The angelic East Coast pocket cruiser

It is 100 years since the first Deben Cherub was launched. Julia Jones looks back at the history of this 21ft river racing class

- Julia Jones

Cherubs and I first met when I was less than two years old. I don't consciously remember this, but my mother did. Years later she wrote to remind me that I'd been strapped into my pushchair and parked in the cockpit. The topsides were low enough for me to see out and when the little boat heeled slightly on a windy day, I was able to watch the wave patterns. 'Over and go, over and go,' I apparently chanted, allowing my parents to conclude that I was commenting on a wind-over-tide situation.

We were on the River Deben in Suffolk, it was early in 1956 and the Cherub was CC15 Ceres, later renamed Windsong. The Cherubs are a well-named class, there's a fullness in their forward sections which makes one think of the chubby cheeks of baby angels, blowing breezes from the corners of an antique chart. Rev John Waller, rector of Waldringfield, speaking at the funeral of Captain-Surgeon Harald Curjel, described the delight Captain Curjel must have felt sailing CC4 Sea Pig on the Deben in the 1930s: 'The river was the nearest one could get to heaven,' Rev Waller declared, 'it afforded a glimpse of what is to come when we leave this earth'

First in class

The first undisputed member of the Cherub class was CC2, Cherub, built 100 years ago in 1924 at Everson's boatyard, Woodbridge (now The Woodbridge Boat Yard). Her owner, Alfred Curjel, resolutely refused to have a number on his sail because she wasn't just a 'Cherub', she was Cherub. She's CC2 on the list as she followed Trinity Hall, an open boat built at Everson's in 1924. Vanessa Bird, writing in Classic Classes, describes Trinity Hall as a half-decked, gaff-rigged day boat, herself developed from a 21/2 tonner called Dream, also built by Everson's, probably from a 19th century Linton Hope design.