UK Cherub Sticky Weekend Part 1

by James Ruddiman 11 Mar 2022 11:14 GMT 5-6 March 2022

The first weekend of March dawned sunny but cool for the first 'Sticky weekend' of 2022 with 4 Cherubs and 7 sailors descending on Weston Super-Mare, home of Paul's workshop.

A sticky weekend is a weekend of building, bimbling, fixing, finishing and making shiny new things for the upcoming season.

Tasks for the weekend included:

• Respraying Exultant Jubilation (AKA EJ) back to her original glorious shade of pink
• Replacing the starboard rack of Anatidaephobia (AKA Ducks) following an unfortunate dryland mark rounding incident involving a car
• Refitting, partially respraying, and polishing Antidote to Panel Games (AKA Aunti) ready for use as the Class demonstration boat
• Test fitting a new board and rudder and making the necessary modifications to Eleanor

I arrived 1st and was immediately whisked away to the spay booth to check I was happy with the new shade of pink for EJ as Paul was fearful it was a little strong, safe to say the pink is brighter than the sun and a perfect colour for our mad little boats.

1st job on the list, unload all the boats that conveniently arrived about 20 mins apart giving us chance to unload carefully and not take up the entire yard.

Work began immediately on Aunti with Dave, Oli and myself getting the rig up to check everything is useable and then the tinkering began with new shockcord throughout, take-ups rigged and a quick check of the foils to make sure they aligned and fitted. Meanwhile Ducks was whipped into the shed and the buzz saw came out to lop off the damaged rack. It transpired, just after we cut the joint off, the original builder had been clever and built sleeves at the joint so should a rack fail or be damaged you could simply grind away the bog and slide out the old tube and slide in the new one. So armed with carbon and resin Joe and Paul rebuilt the joint ready for the new rack.

After a few hours of tinkering Aunti was turned over and armed with a hose pipe, a gallon of t-cut and an electric buffer I set to work bringing her shiny orange paintwork back to her former glory.

In the meantime Andy arrived towing the filled, faired and primed EJ ready her spray job, so we carefully unloaded her and got her in the booth. Andy had also brought a new daggerboard he'd made ready to test fit in Eleanor, so Andy, Dave and Haden set about carrying her into the workshop on her side for the alignment and test fit which went well with only minor modifications required to the daggerboard case to fit.

Joe and Oli had been busy preparing the new rack ready for day 2's fitting and bonding session, which due to the length and strain on the racks had to be made from 2 long tubes, sleeved together.

As the sun started to set the whole team got ready for the spraying of EJ, trestles were set, practice roll overs so deck and hull could be done in 1 large hit were made, while Paul set up the paint and got into his white Darthvader outfit and then all went quiet as we all watched Paul transform the slightly off green of high build into glorious eye watering Pink.

Time for curry and some sleep.

Day 2 dawned similar to Saturday, cold and sunny and all feeling a little bit tired from the previous days activities.

No time for rest as plenty more jobs needed doing. Me and Haden set about masking EJ, while Dave and Oli set about masking Aunti, for all their blackwork to be done. With some skill and a little bit of squeaking we managed to get enough of Aunti in the spraybooth alongside EJ and Paul spayed them with a superb looking satin black.

Andy had been busy fettling the board and case on Eleanor, Paul had set the CNC machine running tooling for a new daggerboard and some plugs for the Ducks new wings, and Joe had started working on his T-foil system which he wasn't happy with at the Inlands.

Joe, Paul and Andy had hoped to make a boom for Ducks but materials hadn't arrived in time so instead cracked into fitting the new rack tube and bogging it in to place along with making an end fitting for the Ducks current boom. While the paint cooked and Oli, Haden and Dave finished tinkering on Eleanor. Jimmy, Joe and Oli finished sorting the t foil system that now runs to both racks and has a much easier system to use whilst dangling from a trapeze.

The boats were left as long as possible to cure the paint so other jobs could be finished and the rack was now bonded in and cooking too.

And just like that the weekend was over, boats were brought out into the sunshine, wrapped in their covers, lifted on to trailers and tied down ready for their journeys home knowing they were now prepped and ready for the season ahead.

The only boat not heading for home was EJ, who was heading back to Andy's workshop ready for Sticky Weekend part 2 - The Fit Out (Coming soon).

Thanks to all who attended and a big thank you to Paul for letting us use his incredible workshop.

One last note, Aunti is now available for use at events or for a demo by prospective owners so get in touch for your chance to join the high-performance fleet with a lot of heart, with a new builder on board and a number of 2nd hand boats available there really is no reason not to join us.