More Moth Coverage

I picked up copies of Sailing World and Sail magazine in West Marine chandlery the other day only to find an article about foiling sailing in one with quotes from me in it, and a 1/4 page photo of me from the Worlds in the other one!

Rochester Update

We've been training here in Rochester for a few days now, and although I haven't seen much of the place I'm liking it here. Everybody has been very friendly and I think it will be a well run regatta. We've had it pretty light for the last few days, and completely flat calm yesterday but we had 15k and pretty big waves today which was fun.

Foilborne C Class Cats

I heard the other day that one of the Canadian C Class cats is actually a fully foilborne one......

Then I read Rohan's blog and found out he'd already got a go on it! He's got two good photos on his site.



Here is a video of Cogito the current form boat:

Rochester, USA

Hello from the US side of Lake Ontario. I'm out here now for the IFDS World Championships - the Worlds for all the Paralympic Sailing classes.

It was a bit of a trip over here though with a diverted flight to Richmond, South of Washington, due to a huge storm over Washington Dulles that closed the airport for an hour or so. We held for a while but ran low on fuel so had to put down elsewhere. So I missed my connection, and had to stay in Washington over night, before getting up to Rochester the following morning.

Meg and Helena sailed yesterday, and we'll finish getting the rib together today so we can start training here properly.

Seems like quite a nice venue.

Boat Lending

So how do you say thank you to those companies and people who support your sailing. Well hopefully regular reports, and good media coverage with nice photos keeps them happy, but just recently I’ve managed a new little twist on the standard return for support.

I’ve lent out my new Moth for 2 months. Dave Chisholm of Carbonology.com who has helped me out a lot this season is currently undertaking flight school and burning off the local windsurf fleet at a small lake near his place in Ipswich.

I’ve known Dave for years, first meeting him during the Sydney Olympics where he was running logistics for the British Olympic Association. Since then our paths have crossed numerous times, and Dave is often on the phone to bounce around ideas on a number of boat projects. I kept telling him he needed a Moth, but he insisted he was a twin trapeze skiff man. That was until I gave him a go in my Moth during the Moth nationals in Weymouth, and the grin hasn’t left his face yet!

The timing was right as I wasn’t using mine for a while whilst overseas at several regattas, and if he broke it I knew he had enough carbon at work to fix it!

Marlow Visit

I popped over to visit the new Marlow site today, which was quite impressive. I went over for a general catch up and chat through of some interesting stuff they've got going on. More info soon.....

Seeing all the machines winding, braiding etc was very impressive, and makes you realise just how much goes into making a piece of rope.

Sunday at Poole Week

A few of us went over to Poole on Sunday to put in a bit of a Moth showing for the start of Poole week. We had Si Payne, Rod Harris, Mike Cooke, James Roche, Gary Ireson, and myself. Unfortunately launching amongst such a big fleet in breezy conditions took longer than expected, and only Simon and I actually made the start. We lead the fast handicap fleet round the top mark, but had no idea where the next mark was! So we were doing 18/20knots across the top reach, and I'm trying to find the mark on the laminated course card. Once we'd found it I held the card in my teeth for a while but soon gave up on that when it just bend up and covered my eyes! So I wedged it down my rash vest until it had to come out again to find the next mark! Eventually we figured out the course, but I did have to walk the boat off one sandbank, having landed gently onto it mid tack. Simon waited for me though, and we kept the racing close between us for a few laps. Doing 20 knots through the moorings and X boat fleet seperated by only a few boat lengths was probably quite a sight, with some impressive syncronised gybes!

23.3 Knots was my top speed of the day. (I've done a new little gps mount, so I can now easily see it from both tacks which is nicer!)

Should be some video soon.....

Queen Mary Trip

On Saturday morning I went up to Queen Mary to drop off Nemesis for Adrian.

While up there I caught up with two new Bladerider owners Chris and Mike before they went for a spin around QM. It was pretty gusty but they went out and did okay. There was some interesting leeward heel foiling which is pretty hard to do, but they are dead keen and enjoying it. They've already been looking into accom in Weymouth for the Worlds!

Graham & Katherine Vials' Wedding

It was Graham and Katherine's wedding on Saturday, and I went along for a very nice reception and dinner. I was sat on the 'Bladerider table' as each table was themed as a class of boat.

Sept Dinghy Sailing Magazine

More great coverage in the latest issue of Dinghy Sailing magazine. Which also includes a superb article by Emma Wilkins on the building of her 'Fat Bottomed Girl'.

Nemesis Flies Again

Nemesis meets her new owner Adrian Murphy this weekend, so I took her out for a bit of a spin on Tuesday to check all was well.

Moth Nationals Gybe Video

Mike Cooke has just put this great little video together of some gybes in front of the pontoon during the Nationals recently. I think we'll have to do plenty of fly-bys during the Worlds!

International C Class Catamaran Championships - Toronto Canada

A video preview of the C Class Cats I'm going to watch out in Canada soon.

Sept 18th - 23rd.

Foiling High Five

The Diving / Foiling High Five

Stunts

The stunts started early on in the foiling phenomenon with Rohan doing 'The Hand Drag' in one of his early videos. Now the tricks are going up in the difficulty ratings! None of which should be tried without logging loads of flying hours, and accepting the potential risks involved!

So we have: (on top of the normal crashes!)
'The Hand Drag'
'Legs Over Cruiser Style'
'Standing Foiling'
'The Head Dip and Flick'
'Stall and Land'
'The Foiling High Five'
'The Diving High Five'
'One Foot Waterski'
'Submarine Gybe'
'Abandon Ship'
'Hanging Under the Tramp'
'The Bottle Grab'

In the pipeline but not yet attempted is:
Pontoon skittles......

Moth World Championships 2008

The Dates for the Moth Worlds in 2008 will be the 5th July - 11th July.

More details officially soon.

2.4 Open Worlds, Denmark

I'm currently out in Denmark coaching at the open 2.4m Worlds. It is the last day of racing tomorrow, then it is home for 2 weeks before heading out to the States, Canada and then China!

Helena Lucas is currently in 15th and Megan Pascoe in 19th overall.