Moth World

Head-cam footage from Miami

2012-02-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick edit of some head-cam footage from Miami. Lumpy waves and 15-20 knots. Some good crashes due to a sticky push-rod end slider. The fly by half way through is an experimental foiling trimaran being tested for possible inclusion as a paraolympic boat down the road. H/T to the BER/ISV 49er teams for musical inspiration.

Winter Series Course Diagram

2011-12-04T07:36:00.001-08:00

Preliminary course diagram for the Winter Series. What do you think?

Mimai Course Diagram

Turkey Day @ ABYC

2011-11-21T16:33:00.000-08:00

Two east coast moth sailors -- Anthony and I -- made the cross-country trek to southern California for the Turkey Day regatta at ABYC. It was a fun event; huge fleet of all kinds of boats including Lasers, Sabots, Cal20s, Lidos, Finns, 29ers, F18s... and a few moths. Anthony and I were both on borrowed equipment; huge thanks to the west coast fleet for helping us out with logistics. We had good racing the first day, but were blown out by huge waves and 30+ knot gusts on the second. Still a good trip though -- and getting more and more excited for Miami. Be there!

Word from the sponsor: Sound Boatworks is running their Black Friday sale this week. If you need new gear, poke around the site as there are some fairly absurd deals on good gear, up to 65% off. They also have a line and hardware shop that is very Moth friendly.

Entries rolling in...

2011-10-17T09:30:00.001-07:00

...for the moth winter series in Miami. Here

Moth New England Champs 2011 (Pictures)

2011-08-23T19:06:00.001-07:00

2011 Moth New England Championship

Newport, Rhode Island

Moth New England Championship

2011-07-23T09:01:00.001-07:00

Website is live for the 2011 Moth New England Championship, August 19-21 in Newport, Rhode Island.

Easter Sunday Foiling

2011-06-08T10:51:00.001-07:00

Moth Fleet Newport

2011-06-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

An east coast moth fleet is building up. Here is the scene at Sail Newport. We're expecting two more boats shortly.

Last day

2011-01-14T01:14:00.000-08:00

Some quick thoughts from the last day. Early 10am start and my back quickly made clear that it was unhappy with the early call. Made it through the first race but during the second I just couldn't bend enough to get under the boom. After getting smacked in the head by said boom the second time during a tack, and finding a stream of blood running down my face I made the difficult but probably correct call to bag it, reasoning that my place in silver fleet wasn't worth a concussion. I felt lousy sitting on shore for the last couple races but I think it was the correct call.

Reflecting a bit, I have to say I'm pretty disappointed with my performance. I just couldn't get it together to overcome my boat and body struggles. That said I'm trying to focus on the positives. I learned a ton and feel like I'm in a stronger position next time around. It was an honor to compete in such a talented fleet. I also had a lot of fun along the way. Belmont is a pretty special place to sail and those working hard to run this regatta did a superb job.

A huge thanks to Anthony for entrusting me with his boat. Thanks also to my US teammates (chris, bora, bear, adam, dalton, lindsey, charlie, and brad) for all their help along the way.

On to Lake Garda.

(BTW- check the front page of sailinganarchy.com for a story I wrote for them)

Wind Down?

2011-01-12T14:19:00.003-08:00

"Is that the wing?"
"No, that was the wing."

Wing Repairs in Progress

2011-01-12T00:21:00.000-08:00

Full credit goes to wing expert, composites guru, and coach Rob Patterson

Here is the crash:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150124327392814

And:

Before

During repair (for "after" picture, look on the lake tomorrow)

The Boat Didn't Break

2011-01-10T02:57:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd mix things up from the last few days with that headline. Today it was all on me. Going into the day I knew I needed a solid three races to hold on to a place in gold fleet. I did just the opposite.

Have had a pretty tight/sore back for a few weeks now, but when I woke up it was a whole new scenario. Bending over, getting out of a chair, and so on were enormously painful. Managed to rig the boat but knew I was in for a tough one. It was windy, as expected, and I really struggled to hike hard. Tacks were especially challenging. In my gybes I could sort of slide under the boom and keep on foils, but tacking in 15-20 knots requires explosive speed across the boat, which was just out of the question. Very frustrating. Had to ration tacks which meant sailing through a lot of shifts. Whatever it added up to, I was sailing like shit.

Not surprisingly I'm out of gold fleet. To say I'm gutted doesn't begin to describe it. A huge amount of effort has gone into this regatta, so I'm feeling pretty frustrated. All I can do from here on out is do my best to win some races in silver, and most importantly help my US teammates with their boat prep and so on for the balance of the event.

It's easy to say a bad say sailing beats a good day in the office, but it doesn't always feel like it. Working hard now to focus on the positives: I'm sailing the coolest dinghies in the world, in a huge fleet, in a warm place in the winter time, with a bunch of great sailors. I'll keep repeating that to myself until it takes some of the sting off.

Moth Worlds Day 2 Video from Zhik

2011-01-10T02:50:00.000-08:00

Set it to high res if you can

Pictures from Day 2

2011-01-09T02:41:00.000-08:00

My boom(s)

Another tough day for the wing

Big Air, Broken Boom...

2011-01-09T02:20:00.000-08:00

Despite the forecast for 10-15 knots and dying, the wind cranked up today. Sustained speed was probably in the high teens with some gusts up to 25 and above. We started off on the outer trapezoid course, meaning we had a wild reach across the top. Was having a pretty solid race until I blew a tack and the boat ended up turtled upside down with the bow facing downwind.

In the second race I was nearing the finish and had two gybes left when the breakage gods decided to send their wrath upon me again. The fish line is set so deep that it can only be crossed on port. If you are understood on port, as I was, you have two gybes to do to finish. The first was OK, but as I was running out of space I had to force the second and do it on top of a nasty set of waves. The front foil came out mid gybe and I pitchpoled. As I was righting the boat I heard a loud crack. My boom had broken right in the middle. I actually managed to swim the boat around to face the right direction and got the boat to foil across the finish line by holding the clew of the sail in my hand while trying to hike. However in the process I lost about 5 boats -- those were points I needed very badly. And of course I had to DNF the next race, burning my throwout.

Forecast for tomorrow is even windier. I need three solid races to assure a place in Gold fleet. Now it's time to execute.

Cool picture of me rigging up from Thierry.

Pictures from Day 1

2011-01-08T02:40:00.000-08:00

Chaos in the dinghy park with 110 moths. Everyone is friendly and patient though, so it's working out

Huge prize to anyone who can identify the reference

Rigged & Ready on Day 1

The goddamn weed!

Foiling Tacks are Passé

2011-01-08T00:35:00.000-08:00

...because the new move here in Belmont is the intentional weed-clearing capsize. As I overheard Simon put it today, "this is one of those rare regattas where you wish you had capsized more."

Today was much like the last three days in terms of weather. Light air, about 7-10 knots, very streaky/patchy wind with a lot of shear to it. LOTS of weed. Everywhere.

Three races today. Still don't feel good about my speed, but slowly getting up to pace. Now I need to turn my focus a bit to getting my head outside the boat; no easy task considering you have to stare at the water in front of you the whole time due to weed. I felt like I was doing OK in terms of the near-term stuff (responding to the shifts, staying in the puffs) but not thinking enough about the big-picture stuff like positioning myself in good places on the track.

I had one beat where I needed to flip 5 times to clear weed; if I didn't, I could barely foil at about 9 knots. Really frustrating to flip and watch the boats you've worked hard to pass sail away from you, but on the other hand it is hard to keep your boat in the air if you don't clear the weed. Apart from one gybe where the rudder got weeded and I spun out, the boat handeling felt good today.

My three mid-twenty races put me around the low 40s over all... qualifying for gold fleet (top 55) but barely. I need to work hard to break into the teens in some races tomorrow.

Three forty minute races and I'm exhausted. Was hiking as hard downwind as upwind, so basically no break. To make things a bit more complicated today, the outer loop was inexplicably in the middle of a keel boat race course. In fact, in the first race the outer leeward mark was on the starboard layline to the keel boats' RC boat.... so they were basically rounding our mark the opposite way we were. Chaos reigned. No majors, but some close calls I've heard.

Another Day, Another Breakage

2011-01-07T02:48:00.000-08:00

The tan strip you see is the kevlar hinge... all the carbon above it peeled away

Today was measurement day. A few people went out for last minute test sails. I decided that given my swollen and torn up hands, it would be best to take the day off. However, I did do a final rig-up and check over of my boat, and Bora offered to take it for a quick test sail to see if he saw any issues to work on. He reports that as soon as he got up on foils, "it felt like corduroy." I was following behind in our coach boat.

Bora headed back to the beach where the problem was immediately apparent: the right side of the flap at the back of my main foil had delaminated and the top layer of carbon had ripped off. All this in a quick sail; the problem must have been brewing for days. In a sense I'm lucky that the breakage occurred today and not during racing tomorrow. On the other hand I'm pretty gutted to be left with an unusable main foil. Thanks very much to the generosity of my US teammates I have a loaner I can use to race with in the near term; I really owe these guys a lot for helping me keep my boat running.

The format for this regatta is a bit funny. Here is how it will go:

First three days or so (up to 9 races, with one throwout) is a split-fleet qualification series. Each night before racing the fleet will be re-seeded into Blue and Yellow fleets, with the two fleets racing on a semi-shared course with separate finish lines.
At the end of the qualification series, the top half goes to Gold and the bottom half to Silver.
Your place in the qualification series (NOT the sum of your points) will count as a single race in the final series score. This score can't be discarded, although you do get one more discard in the final series. Thus your final position in the regatta (at least if you make gold) will be determined far more by your performance in the final series than in the qualification series.

While my usual arguments about throwing out data for no reason apply here (wouldn't it make more sense to include the sum of your qualification finish points rather than finish place?) it is what it is. We're ready to race!

I took the coach boat out for a spin today... may have trimmed her up a bit too much. Rob caught the good part of my ride on video:

Weed is bad for you

2011-01-06T02:29:00.000-08:00

Seriously everyone. Sure, weed is everywhere, and doesn't look to harmful... just green stuff. But the truth is, weed is a gateway. A gateway to going slow, looking dumb, and ending up behind your peers who chose to stay away from weed.

The combination of breeze directions over the last few days has made weed a huge problem on the lake. Once it gets on the horizontal foils, you are done... Boatspeed drops by a knot, or more. There seems to be no option but to drop of the foils and flip the boat to clean it. We've been on the lookout for good techniques, but no one seems to have figured out anything better than flipping as quickly as possible. In my first race today, I had to flip my boat 4 times in a single beat. The first was especially painful: had a great start, and was in the lead group, then hit such a large patch that it flipped my boat around 180 degrees and I ended up upside down. Sweet...

I have to say that although everything else here has been spectacular, in these conditions this is just not a fun place to sail moths. I'm really hoping we'll get a different breeze configuration soon to ameliorate the weed issue. In the mean time, I expect to keep hearing the same thing in the dinghy park: "I need to do a better job of staring at the water in front of me at all time." Yea, that and not crashing into any of the other moths moving at pace, making sound tactical choices, and so on.

Broke a lashing in my vang today so it was another 1-race day. Working hard on bullet-proofing the boat before Saturday.

A lot of people have been asking about (or speculating about) the wings. Bora is busy working hard on his final push to try to regain his world title, so I'll clarify things a bit. Since we've arrived our container has been an open shop. We've given full and honest answers to all the questions people have had. We're trying to help the class gain the data it needs to make an intelligent decision about wings in the long term. There's no gamesmanship going on. The three identical wings the US team brought to Belmont have shown great promise in certain conditions, but also considerable weakness. The biggest weakness is light air (marginal foiling). The wings also struggle at times downwind; if they are not set up and trimmed perfectly, they are quite slow downhill. In breeze, they are very hard to beat upwind. Nevertheless, the plan right now is for Bora and Bear to run soft sails for the Worlds. Charlie McKee is going to sail with a wing for the whole event. As he puts it, "someone has to do it" to help the class see what we're dealing with.

This is definitely not the end of the road for the wings; I strongly suspect the next generation of wings will represent another leap forward. Despite all the fireworks on the blogs, I have not heard from a single moth sailor in Belmont who is opposed to wing development. Far more common is this reaction: "I want one!"

Given the difficulty of designing a brand new aero package like this, it's amazing the curent wings work as well as they do. That is a huge tribute to the design and building skills of the guys at Object 2 Skiffworks, and especially the dedication and persistance of Bora and Bear. Running this program using their own skills and budget from a garage in Detroit, tackling such an enormous challenge and developing a very credible solution, is a huge accomplishment. The greatest innovators are the ones who tackle the hard problems knowing that the odds are overwhelmingly against success. If the guys running the various AC teams had any sense, they'd have hired these two long ago.

Pre-Worlds Day 1

2011-01-05T13:36:00.000-08:00

A quick update as I have a bunch of boatwork to do. Day 1 of preworlds was a struggle. After a short delay and a general recall we got going. Lined up for a good start but allowed a couple guys to tack in under me, taking away my runway to get on the foils. Watched the fleet tack onto port and disappear. Things got worse once up on foils, ride height control was still out of whack, the rudder kept getting too close to the surface and ventilating leading the boat to spin out again and again. Limped home in 35th or so out of about 90 boats. Headed to the beach to get things sorted out, so only sailed one race. Will be back in action tomorrow. Have to get this sorted out soon, worlds is just days away!

The starts are insane. Even with a huge line things are crowded and chaotic. A number of people ran port tack starts, which seemed more than a little suicidal. Nearly all of them fouled a few people as they picked their way through, but no one seems to care in this fleet, so it will continue until there is a major smash. Memories of North Americans last summer...

Form Guide for Worlds

2011-01-04T03:29:00.001-08:00

http://www.sail-world.com/Australia/index.cfm?SEID=2&Nid=78731&SRCID=0&ntid=119&tickeruid=0&tickerCID=0

I continue to be blown away by the depth of talent in this fleet!

AUS Nationals Start Tomorrow

2011-01-04T03:22:00.000-08:00

Australian Nationals / Pre-Worlds begin tomorrow at 1300. I think most of the American team are looking to this event as a good chance to do some last minute equipment testing and get some big-fleet racing experience. Technically we're not even eligible to win the regatta, so I suspect there will be a pretty casual approach on the whole, skipping races when necessary to switch gear, etc. Not sure how many of the 115 worlds entries will make it out, but I'm excited to see such a huge fleet lined up.

Had a busy day of boatwork today. Got the mast I broke a couple days ago repaired, and a bunch of other minor projects.

Boatwork day

2011-01-03T18:24:00.001-08:00

Scow moths!

2011-01-03T18:24:00.000-08:00

For the non-Mothies out there: this is what moths used to look like until the skinny skiff style designs took over a few decades ago

Hard Miles (and a shark sighting)

2011-01-03T02:48:00.000-08:00

The last two days have been tough. Yesterday I rigged up and launched in a 12 knot or so southerly with some residual chop. Had one decent downwind and upwind, then on my second upwind speed test run I was sailing on port tack, heard a loud bang, and was in the water. My mast had broken about 1" above the gooseneck, something I'd never seen or heard of on a Mach 2 before. Nonetheless, my day came to an ugly and expensive end.

Today had a similar breeze direction. We launched and did some speed tests over on the west side of the lake with Bora, Bear, Chris, Adam, and Charlie on the wing. We then headed up the lake about 4 or 5 miles. As we did the breeze built. At the same time I blew up a shackle on the main blocks and was left trying to go upwind into a 15-20 knots breeze trimming 2:1. As we passed the power station it just kept building. Eventually we go to a small river valley where the wind was violently funneling. It was easily 30 knots at this point, perhaps more, and extremely sheary. Several times I was just plain blown over going upwind, and upon righting, the bow was picked up and reverse-pitchpolled over the transom. More sailing in these conditions is one of the most physically taxing and emotionally challenging things I've ever done. Very ugly conditions. After getting going a bit downwind we found some flatter water and were OK for a bit. However as I entered the bay where the 16's club is located, my horizontal pushrod began binding up quite violently. I would make it a couple of boat lengths before the bow would flare up then drop, launching me into the shrouds. Top priority was now getting the boat back to the club without breaking anything.

A couple of times while swimming back to my boat after yet another 20+ knots crash I could see some dark shapes moving around in the water below me. I decided they could not be sharks, simply for the reason that if they were, I would be rather unhappy about that fact. Around this point Bora flew by me and Chris (who was also having some downwind issues in the ugly short chop and was also in the water) with a sort of odd look on his face and yelling something about how I should sail to flatter water. I did... but things kept getting worse with the height control system. I stopped counting after 33 crashes. I eventually made it back to the club feeling like I'd been run over by a cement truck. No boat breakage. However, once safely on shore Bora told us that he'd nearly run over a 15 foot bull shark that was sunning itself on the surface right next to where I'd been going for my series of unplanned swims. He said he debated telling us, but (wisely in my opinion) decided that we did not need any additional motivation to get upright and sailing again.

Many top sailors have been spotted running around the dinghy park with hacksaws and sadistic expressions on their faces. People have been chopping the tips off their main foils, in addition to the small rudder foils in fashion at the moment. (AK: don't worry, I won't be joining this trend).

Lots of questions and speculation about our plans with the wings. We'll have an announcement soon.

I once heard a wise coach say...

2011-01-02T01:46:00.003-08:00

..."Imitate, imitate, imitate, innovate."

(in that order.)

Boatwork Day

2011-01-01T03:30:00.000-08:00

At the end of sailing yesterday I had a bit of a breakdown: the small plate that holds in the bullet block at the bottom cascade of the vang pulled out of the carbon tube that holds the wingbar. I'd already fixed this once, with a bigger screw and some epoxy, but now it was time to fix it for real. With this and a few other nagging boatwork projects I decided to take a layday from sailing and catch up on the task list.

Chris Rast showed me how to sneak a bolt down the wing tube on piece of twine, so we finally got a permanent fix. I made up a new adjustable bridle to fix the one that was about to break, and a few other random projects such as sail number issues. Boat is ready to go. I missed a good session on the water at the end of the day so am eager to get going again early tomorrow.

Pre-worlds/ AUS nationals starts on Wednesday. Plan to do a few hard days of sailing up to it, then begin a taper to be fresh for the start of worlds in 7 days. Projects for now are to work on downwind speed and tacks.

The bear on the wing

2010-12-31T20:50:00.000-08:00

Last sail of 2010

2010-12-31T20:41:00.000-08:00

Cross Post: Moth Lap Scoring Rule

2010-12-31T14:37:00.001-08:00

Here

Some pictures

2010-12-31T00:16:00.000-08:00

Checking foil alignment

Charlie bend-testing some masts... We did about 10 masts... results are top secret for now, but there were some surprises!

WingWork

Groundhog day

2010-12-30T23:42:00.000-08:00

...in a great way. More sun, more warm temps, more wind, more flat water...

Did a double session in the breeze today. Had a couple minor breakages at the end, but still good. Worked hard on heavy air tacks. Unlike the medium air tacks, it seems much less about finess and more about just launching across the boat, switching hands, and hiking. Even if you drop for a moment you'll take off again right away, so no big deal. What is a big deal is when you don't cross quickly enough and flip. Did quite a few of those. It's a major fitness challenge to hike hard a few moments then switch modes to explosive strength to launch across the boat.

Working on getting some video to post later.

Sun, Heat, Wind, Flat Water

2010-12-30T02:54:00.000-08:00

Another day... Not quite as windy as yesterday but still some great 15+ conditions. Ran the MSL13 on a Mach2 rig again today, felt pretty good although I was overpowered upwind. It became clear that I need to start hiking a lot harder downwind; I'm losing a lot of power there. At my weight I really have to hike hard all the way around the course.

Had drinks at the 16's with some of our new Australian friends, including Jack who is making a strong push to win the Junior title at the regatta. Good times.

Breakfast of champions

2010-12-29T15:55:00.000-08:00

Big Air Today

2010-12-29T02:05:00.000-08:00

Sunny and hot day on the lake. By noon a ripping thermal descended on the lake. Too much wind for wings, so we all went soft-sail today. Just as I was putting connecting my main foil to the ride height control, the connector suddenly went very loose. A quick trip around the boat revealed that the vertical pushrod had sheared off where it connects to the flap on the foil. As I watched 2 or 3 moths rip across the lake, I realized I was not going sailing any time soon. Some swear words may have been issued at this point.

Although I had a spare pushrod, the biggest problem was getting the stub of the old one out of the joint. With a tiny pair of needlenose we finally got it. After putting the new one it, putting the foil back together, about an hour and a half were lost. No matter. The breeze was only getting stronger.

Chris and Bora beat me out to the lake. It was a steady 25 knots with some bigger gusts and a lot of shear. THe boat jumped onto a reach and just launched. The GPS pegged on 26 or so knots. Later I'd see a peak of 27.5 and a 10 second average in the low 27s.

Best/Worst moment of the day was a wild crash downwind. I glanced at the speedo to see it 26.5 knots and just then bow dropped suddenly and the boat went into a wild pitchpole. Knowing was coming I wisely hit the eject button. I remember sliding along the surface on the water on my back as if I'd fallen waterskiing. Came to rest about 30 feet from the boat, and I'm not going to deny that a few thoughts of the lake's bull shark population passed my mind during the swim back up to the boat.

A very solid 30 knot puff soon rolled through and I headed back ashore to avoid inevitable gear damage. An upside moth atop a rescue boat passed me on the way in, apparently another victim of the gen. 1 Mach 2 boom.

Light air training

2010-12-28T01:34:00.000-08:00

Photo above shows the total chaos in the dinghy park here at Belmont 16'ers. Lots of moths, about 40 Arrow catamarans here for their nationals, and 60+ 29ers here for their nationals too.

We arrived early today to do more work on Wing #2. After a few hours we rigged up and headed out for some speed testing. There were probably 15-20 boats out by this point, which was cool. Light air, about 6 to 10 knots all day. I borrowed a sail from Chris, but had massive issues with the cams... couldn't keep them on the mast (same old story in the moth world...). After a few hours of frustration I gave up and switched over to another sail, an MSL 13.

Finally got out on the water and did a few hours of practice racing with the Australian "mothsquad™" and a few other boats including a Ninja and an Assassin. Boat felt much better with the new sail and the correction of my paint-flap issue on the front foil flap. Tacks were going really well, although had I known we were doing starts, I'd have brought a watch out...

After a while I swapped over on to a boat with Wing #1. It is a pretty interesting transition from a soft sail, but had it going pretty well after a bit. Wind was dying pretty quickly at this point, but still fun. At one point I borked a tack and ended up sailing backwards for a bit, with both elements fully reversed. I'm pretty sure what happened was that I hit the shift lever with my knee during the tack and knocked it into reverse rather than drive, but I'm not certain... weird to see the wing working in full reverse mode.

There are huge weed patches out here. In one race I hit three downwind, and twice had to flip the boat to clean the foils off. Potential race ender stuff. Have to keep one eye on the water in front at all times, in addition to the boats around you, puffs, shifts, and so on.

Plan for tomorrow is more of the same. Lots of debate over foil options and we have plans to test a lot of stuff. And of course have to keep the legs in good hiking condition.

Another Fun Day on the Lake

2010-12-27T03:02:00.001-08:00

It was medium air building to windy to on Lake. We had 15 moths out training, including the US mothies currently in town (me, Bora, and Chris) and a bunch of aussies including Slingsby, Outteridge, Babbage, Harris, et al. Had my Rapter set up pretty well on the stiff CST mast, but was getting hosed... like, "Bladerider slow." My tacks were solid but just couldn't cary the pace at height. All became clear once I got back to the beach (after nailing a couple foil tacks in front of the club to impress the 29er kids here for nationals... no effect they were all too impressed by the Wing sailing nearby). My "rasta foils" were unfortunately the source of the issue. The paint on my front foil was peeling up at the leading edge of the flap, creating a 1 to 2mm high, extremely draggy, flap that protruded straight into the high pressure flow atop the foil. Sanded the flap down to primer and then hit them with 1000, 1500, and 2000 grit. Doesn't look as pretty but hopefully much fairer. We'll find out in the AM.

Bora had the Wing out, but suffered from a breakage -- or more specifically, his 5-min epoxy repair of an earlier problem let go, leading to some failures in nearby ribs. Lesson learned. Will be back in action tomorrow.

Not too much gossip from around the regatta. No secret weapons (other than the wing) revealed yet. Stay tuned.

Boxing day

2010-12-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

Wind has been good so far. Unfortunately I've come down with a bit of a fever... feel like I've been run over by a truck. Must have picked up a bug traveling. Went out for a brief sail yesterday, but was so sore and weak I could barely manage it. I've been relegated to bed for the day, leaving Chris and Bora to work on the wings. Bear just started the Sydney Hobart, in for a very rough ride as the Southerly Busters arrive tonight.

Hoping to be better tomorrow and back out on the water.

Had to visit Dr. Bora

2010-12-24T03:03:00.000-08:00

Today was my first real day on the water. Did some training with the US guys here (Chris Rast and Bora Gulari) and Mike Lennon from the UK, and a couple local sailors.

Got out around 11am and the boat felt pretty crappy. During our first speed tests I kept fighting to stay on the foils upwind, and downwind was even worse, the rudder kept ventilating leading to nasty spinouts and crashes. Frustrating shitty sailing. Gave up and headed for the beach, where I scheduled an appointment to see Dr. Bora. After a few quick questions he made his diagnosis: the paddle at the end of my wand was digging too much into the water, leading it to trip the centerboard upwind and the rudder downwind. We swapped the wand out for a new one with a U shape rather than W shape paddle. I went back out and did some more testing with Mike. Went from being 300m downwind at the end of each speed test to dead even, perhaps a bit faster.

The new paddle!

Amusing because if I'd been trouble shooting this myself I would have gone a week or two before even considering the paddle. Two lessons: small stuff matters in the moth... a lot. The height control system in these boats is tweaky sometimes. Second, nothing can replace experience.

Good news is I'm up to speed and ready to go. It's xmas even here in australia. No matter -- we worked on the wings until 8:30 or so, then headed home. Santa will be riding a moth tomorrow.

Lots of stuff to hit in this lake. Bull sharks, huge jellyfish, lots of seaweed... and soon, 113 moths buzzing around. Situational awareness is a major task.

Big thanks to NHS Plasterboard & Timber who have loaned us a truck for the duration of our stay here in Belmont!

Sunset over Belmont 16'ers

First wing up!

2010-12-23T12:27:00.000-08:00

and out sailing, briefly.

mach2s in a row

2010-12-22T02:38:00.000-08:00

a few of many, many to come

More boatwork

2010-12-22T02:14:00.000-08:00

Long 13 hour day of boat/wing work today. No sailing yet, for me at least. Hopefully on the water tomorrow.

Above: our coach boat.... if you're going to pack a RIB into a container and ship it half way around the world to be your coach boat, would you choose a practical, safe, watertight, stable, boat? If you are a moth sailor, the answer is "of course not, I would choose the inflatable catamaran that can do 50 knots with a special racing propeller and turn like it is on rails."

Wing hanger

2010-12-21T15:13:00.000-08:00

Arrived

2010-12-21T11:42:00.000-08:00

...at Belmont after some long flights and a sort drive from Sydney. Our container is here, boats are in good shape, and some strange black auro-foil shaped things hanging from the ceiling look cool too.

Lots of boatwork to do. A few GBR, IRL, and AUS sailors are out on the water already, we're hoping to join them today or tomorrow.

Dates

2010-12-19T08:14:00.000-08:00

Australian Nationals / Pre-Worlds
Jan 5-6, 2011

Measurement Day
Jan 7, 2011

Moth Worlds 2011
Racing: Jan 8-11
Reserve Day: Jan 12
Racing: Jan 13-14