I own an 1971(ish) Cherub, Queenie SJB, which is (theoretically at least!) kept in sailing condition and occasionally taken on various events and outings, normally Classic and Vintage Dinghy Racing Association events. I seem to spend more time maintaining the old lady than actually sailing her but I guess that goes with the territory. She was probably built with just a few years life in mind, and is now well over thirty five years old!
The old girl is currently undergoing some rather major work. a minor incident - a shroud failure and the mast falling down - which should have just mandated a new foredeck has grown into a major exercise. Details start here...
I've owned Queenie since about 1988, although I've been familiar with the boat since I first started sailing Cherubs in about 1975, when the couple of Antipodean boats in Britain (left over from the 1974 Worlds) excited my attention, being a long term expatriate Australian. (Born there, but my parents moved to Britain when I was about two years old).
Before you go any further, please read the Disclaimer . I'm not a professional boat builder, and doubtless I will get things wrong, and suggestions on these pages may be inaccurate.
To cut a long story short, I acquired Queenie when I decided to get back to sailing reasonably regularly after a long break between about 1977 and 1988. I needed a new hull desperately, having just trashed the old one (a very poorly built and cheaply acquired home built Forman 4dgt), and Nick Mason had run out of space and needed a new home for her. I can't remember what I paid, but it was hardly excessive, but included just the hull, a boom and a mast.What happened next is detailed in the History Page.
Anyway in 1999 I got back into the Cherubs a little more actively than I had been for a few years, and thought it would be good to give the old lady an outing or two. When I came to look at her in detail however, it became obvious that more than just a quick top coat of paint would be needed. There seemed to be precious few resources on the web about restoring lightweight boats of this type, so I fired off a few emails to likely sources and also decided to start these pages, as in my (then) other role as Cherub Web site editor I used to get a fair few questions about restoring old boats.
Then in 2009, after a shroud failure, I found myself having to replace the foredeck, which gives me the opportunity to document a basic redecking exercise - my recommended introduction to wooden boat maintenance, and also a chance to tidy up and maybe restore an area of the boat that I left untouched in the 1999 exercise. I've also been able to update the construction information pages with some details and photos of what lies beneath the foredeck.
The boat is a good example of lightweight boat building practice about that era. Consequently I've spent some time documenting this. The only things that have really changed is that modern epoxy resins and fibres make glass reinforcement much more useful than it was then (although quite extensive use of local glass reinforcement seems to have been made). If you want to build a lightweight all wood boat then this is still a reasonable reference. Personally I'd recommend foam sandwich for a Cherub or similar boat these days though.
New Zealand and Australia were a hotbed of innovation in the 1960s and 1970s. This boat is a representative of a very exciting period in the development of the modern racing dinghy. Queenie SJB was apparently a well-known boat in that period. Oh and the sail number, KZ1982? Well, up until some point in the 1980s when the current logical set of 3 letter codes was introduced by the ISAF, national recognition letters were a very idiosyncratic set of one and two letter codes. The United Kingdom was K - for UK, and various dominions within the Commonwealth had two letter codes based on that - KA for Australia and KZ for New Zealand. I suppose technically as a UK located boat GBR would be correct, or possibly even AUS as I hold an Australian Passport, but I have not the slightest intention of changing!
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