Weston Grand Slam

[dave_ching]

Peter, yep that pretty much sounds like most people first experience of Cherubing. It is good to hear that even the pros go foil surfing too. It wil be good to see you at Weston.
Shiny will not be going as I have still not finished yet. Though prefer to think it is because the sail haven't arrived yet.
Ross the floor is at my house. I am sure Hopy and Tim will give you the details tomorrow.

[mathew_harris]

Well i went down for the day yesterday to see a friend sailing his FD in the Bala Easter Regatta, the day was cancelled as it was blowing 25-30 mph 'from the wrong direction (apparently)' with gusts upto 55 mph.  Plus it was snowing periodically, so i hope you guys going to weston have better weather and if you didn't yesterday the forecasts are looking good for today, so enjoy the racing today.

[phil_kirk]

Depending on who you talk to the event was either fantastic, or a bit of one thing and the other!

The first two days were very windy.  Tim U and Stu H proved that it was tricky and struggled to get going in the strong winds on Friday. Ross and James were about to set sail when a batten broke and the jib strop gave way.  i must admit we chickened out so Slippery practiced her capsize drills ashore without us.  Racing was quickly abandodned as the windy peaked with a gust of 42knots.

Saturday was still very windy and racing was abandoned again.  Our gracious hosts Dave and Lara made parts of their new rudder stock.  The tiller didn't want to leave it's mandrel though. Shiny looks very Shiny with it's new paint job.

A traditional Cherub curry event was hosted on Saturday night.

Sunday was freezing cold but with 15 knots of breeze was sailable.

Opps joined the fleet with Dave C. on the helm and newbie Sam as crew.  Lara guested in Pocket Rocket.  Slippery and Stanley were also on the line.

Opps led Slippery to the windward mark but had a spinnaker halyard issue and retired. Pocket Rocket struggled and retired.

Slippery completed the race in front of the 12 foot skiff using it's no.3 rig (Slippery even pulled out a leed on the last beat).  Stanley also completed the race. 


Race two was completed by Slippery but the stronger gusts led two a capsize on the gybe.

Opps found a new owner and will be travelling to Holland.

Monday saw slippery complete 2 more races despite the cold and Sarah's now aching arms.  Stanley went for a blast and had an aussume kite reach. Slippy came out for race one and was going well.  Unfortunately Roland and Hayley had to retire after problems with the jib.  The new paint job looks fantastic and I know they will be fast this year.

We even met Pete Barton who is looking forward to getting Ronin back on the water.  That training week is a must do.

Sarah and I got a lot out of the weekend especially confidence is the moderate to breezy conditinos. We recognise that the boat will go very fast upwind when sailed dead flat and that we need a bit more practice to achieve that in more than short bursts. We also neeed to get Sarah a rachet block for the main sheet that works.

As ever the social side was excelent and dave and lara did a fantastic job of putting up with us all.