's foil is enormous!

She still has those foils! And toestraps

Lovely to hear form you Mr T.