Uk cherub open meeting 2 - Weston sailing club, part of the Weston grand slam.
Friday became the exodus of cherubs mainly heading south for the second open meeting of the year. Most arrived by late Friday afternoon and some slow rigging ensued, Jamie had a plethora of sails to put up the mast and fine tune his new boom with internal mainsheet system. EJ had some rope swaps to do, the Hartleys had to head back for their tiller extensions, oops, they were the only ones to get some sailing done that day, once darkness began to fall we cracked open the BBQ and cooked far too much meat which turned out to be just enough.
This is a tale of woe from the shiny beast. Basically all that could go wrong without being a major issue did for us, so I'm not really sure what happened to the rest of the fleet but rules are rules and I must write a report.
Saturday. Day 1 of racing
First race at 1300hrs meant another slow rig, some had too slow a rig. EJ and shiny were last off the shore, but with shiny insisting on a test run of the kite she was late for the start, good thing they did do a test as something was wrong so they went in. Because of this, I don't have much to add on race 1.
Race 2, after the cats had gone everyone bustled for the line, except shiny. Banshee ambulance began to pull away from the fleet with the illusive wing mast, dans boat was on their tail and now they seemed to cope with downwind it was robins too loose
Tea break time, not really sure why this happens. But it did.
Back out for race three. Again, shiny somewhere else, but with the wind building in the shifty Weston conditions it was undecided which side was best to head up.
Not sure what happend for the first half of the race, but rounding the top mark last, we could see a grave yard appearing downwind. As we got closer we found out why, these were some weird waves! This was our chance to show what we were made off and go from last to first on one foul move, the plan was made, a drop, granny tack round and lose all dignity and respect from everyone for not gybing. Easy! We then proceeded to capsize on the drop, so I did get to keep some respect..... I think.
EJ snapped a spreader, analysis reveals cause to be from aggressive rolling over to rig on shore so headed in.
Evening entertainment was everyone jumping through a reel of battens as it rolled down a hill, then the local Chinese takeaway provided some dinner, and breakfast!
Sunday was forecast to be windier, at 0900 it was flat calm so the great debate of which rags to put up set upon the fleet, robin swapped to a bigger jib, nick was undecided as to be underpowered or over powered. Jamie swapped the silly boom for the trusted normal boom. Jay in EJ got his spreader repaired and rig tuned again.
Race 4. Shiny actually got to the start line, and proceeded to lead the first upwind leg and downwind after locking on the the new leeward mark all was looking peachy. The rest of the fleet still hadn't separated out so one slip up could cost a lot!
This is exactly what happened to shiny. From first to 6th in less than a minuet due to taking and finding themselves on a collision course with a pacing cat.
Race 5, with the wind now blowing everyone was reaching for the downhaul, mistakes were being made and a few t foils were being showed off more than most would have liked. Green banana was slow as they forgot to put bungs in at the start of the day.
Congratulations got the robin jones and joe White in banshee ambulance for her first race win and event win(?)
Commiserations go to Alex and Clive Everest due to Alex's bike fail landing him wonkey and later with some stitches resulting in no sailing.
Scores on the doors were:
Banshee: (2) , 1 , 2 , 1 , 1 - 5
Dans: 1 ,(6) , 1 , 3 , 2 - 7
Shiny: (6) , 3 , 3 , 2 , 5 - 13
EJ: 3 , 4 , (6) , 4 , 3 - 14
Bananas: 4 , 2 , (6) , 5 , 4 - 15
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As I said, I don't really have a clue what happens to everyone else this event.
If someone who knows what happened wants to bulk it out. Please do.
