Cherub Dæmon at Draycote Water Sailing Club
by Lucy Lee 5 Apr 2007 12:09 BST
2 April 2007
The Cherub Dæmon is a production skiff specifically designed to target the up-coming ISAF Women’s Olympic Skiff trials.
It is a one-design class that also measures as a UK Cherub, an exciting development class sailed by couples and lighter weight crews. With their light hull weight, simple deck-layout and sophisticated carbon rig the boats offer outstanding performance, but are tricky to master especially in gusty conditions.
Sea trials of the boats continued at Draycote Water Sailing Club this week, where members of the Cherub class were joined by Holly Scott (Mirror World Champion), Clare Best (420 youth squad) and Nick Hollis (3rd 29er Worlds 2005).
The two girls enjoyed crewing the boat with William Lee (Cherub national champion) at the helm in blustery conditions.
‘It’s really fun, and much faster than the 420’ Clare commented. ‘It’s a big kite!’
‘A big change from the Mirror, and loads harder than the 29er’ said Holly. ‘I’d really like to have another go in lighter wind to get the hang of helming it.’
‘The boat is very different to the 29er and 49er’ comments Nic, ‘It’s incredibly responsive and you really need to concentrate all the time!’
Lucy Lee (Cherub class president) said ‘We’ve really enjoyed having Clare and Holly along this week. Their comments about the boats have been very helpful. They are the very kind of high quality female sailors that we hope will be sailing the class in 2012. It’s clear from the photos that everyone had lots of fun sailing and putting the boats through their paces!’
It is now clear that the Cherub Dæmon is a very serious entrant for the Women’s Olympic Skiff with the backing of a large production manufacturer as well as widespread support of the public.