When I got a call from Dave Chisholm to come and be the first to sail the Cherub GT60, I didn't need asking twice. First sight of the boat, at the water's edge of Alton Water near Ipswich, it looked exactly like the scale model of the Bieker 5 International 14 that it has been so closely based upon. If anything it is a better looking boat because it has the same rack width as the 14, which makes the GT60 look more in proportion. Although as one of the heavier people in the 14 class I shouldn't be saying this, I do think the 14 looks a bit narrow in comparison with its tall rig.

The lines of the GT60 really are very sweet, and viewing it from astern you could hardly tell it apart from a B5 I14. Dave Chisholm and his gang from Carbonology had even had time to incorporate some neat fittings into the boat, including an in-boom mainsheet arrangement where there is no mainsheet strop but simply a continuation of the mainsheet out to each stern quarter. This means that as you rake the mast back and forth you don't have to worry about adjusting your mainsheet strop height.

One radical departure from the norm was an asymmetrically mounted jib sheet swivel cleat, on the starboard side of the foredeck just near the shroud attachment. I wasn't totally sold on this idea as I think the helm needs to be able to adjust the jibsheet from both racks without difficulty. Bear in mind that with the 49er-style off-boom sheeting arrangement the crew's hands will generally be occupied, so the jib sheet is really the helm's responsibility. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how they get on with this system.

Something that made the cockpit layout deceptively clean was the absence of a kite chute, which was still being made. This meant the gennaker was for the time being stuffed away under the foredeck, and would require Dave's crew Andy Prince to be very careful with the hoists and drops. However, you could see that even when the chute was installed the cockpit would still be very tidy and uncluttered.

With the boat on its side, you got a sense of just how square-headed the mainsail is, with the hollowed leech emphasising it even more. Mike Lennon from Hyde Sails has drawn a very cool sailplan for this boat, and it really does look state-of-the-art. I also got to see some neat-looking trapeze tangs welded on to the side of the shroud terminals which meant two fewer holes that Superspars had to drill in the carbon when fitting out the mast. This seems eminently sensible, except the idea of hanging my distinctly unCherubic weight off these tiny little welds didn't fill me with confidence!

Eventually, after Dave had broken open a bottle of pre-launch champagne, the GT60 was ready to go. Dave and Andy took the boat out onto the pond, with about 8 knots' breeze blowing. With the T-foil rudder primed and set in position, the boat looked raring to go, adopting the same aggressive heads-down attitude of a T-foiled 14. If the T-foil rudder has been an essential addition to a 14-foot boat, it is an absolute godsend to a 12-footer, picking the boat up and giving it wings where normally it would be dragging its stern unceremoniously through the water. While Dave and Andy sailed the first half hour together, I grabbed a couple of video clips of the boat which, if you go to www.sailingtalk.com/GT60-video.html, will give you some idea of the boat's pace in not a great deal of wind.

Then Dave was kind enough to hand over the reins - or the tiller extensions - to me, which would reveal just how much ballast the diminutive GT60 could support. Suffice it to say that in Valencia, the Anglo-Saxons have sniffed out a curry house just a short stumble from Port America's Cup, the discovery of which has done nothing for my race trim. While I won't reveal exact vital statistics I will say that Dave and Andy Prince weigh in at 135kg together (already pushing the top end of a Cherub's competitive range), and that Andys Rice and Prince sailing together were probably more like 165kg. This is a pretty good weight for an International 14 but definitely not a winning recipe for a 12-footer in 8 to 12 knots of breeze.

Even so, thanks again to the T-foil rudder, the boat was a surprisingly good load carrier and we zoomed up and down Alton Water without too much bubble from the transom. One of the difficulties of sailing the boat in its prototype state, however, was trapezing off the back of the rack without the support of a foot loop. There is the constant feeling of being pulled forwards which is far from comfortable, but of course easily rectified once the footloops are in place. All in all, a very nice little boat. One for which I am not destined to spend my competitive life in, but one that I could wholeheartedly recommend to the more svelte sailor. And by the way, those trapeze-tang welds did hold up after all! I stayed dry.

Hyeres evaluation

It's one thing to impress the UK domestic sailing scene, and quite another to impress the best female sailors in the world, ie. those already engaged in Olympic campaigns in 470s, Ynglings and Laser Radials. Less than 72 hours after that maiden voyage on Alton Water, Dave and Andy were driving their GT60 down to Hyeres in the South of France for the much-anticipated women's Olympic skiff evaluation trial.

Perhaps fortunately for the untested GT60, but unfortunately for the evaluation trial as a whole, it was a four-day event dogged by light winds. The final day provided the only proper twin-trapezing conditions when the breeze picked up to 9 knots, and then the wind did one of its incredibly annoying tricks of picking up to 12-15 knots just as the boats were being packed up for the drive home.

Many had thought that this trial was all about selecting which of the six boats entered would go forward to become the new women's Olympic skiff. However, after talking with the head of the evaluation committee, Dina Kowalyshyn, it appeared this was not the case. The overriding purpose of the Hyeres trial was to establish whether or not there were appropriate boats available for a women's skiff, and to that extent Dina declared herself more than satisfied.

But we are unlikely to get any official word from ISAF as to which of the boats were deemed best suited to the purpose. This would probably have been the case even if Hyeres had provided a wider range of conditions. As it was, the boats didn't get that chance and Dina said she was very keen on seeing a further evaluation trial take place before the ISAF Annual Conference in Athens this November. While Dina wouldn't be drawn on the when and where, there is a strong rumour that a second evaluation trial might take place just before the Sail for Gold Olympic classes regatta in Weymouth this September. Hopefully this might provide an opportunity to see the boats in action in some wind and waves.

The soft conditions in Hyeres certainly played into the hands of the larger boats such as the International 14 and the RS800. The two Cherub entries and the two versions of the 29er seemed too small and underpowered to some of the women who sailed the boats in Hyeres, but perhaps they would have taken a different view if the wind conditions had been different. Someone once observed that ‘fun is inversely proportional to waterline length', and I would go along with that in many respects. However, Olympic regattas are held in all sorts of wind strengths (not that anyone aiming for Qingdao 2008 needs reminding of that!), so this speaks in favour of a boat with some good waterline length if you are looking for a package that can deliver across the wind range.
 
So, will one of these six boats go forward to become the women's Olympic skiff? Not necessarily, according to Dina. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that other boats (perhaps not even yet designed) could come forward to be considered for selection. You might have thought that the women's skiff - if the category is selected in Athens this November - would have to come from those six that had made the effort and commitment to come to Hyeres. But apparently not, because with the final selection of equipment being made at the ISAF Annual Conference in November 2008 there is still a chance for further entrants throwing their hats into the ring.

Having a chat with reigning Tornado and F18 World Champion Darren Bundock recently, Darren registered his disappointment that the skiff trials hadn't been opened up to catamarans too. In his view there are a number of 16-foot twin-trapeze cats on the market that would make an affordable, challenging option for women's Olympic sailing. On raising this point with Dina, she pointed out that while this was a separate issue from the skiff evaluation, it is quite possible for someone to put forward such a proposal. "In fact, quite recently we've gone through a trials process for 16-foot catamarans for the youth scene," said Dina, "so we have information that is detailed and current. It's up to the ISAF Council and member nations to put it on the slate for consideration." If a nation puts forward a proposal for an Olympic multihull for women, it might well be discussed this November in Athens. Everything remains up for grabs

So, Hyeres has helped move the cause of women's skiff sailing one small step closer towards Olympic inclusion, but that is all. It sounds like the vast majority of women, who took time out from their current Olympic campaigns to try out the six skiffs, had a great time. Some of them had to be prised out of the boats at the end of each day because they were having so much fun, but there is still a lot of sailing and politics to be done before we can be sure of a women's skiff making it into the Weymouth 2012 Olympic Regatta.