Foilborne

Sadly not this time...

2010-12-02T15:55:00.003Z

I've been a bit too busy to post recently, for a number of reasons. But I thought I'd better post and mention that sadly I'm unable to attend the Worlds. I've got a slightly unscheduled hospital appointment, nothing serious, but it will unfortunately keep me off the water at a rather inconvenient time. My wing debut will have to wait for another time.

Best of luck to all out there, and it is great to see so many entries. I'm sad to be missing it.

Wing Walking

2010-09-01T12:59:00.005+01:00

It has been a busy time in the World of wings. The 34th America's Cup will now be raced with wing sailed cats - making the Moth the perfect feeder class!

It has been a bit of a hectic period recently, but I managing to get my boat back off Katherine for a few minutes on Sunday and went out crash testing the wing! Before I do a few mods I've got planned, I thought I'd to take the opportunity to really learn about the weak spots in a structure like this, and find out what bits need reinforcing, and which bits are fine. I'd start with some basic capsizes, and work my way up to some bigger moves! The skin is coming off, and some ribs being replaced anyway so I might as well learn about the survivability beforehand.

The initial test was to let Katherine have a go.... It survived that, so I had to work a bit harder. (See her blog http://www.foilingboatadventures.blogspot.com/ for the more colourful (pink) version of events soon)

I capsized, and stayed there for 5 minutes to see how much water would get inside. Hardly any was the result. More in the trailing element actually, and that should be sealed, so my control line entry points obviously worked okay on the front.

The C Class guys actually punch holes in the skin to drain the water out when they capsize as otherwise the water rushing down inside the wing can take out numerous ribs on its way down! Fortunately a well sealed wing laying flat in the water prevented the need for this, and stage one was passed.

Whilst capsized, I did the walk to the transom and flipped the boat over the transom. This is a nice way to load up the leach element! Five of those and still no cracking noises!

Okay time for a little party trick.. I thought early on that with a fully sealed leading edge structure, I'd have a nice buoyancy tank in the rig! Actually the volume of it would probably hold my weight quite well, and it was pretty bulletproof...

Not a typical load case, but a good example of the fact that these structures can be made quite tough!

It survived that fine, so with the wind picking up a bit, I tried for some pitchpoles! Of course this is quite hard to do when you actually want to do it! But I managed one eventually, and although it made a good splat noise as the leading edge hit at pace, all was fine, and we came away from that one unscathed.

So back to the workshop for a few mods, although I think pondering over 44m versions will be taking up a fair bit of my time soon.

Oh well exciting times.

Wingless

2010-08-12T20:29:00.004+01:00

Updated: It is a little weird logging onto a webcam and seeing your car and boat in another country! Katherine called to say she'd made it to Silvaplana okay, so I did a quick check of the webcam, and I see the car and trailer!

I hope the weather clears up okay, and wish everybody a great event.

----------------

Unfortunately due to TEAMORIGIN commitments I shall be unable to attend the Europeans. I'm at an interesting time in a new team, with growing responsibilities, so it would be silly for me to miss up on opportunities as they arise.

A great shame as I was looking forward to going back out to Silvaplana, especially with such a good reception to the wing. So we'll have to wait for another time to unveil it in competition.

I've done a brief bit more testing. Lining up against Nathan the other day. I had height upwind, he had pace downwind. I came away with a long list of improvements in my head, pleased with the potential I know it has.

Katherine is still going out to the Euros, and will now be taking my Mach 2 which she has been getting a sneaky bit of practice in this week. (and I'm not sure if I'll be able to get it back off her!) With me not now able to help with the drive we are looking for help from the Moth fleet. She can drive out with Nathan, but needs a possible lift back, and car to tow a trailer? Or she'll be driving out and back on her own.

Any UK mothies able to help out?

A go with the wing open to best offer!

The Wing

2010-08-03T07:53:00.006+01:00

[Note - sorry struggling with the editing in blogger, and don't have time to sort it out]

For pretty much as long as I’ve sailed I’ve had a fascination with the futuristic looking C Class cats, and their wing sails. I’ve always wanted to do a wing, but had imagined it would be as part of a C Class team one day. But what about building a nice scale version to get to know about them that bit better? Good plan – unless your own boat is already one of the most extreme sailing boats out there.... Oh well, got to be a bit bold sometimes.

I’ve got a whole bunch of cool stuff in my little black book of design ideas, and was getting frustrated at seeing other people do things that I’d been pondering long ago. Rigs had received much thought, regarding what the next step might be. Rigging configs, wing masts and a variety of things have been sketched, but a wing was always at the end of the list as an end game solution. So why not give it a go, and miss out those intermediate steps?

I knew there was interest in doing wings in USA, Switzerland, and Australia, so the race was on – who would be the first to do one? A covert race began, wondering each day if you would just go online to see somebody else had got there first. Bora and I joked at the Worlds that the code word for completion of a wing should be ‘The Eagle has landed’ A simple skype status update would be understood to mean only one thing.

The wing had long been discussed with regard to the Moth, and I’d always thought you couldn’t do it, we capsize the boat just to launch – a wing wouldn’t like that. It would probably be heavier, and sailing a heavy rigged Moth would not be that nice in terms of handling. But what if it did work? It been considering it for ages, and my weighs spreadsheet kept me honest for a while, until I simplified it enough, and had gone into some depth with thinking about the structure. It is an interesting problem, because the design and structure are so linked.

Post launch, I’d say I worried about the weight too much. Launching and capsize recovery was easy enough, and the effect in tacks and gybes wasn’t noticeable. The added weight up high is probably a performance gain upwind for those of us with less righting moment anyway!

Design wise it is a very simple two element wing, with camber and rear element twist control (although I probably went too far in making it capsize safe, and the rear element is quite stiff!). Being quite weight conscious I played safe on the sizing, going a bit under area. Slightly less span because I was concerned over the cg height, and slightly smaller on chord because I wanted to fit it onto a standard Mach 2 Moth, and the mainsheet location imposed a few size restrictions on me. I could have done a transom mainsheet system like some use, but having used that system and capsized on the first tack, I thought it was a little punchy given how little sailing time I had available to me. It was never intended to be a fully finished product straight away. Most people thought it couldn’t be done on a Moth, (or at least was a stupid idea!), so this was a little step into the unknown slightly.

Rules wise many people have been in touch about how you measure it. We have an ISAF sail measurement document that describes the procedure for wing sails, and I’ve chatted to the C Class guys about how they measure theirs. The Moth class measurement manual is being updated to include these documents. Ultimately whether something like this remains within the class is up to the class, as we have a philosophy of retrospective legislation. I’m not fussed either way, somebody was going to do it one day, so I just fancied being the first. It is a cool project I wanted to do, and has been worth every penny already.

Performance. A question a lot of people have been asking is how was the performance? Well I was only out for 30 mins, and that was really more of a structural test than anything else! Would it destroy itself in a shower of carbon splinters? Could you launch it? Would it survive a capsize? These where the more pressing points in my mind, but there was another boat out, and there is something in all Moth sailors – a pressing need to buzz the tower Top Gun style!

It was Simon Hiscocks out in his 49er (new rig). I lined up with him briefly downwind. I was faster, and at times was lower as well, but this was still inside the first 5mins from launch, and I was still playing with camber settings, and getting to grips with the fine line of wing trimming downwind at 19 knots. When I was in the groove, I was faster and lower at times, but occasionally I’d stall it, and have to head up to re-attach. VMG wise, about the same as my normal rig I’d say, but with plenty of potential to go better with a bit more time.

Upwind was a nice case of higher and faster. I’ve lined up against most of the GBR 49er squad, and have generally had an edge, but this felt like a fair bit more... Hard to judge though for sure, so we’ll see next week when I get to go up against some other Moths. Data logging with my PI Garda box starts on the next sail as well.

Many people have asked about how practical it is – well it is obviously not as practical as a standard rig, but this one fits on my current road trailer, and I plan to make the top section above the hounds come off after the Euros, and then it will pack into a box about the size of our current Moth travel boxes, so that then isn’t too bad.

Cost? – I had the initial mould costs, but if you forget that, the wing probably cost me only a little more than going out and getting a new mast, boom and sail together. Having done one – the time to build another would be a lot less. Interestingly a home builder could buy the component bits and get a rig for cheaper than currently.

With less than a weeks sailing time before I head off to the Euros – it is unfortunately my standard championship preparation again! But faced with the choice of sailing around just outside the top bunch regretting not doing enough sailing, or go radical and put up the wing – it was an easy call, the wing is going. Chatting to Nathan the other day – he’s done almost as much sailing in one month as I’ve done in my Mach 2 in total!

Ironically a good reason for me to do it was the lack of time I had. I was set up for another season of minimal training time in my boat due to coaching commitments. My schedule only got more hectic with TeamOrigin work as well, and I saw a careful build and sailing timeline get smaller and smaller!

But the project lent itself well to me designing it, and having it going as a project in the background whilst busy with other things.

The most work is in the thinking time on a project like this, and I had thinking time – whether it be in the evenings at events, or on a plane travelling to and from a variety of events around the globe, but I didn’t have sailing time available to me until much later in the year, so it fitted in well.

Successful projects are often about the people behind them, and I was fortunate enough to have had some great help with this.

Kevin Driver:

Originally I’d planned to get somebody to build me some leading edge moulds and do the big laminating jobs, then I’d do the rest in my workshop. I approached Kevin Driver over at the boatyard at Beer about my idea, and he was really keen to be involved. Kev was my National 12 helm many many years ago, and had a huge influence on my sailing. He made the moulds and leading edges, and got really into the project. With me snowed under with work, Kev undertook the full build project, and I concentrated on design, and small part production. I’d pop over every month or so with a programme of work, and a pile of parts of materials, explain the next stage and leave him to it. In the end Kev overtook me, building parts quicker than I could produce drawings. Working with Kev again was really cool. It was nice to be able to thrash ideas around, solve problems, and then he’d just get on with it. He kept me on track when I was pondering ways of doing it that were a little too complex or time consuming for version one. It was a shame he couldn’t be there for the launch, but hopefully he’ll get over to Weymouth in a weeks time when I sail it next, or I’ll do some showboating off Beer beach soon.

Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson – working for these guys has been great, a real privilege, and I’ve learnt a lot working with them. They were early fans of the project, and their ‘just do it’ attitude was an important encouragement early on. With my extra work coaching for them recently, I’ve looked on them in part as sponsors of the project, for without them it probably wouldn’t have happened.

Katherine – She’s put up with me being away a lot recently, and then when I was home, I’d be doing a late night trip over to Beer, building another random part, or had my head stuck in my design notes. She’s now a master of the ‘clean room’ skills such as splicing and wing skinning but went above and beyond the call of duty, swimming out with the wing to support it on the first launch! (She’ll be glad it passed the launch/capsize test later on, so we won’t be doing that again)

As a final note: I nearly started with this, but as there are a number of non-mothies reading this I’ll finish with it instead. I’ve been suffering from Babbageitis for a long time. In Dubai, Scott admitted that he often thought about what he would write in his next blog post while sailing along. Well I’ve had a bad dose of it as I’ve been pondering my possible blog posts on the wing far too much!

Thank you for all the nice messages about this. I’ll post more details soon, but I’ve got a busy week with TeamOrigin in Cowes, so I’d better focus on that.

The ribs following me, all predicted I'd play safe, and tack round on the first sail. It felt fine so I rolled straight into a foiling gybe - that got a few cheers!

Many thanks to Ben Rhodes for these photos. (Ace 49er crew, and top photographer as well it now appears!)

The Eagle has landed...

2010-08-01T20:36:00.004+01:00

A wing, on a Moth - you've got to be mad? Well quite possibly... But I've always wanted to do one, so here it is...

Will do a full blog post tomorrow, but all went well for sea trials. Doing a nice quiet launch in Weymouth the week before the biggest regatta of the year here wasn't going to happen, so it was with quite a crowd gathered that I finally launched.

Upwind felt really good, downwind needs some tuning, but all good for a shake down sail.

Full update shortly - got to pack now for Cowes week with TeamOrigin and the 1851 Cup.

Special thanks to Katherine for wing skinning today, helping with the launch and taking photos!

Busy busy busy

2010-06-11T20:46:00.003+01:00

A severe lack of blog posts recently as I've been so busy. Skandia Team GBR 2.4 work and Star work with Percy & Simpson have taken up a lot of time.

So not much time for much Mothing. Finished off a few jobs I wanted to do to the boat on unpacking it from its Dubai trip though. The hinged wand bonnet is now on, and a new style reinforced forestay attachment.

Next week should be interesting though - off out to Marseille to work for Team Origin with their TP52 programme...

Early morning sail...

2010-05-02T09:12:00.004+01:00

Ouch - up at 4:30am...

Katherine and Carbon Footprint have gone on a little adventure today. They've entered the Sunrise to Sunset charity event that is going on all around the country. (For more info she blogged about it on her site: http://www.foilingboatadventures.blogspot.com/ - thanks to those who have sponsored her!)

I was shore crew today. Having only just got back from a long period away in Valencia, my boat hasn't been put back together yet, and some last minute workshop time was needed to get Katherine's mainfoil and flap attached again, so I was rigger and photographer. And now home for a cup of tea!

5:20am

Unfortunately not much wind.... Registering about 4 knots for the first three hours sailing, although it looks like is might be building now.

(25 knots forecast for the afternoon - so a shift to a spot of windsurfing might happen!)

http://www.justgiving.com/Katherine-Knight

Day 4 - Lay day

2010-03-11T18:38:00.002Z

A pretty average day yesterday. Didn't really start very well, and never got the first beats quite right. Funny chop around as well that I never got figured out on the run, and had a few pop outs. Oh and I hit a fish up one of the first beats! A day of missed opportunities I think.

Today was good though. After a morning of catching up with some work I went for an afternoon sail, and got in some very constructive tuning runs with Mike Lennon. I learnt a lot about my set-up, and how to sail the boat differently downwind, so looking forward to the next load of races.

Dalton made my day on Wednesday when looking over boats to see what tweaks people had done, he said - "I'm disappointed to see that nobody has figured out a tacking velocitek mount". Ha ha I might not have done much sailing, but not being able to see the gps when hiking upwind had bothered me so I created the tacking gps mount for this event! More details soon....

Day 2

2010-03-09T18:37:00.003Z

A day of two solid results and then frustration with picking up two plastic bags in the third race. 8th overall after four races. I'm happy enough with that.

The first race started in foiling conditions, but the beat was light - we were sailing some big angles upwind, and it was all about staying foiling. It was light at the windward mark, and I think everybody was lowriding in the area. I rounded the top mark around tenth but felt I was really close to getting up onto the foils again, so carried on upwind a fraction beyond the spectator boats into some pressure. I held my breath and up we went. It was a tricky run, but I kept it up, and made the gybe to be pleasantly surprised to find myself on the layline. Getting close to the target time, the race was finished at the bottom, and I'd got up to 5th. Amac won, having turned around on the run to go upwind a bit to get up onto the foils!

Race two had more breeze, and I was happy to have a good start, round the top in sixth, and stay there for the race. Amac showed great up the beat, but overstood the layline massively, and left himself quite a job to get back.

A secret to his speed could be his early prep - leaving the boat rigged overnight last night meant he was rigged and ready before anybody this morning!

Race 3 was held in more breeze again, and the usual suspects started to show through. I had an okay first beat to be looking at a 10th ish at the windward mark only to hit a plastic bag, and drop off the foils. I had to capsize to clear it, and was back in the late teens. A good run though saw me back into the mix a bit, but playing the left up the next beat was not a good move and the pack I'd got down the run had go passed me again. I then hit another plastic bag on the stbd layline, and had to capsize again. I clawed passed Alex Adams on the final beat and after a battle down the run beat him to take 16th.

My 6,5,6,16 leaves me in 8th overall after 4 races, but the discard comes in tomorrow, and there are a lot of races to go.

After racing I met up with Shirley and the CNN crew to give Shirley a go in a Moth for their next CNN Mainsail show. (Only fair given that I got to sail her VX40 in Hyeres last year.) Bora had done his bit trying to get her foiling yesterday in very light winds yesterday so I was the reserve today. We got lucky with the breeze though, and she was happily foiling around. Should be a good little piece for the class.

It has made me laugh at this event though that part of the Moth event experience now is the media interviews! I think I've seen everybody from the top 15 being interviewed for some TV show, website, local paper/magazine or online broadcast! Si Payne headed off after racing to do a local TV interview and came back with make-up on!

Oh how the class has changed.

Day 1

2010-03-09T06:23:00.003Z

Day one of the Puma International Moth Worlds was a light wind affair, but a good race. I didn't get a great start, and was in the teens for the first beat. After a good run I was up near the top ten, and did well out of playing the right hand side up the beat to find myself with not many people in front. I was on the stbd layline with Mike Lennon the final time, but stuck in his dirt, in marginal conditions I lost a fair bit of distance. Si Payne closed up, and soaked inside me a bit on the run. I gybed out, and he dropped off the foils on his gybe. He got up again though and had good pressure down the middle. I came foiling back across but not at a great angle. It was all on at the finish though as I foiled through my final gybe and Simon was coming in lowriding. He pipped me at the line on a beep beep finish. I was happy with my 6th place though, I had no idea on what to expect having done so little sailing since the last Worlds.

I'm pleased with my speed - especially as I'm using a MSL10 in marginal conditions. (Using a 10 in Dubai, and a 13 in the USA might not be the right way round!) A last minute wand change made a world of difference, and suddenly I can gybe and tack again after a week of thinking it was just my lack of sailing time since the last Worlds.

Shirley Robertson is out here with CNN Mainsail, and as they are only here for three days they are trying to squeeze in getting as much coverage as possible for an upcoming feature on speed.
I agreed to help out by putting some cameras on the boat before racing and get some underwater shots of the boat taking off. It was a bit high risk with the camera attached to the gantry and therefore a high speed touchdown was not to be recommended! I eventually got up in the air despite the extra drag. De-misting cameras 30mins before the start and getting some more footage wasn't quite the normal first race of a Worlds prep, but hopefully it'll be good footage. Shirley tried sailing Bora's boat after the finish, but the wind had dropped too much for her to get up. They are now a little nervous today, as shots of Shirley doing 4/5 knots do not make for a good article on speed!

Windward mark rounding. Photo: Suzi Tagg

More Pics

2010-03-07T19:02:00.004Z

More pics for those interested in any news to come out of Dubai. I'll be brief though as its been another long day.

Third in my heat in the slalom, so just went for a sail, and played around with the camera. James Phare and I took it in turns to try and get some shots from in the water, and managed to get some okay ones. So here are the alternative shots for those who just went for a sail.

Much interest in Amac's MSL15 onshore

Tuning with Brad.

Dougie Imrie. Boat came out as oversized luggage on the plane! - great work!

Dubai Photos

2010-03-04T16:51:00.003Z

A great day on the water today. A bit of an evening session for much of Team GBR after a morning of measurement.

Alex Adams and his 'Powered by Rolly's Cakes' logo.

A good beach salute by James Phare and Paul Hayden

Puma branding and bean bags out in force.

James Phare being levitated by Brad Funk's amazing mind skills

Thierry Martinez is in town. Practically a Moth sailor now he's been to so many Moth Worlds.

And lastly not a photo of mine, but sent to me via a reliable soure. Showing a certain Swiss sailor out on the town the other night!

Dubai March 1st.

2010-03-02T07:18:00.003Z

It is time for another Moth Worlds, and once again I travelled out with Si Payne. On arrival in Dubai we joked about the large greeting party that would be there to meet us, and then we saw the sign...

How nice to have somebody there to meet us!

A taxi ride later, and we got to the club to find a neat row of travel boxes. Fortunately our logistics coordinator Ricky Tagg had done a superb job, and all the British boxes were there. (We are still waiting for a load of boxes for Team USA!)

I got stuck into unpacking straight away, once again forgetting to mentally log how I’d packed it in order to save time after the regatta! I got keen with the camera, and set it up to take a photo every minute while I built the boat. It proved how much chatting goes on during assembly! James Phare got keen and wanted a salute on film so stood there for a minute and a half to be sure to get one recorded! You can see me doing a bit of karate sailing, and pondering my gantry with hands on hips.

After lunch most people went for a sail once the seabreeze had come in, and with the boat pretty much ready to go we got out there. A nice benefit of our early arrival.

It was nice to get out on the water again. I think I’ve only done a few days sailing in Weymouth, and the Tide Ride in Hayling since the last Worlds, so my preparation for this is less than ideal! My gybing needs some work, and I need to get up to speed a bit with my height adjuster, but all worked and I was going okay.

So who was fast? – well it was day one for several people, so it is hard to tell too much, but I’d say Si Payne had the edge on people in the runs I saw.

There are quite a few boats here sailing already, and so far nothing too new. The Swiss have some netting tramps, and a variety of neat little fittings. There are North V8 version ? sails, the standard collection of KA MSl10’s and 13’s andJP had a new Swiss sail I believe. The kit Team USA have brought over is eagerly awaited..

Today we have a bit of a storm. Torrential rain should ensure some blogging by most this morning, then we’ll probably all head down to the boats to check on them later today.

Blast from the past..

2010-02-24T10:03:00.002Z

I thought BMW Oracle looked familiar....

So while the sailing World was thinking that wing sails on trimarans were new, I went home and dug out some photos of a craft, design and technology project I did when I was about 11 (quite a few years ago now!)

Wing sail, wave piercing hulls, T foil rudder, articulating floats.

Being a simple boat that was just meant to be set and released, it was never meant to fly a hull, so I adopted the pivoting float technique used on the Formula 40 ‘Adrenalin’.

Once a techno sailing geek always one.....

Valencia

2010-02-07T20:43:00.003Z

Hello from Valencia. With two of the coolest multihulls on the planet about to go head to head, this is the place to be. Forget the court cases, I’m interested in the boats, and it should be quite a show.

I’ve been a bit poor on the blogging front recently because I’ve been so busy. It’s been a good couple of months though. I was out in Rio with Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson in December while they were training for the Star Worlds, so that was great when they won that one in Jan. Then it was skiing in Les Arc, and then Miami OCR. It was good to catch up with Bora, Bear, Dalton and Brad out there, and I’d say team USA is looking good for the Worlds. I'll have to back date some blogs as I've got loads of great photos from various places, and screen grabs of the media interest in Katherine's foiling oppie (9000 hits on her blog in one day!) But with the AC tomorrow, I don't have time to write about all of that, so I'll do it all out of order slightly.

We got down here on Saturday, and have got to see Alinghi up pretty close, and watch them coming in and out from training sessions. We saw BMW Oracle leaving the commercial port this morning for a training session, unfurling the code zero in the entrance and setting off at quite a pace.

Caught up with loads of people down here which has been really nice. Being back on the Victory Challenge base today was cool. Bumped into a load of Mothies. Morgan Larson is around, and met a Japanese Moth sailor, who approached us after seeing my jacket.

Tom Whicher and team Southampton made it down after a longer than planned roadtrip – so we had tea with them! And I know of loads of others who are around.

Tom and Katherine taking Alinghi for a spin today, while I sat along for the ride!

Opening ceremony

Race officer Harold Bennet asks 'Heads or tails?' Starboard please! is the answer from the commodore of the Societe Nautique de Geneve. 'Err heads or tails?' Harold asks again! He chose tails and lost!

Fireworks - Valencia style

It is more about the noise and the smoke produced!

Just a few people out to watch today!

BMW Oracle heading off out this morning.

Alinghi coming back after sailing today.

Alinghi this morning after putting the rig up.

Should be interesting tomorrow.......

Foilborne Optimist

2009-12-07T21:16:00.005Z

Well it had been joked about in the Moth fleet for quite a while, but when I mentioned it to Katherine she was determined to try and be the first to do it. Would it really be possible to get an Optimist dinghy up onto foils? How fast can you get one to go? A Moth takes off at around 7/8 knots. Could you get an Oppie up to that speed? It can get to ~5 easily enough, would the foil assist make the difference for that last nudge towards folborne flight? It hardly has the streamlined shape like a Moth, its a bit heavier, and the rig slightly smaller! It does measure as a Moth though - with only the addition of a Moth logo you'd be fine.

Oh well you'll never know if you don't try. We saw an old wooden Oppie for sale locally going very cheap so we got hold of it, and it sat in the workshop for some time. It needed a bit of work to even get it back on the water. The rowlocks and seat are not essential foiling equipment! Katherine was let loose with a power sander, and various pots of paint and varnish while I pondered how to fit the foils from 'Carbon Footprint' into this vintage wooden Oppie.

Aside from the renovation work required, the actual conversion to foils only took a weekend of bimbling. The aim was to use as much as possible from the Moth, so the foils, gantry, and wand could just plug on. In order to use the same cable from the Moth, and get the wand out in front of the boat and main foil, we made up a little bowsprit. A bit of glass fibre fishing rod, and some carbon supports from the scrap bin and we were there. The gantry was bolted to the transom with some little carbon brackets I laminated up. The main foil fitted through the existing centreboard case (just!) and a cover plate to mount over the open case on the underside of the hull was made up. The exact profile of the board was then cut out of this. (The 'speedfish' as

dubbed by Katherine) The whole boat was assembled in the workshop. (great when you can actually get the mast up inside!) foil angles checked, and then all loaded into the back of Katherine's Transporter van. A useful travel feature of the Foiling Oppie concept! We then had to cope with Katherine getting rather excited by the whole idea of this test pilot lark while we waited for a weather window...

Last Saturday turned out to be our chance to try it out. On the upper limit for Moth sailing, with the training weekend cancelled due to a horrific forecast for Sunday we went for it. Still unsure if this would really work or not we went for a stealth approach, launching off one of the pontoons. This was partly due to the fact that the Oppie hullform does not lend itself very well to being launched on its side, and righted in the water in typical Moth style, so we put the foils in on the dock, and rolled the boat in to avoid an early fill up.The rig was then lifted in, and our eager test pilot was released from the dock trying to remember how to sail an Optimist, and wishing we'd put some grip in the bottom of it!

It certainly didn't leap out of the water like the Moths do, but it showed potential early on, nudging its nose skyward. We were struggling for rudder lift, and wound the gantry as far fwd as we could. It was after this tweak that Katherine sailed out to the entrance, caught a big gust and the Oppie launched itself to max height on the foils. I was unfortunately still walking back to my camera, and missed the max height photo, but got to it in time to get the crash that followed. Any foiler will recognise that as a crash from height!

We'd had visions of the rig falling down, or bits falling off if we had a crash but if you ignored some cracking wood noises all was fine.

We tried several more times to get a decent photo of it in the air inside the marina, and although it was clearly working I never managed to get the shot with foils clearly visible. There just wasn't enough wind inside to do it, and we were still struggling for rudder lift. We called it a day, happy that the whole idea wasn't so stupid after all. Next time we'll get a rib, and just send it out into the harbour looking for more breeze.

Phase two is lined up already, with a much bigger rudder ready to go and a new North sail. Unfortunately it is unlikely to be until the New Year, but watch this space...

Foiling is fun!

--------------

I should probably finish with a health warning! It is probably not recommended for every Oppie dad to now go and plug some Moth foils into their kids Oppie! Although great fun to do, the narrow foil spacing, small rig, flat bow and launching issues do not make for the ideal first foiling boat! This was only ever intended as a one off proof of concept joke!

Foiling Tacks

2009-10-28T01:30:00.010Z

Two tacking sequences by Bora and Simon during the Slalom racing at the Worlds.

Big Wave, Little Boat.

2009-10-14T06:35:00.003+01:00

Practice race day at the IFDS Worlds here in Athens, yesterday and no sailing. The breeze dropped in the afternoon, so one of my squad, Helena Lucas was keen to go for a quick sail in the waves.

Worlds Photos

2009-10-12T16:55:00.011+01:00

A quick selection of Worlds pics. Slalom shots, boom of doom, and foiling tacks still to come.

Athens Mothing

2009-10-12T16:47:00.004+01:00

Coming in today I caught sight of a Bladerider sailing around just off our marina in Athens. I was going to ask if anybody knows any Moth sailors in Athens, but a look through my photos this evening revealed a website address on the sail, and I've tracked down the helm to be: Andreas Kosmatopoulos, a top Greek 470 Olympian.

I only got to chat to him briefly as he seemed keen to go and do fly-bys past a Yngling, but he said he'd be out again tomorrow.

Weymouth Speed Week

2009-10-10T09:02:00.006+01:00

Katherine and Carbon Footprint are entered in a few days of Weymouth Speed Week. Best of luck to her and the 'Print'!

To check out the news, pics and latest speeds check out: http://www.speedsailing.com/

Update: Although the website hasn't been updated, I've just heard that Katherine was fastest boat, first woman, and 12th overall on day 1!

Katherine has now been invited to speak at the Amateur Yacht Research Society dinner on Wed! Has been showing school trips around the boat, and has been filmed today. I think we eed to do bit of a Moth raid on Speed Week next year!

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory!

2009-10-06T08:11:00.001+01:00

The HOLT Tide Ride was last weekend, and it was my chance to get out sailing again after a very long wait for our boats to get back from the USA. (A missing carnet seemed to delay progress for some time!)

I was looking forward to see how I lined up against the UK fleet post Worlds.

We had the afternoon slot on Saturday, but the breeze had built during the day and was too much by late afternoon. Geoff happily volunteered to be a crash test dummy, and did some nice crashes for us all to prove it wasn’t wise to race.

Sunday dawned with around 8-12 knots, being very shifty from off the land. Going with the novel racing format of the event we had two mid gates to go through and a leeward gate, although they were staggered somewhat making it more into a slalom.

I’ll try and held Ricky go into a little more detail for the report, but the qualifying series went well for me. So with a 1,1,3,1 scoreline, I was first going into the lunch break, Ricky was second with a 5,2,1,4. Rod third with 2,4,4,2, and Mike Lennon fourth with 3,3,2,3.

With the Tide Ride event format, the scores wouldn’t count for much though except your current position would count as a race result to add to your final race result. So I’d go into the final with 1 point, Ricky with 2, and so on.

Now the last fleet out the tide had turned, and the breeze dropped. We could still foil around, just, but the weed was now looming throughout the course. I rounded the windward mark with the lead bunch, and went to gybe inside Mike and Ricky who had dropped off the foils in front of me. But there was a bit of a bang, and the lower portion of my kicker system decided it had had enough for the weekend. With the kicker now in a rather eased setting, promoting early foiling was proving rather difficult so I spent most of the run low riding. Rod foiled away into an early lead, and the rest of the fleet compressed up in a light patch just below the windward mark. It all got a bit confusing here as I thought Mike and Ricky had both got away, but in fact they had both collected so much weed they were doing regular capsizes to clear it. So I actually sailed around in about 3rd or 4th for much of the race and it was only on the final run that they both foiled passed me, so I ended up 5th. Rod therefore won the regatta with a 3,1. I was second with a 1,5, Ricky 3rd with a 2,4, and Mike 4th with a 3,3.

Congratulations to Rod, he sailed a solid weekend, and kept it foiling through a critical gybe in the final to take him on to the win. (Note to self – perhaps helping Rod out with his light wind technique wasn’t such a good plan!)

I’m now out of the country for a month with coaching work in Athens and Florida, but looking forward to getting in as much Mothing as I can when I get back. I only hope I can get all the sand off the boat!

Congratulations Mike and Emma!

2009-09-06T16:12:00.008+01:00

Sincere apologies to Grafham open meeting but there was a bigger event on the Moth calender the other week. The wedding of Mike Cooke to Emma Wilkins! Although I've got loads of great Worlds pics that I know many are keen to see, I'm going to jump the queue and publish the wedding pics first.

Mike and Emma wanted a relaxed wedding, and had asked me to do the wedding photos (no pressure then!) Although I'd like them to be able to look through them first (if only to see what the Moth crew got up to once they left!) I was given permission by Mike's Dad Terry to get some out online!

How many brides do you know have entered to the theme tune of Top Gun? - Tom Whicher was almost moved to tears!

The happy couple

Mothies at the ceremony.

The photo of everybody

And me!

James displaying his 'life skill' of Iphone Saxaphone. - It went downhill for James from about here on....

Bubbles on each table... They were to feature later on...

Tom with a cup of tea. Jolly good show! Although he looked just as comfortable with Pimms!

Given the general readership of this blog outside family, I'll stick to mothie related pics.

Tom and James were first onto the dance floor.

Of course Alan couldn't resist a little dance!

The happy couple leave in Emma's wedding present! (She was bouncing around showing everybody the keys more than the ring!)

With the Bride and Groom gone, James becomes DJ...

And the Mothies present hit the dance floor!

With no boats to fly - alternative dance moves were the order of the day.

With a few Top Gun aircraft carrier simulations featuring as well.

James and Tom decided to drink the bubble mix, or rather James did after Tom did a good impression of drinking it.... He was blowing bubbles for the rest of the evening!

Last off the dance floor

UFO's or MLDT?

2009-08-28T09:55:00.003+01:00

MLDT? - It is the Moth Light Display Team – an elite International group of light painters!
More photos coming up of what Mothies can get up to late at night in a campsite!

Been busy catching up with life on return from the Gorge. Great event, and happy enough with my result. I finished about where I thought I would given my time sailing and the high powered entry list. I was just behind the top ten bunch but they started better, nailed the shifts better, and just had just a bit of pace on me upwind. I was in a great bunch though with very close racing. Role on Dubai, and Silvaplana, I think the events are just going to be getting better and better. Exciting times in the class.

Congratulations to Bora, he sailed a great series, and was a worthy winner.

I’ve got a lot of photos to upload from the event, foiling tacks, some good crashes, & the boom of doom, to list a few. I’ll try and get through them all soon.

Brits in Town

2009-08-03T18:25:00.003+01:00

We've arrived.

No boats yet, but after two long flights we are in Cascade Locks. Just trying to track down the exact location of the boats, and then it is looking like a chilled day. We've done the local huge breakfast of pancakes, french toast, eggs, bacon etc, and a quick walk down to the club (hut / beach area!).

Time for a tea/ coffee break now....

Leaving on a jet plane..

2009-08-01T10:55:00.003+01:00

09 Worlds Prep

Well I had my Mach 2 in the country for a whole week before shipping it off to the USA! In typical Weymouth fashion we had gales all week, and although stuck ashore for many days, I did get out three times. At least I got some windy weather sailing in before the Gorge – but saying that I apologise now to everybody if it is now light winds!

Although not intentional, I think I may end up being the ultimate test for the Mach 2 aim of being able to deliver a competitive boat straight out of the box! Some have been worried about the reliability of the mach 2’s but I was impressed with the quality from opening the box. I’ve only had to do two mods – one was to add a May stick, and the other was to replace a welded part within the wand system that was the cause of many people’s problems at the Euros. The boat even came with all the splicing done, which was the bit I was looking fwd to doing with a new boat! I replaced the control lines for some Marlow Excel racing, and used pretty much everything else that came with it.

I got two days of getting used to the boat, and then a constructive sail against Alex Adams where I was just able to do some proper line ups and confirm my angles and speeds a bit. I actually feel quite settled in the boat, and looking forward to the Worlds, but I really must stop the last minute prep each year! At least Dubai next year is outside of the main sailing season so I might have time to do more of my own sailing instead of time in a rib.

So it is over to Simon’s place tonight, and then the four of us flying out (Simon Payne, James Phare, Andrew Friend, and myself) leave from Gatwick on Sunday morning.

In other news, Katherine and Carbon Footprint have made it into Seahorse magazine this month.

Next boat...

2009-07-29T19:02:00.002+01:00

I recently found again an interesting article that I’d originally seen online written by Mike Lennon describing the dilemma of sailing a development class boat. Do you continue to develop your current boat hoping to gain through gradual refinement, and knowing your boat well or do you opt for the latest design features out there? With the pace of development in the Moth class, this is perhaps even trickier than in the 14 class Mike was originally referring to.

I’ve been pondering this question for much of the season. I’ve done a number of changes to ‘Envy’, and all I think have been successful, but the 09 generation are fast... We are all learning so much about these boats all the time.

With a likely windy Worlds, and the real strength of my current foils being the lighter more marginal stuff, I ordered a set of Mach 2 foils a while back. I figured Amac would have learnt a lot from the Bladerider, and as everybody was still trying to catch up with that, he’d probably be a generation ahead again. I had ideas on what I’d do, with lots of sketches and CAD files, but no time to do it, so I thought a set of these would be a good option.

Things didn’t go quite according to plan though with complete Mach 2’s proving to be very popular, individual foil order delivery times got longer and longer... In the end I bit the bullet and converted my foil payment into a boat deposit, and so now I’m the proud owner of a Mach 2. Their pace has been impressive, and although I had another Velociraptor hull pencilled in with Sam Pascoe (who has access to the moulds now that Simon Hiscocks has them), and Mike Cooke has recently made new boat decisions a lot trickier, the raw pace of the Mach 2 and the level of control won me over. And I know that with identical kit I can race Simon pretty hard! ;-)

As for preparation time before the Worlds, ah that is another story..

Longshot....Update

2009-07-21T16:41:00.005+01:00

A bit of a longshot idea, but does anybody in the UK have a 2 piece skinny mast they'd be interested in loaning/chartering out to me to take to the Worlds (and thus cut down on shipping costs!) and they can use either one (or both) of my one piece CST 40mm masts in the meantime?...

Update: Thank you so much to those who've offered masts. I've had some generous offers from around the World. I'm once again impressed with the nature of this class, and how willing to help out people are. I think I'm sorted though with a chop and sleeve planned, and a possible borrowed mast to take as a UK fleet spare.

The Print in print

2009-07-18T10:32:00.003+01:00

Carbon Footprint and Katherine have been getting a bit of local press coverage here in Weymouth! When Katherine spoke to her work about getting time off work to go to the Europeans they got excited about a different story related to them in the local paper, and some logos on the main. Since then their adventures have been a regular feature!

Star mothie

2009-07-18T10:22:00.003+01:00

I'm just trying to catch up with various news snippets that I thought were blog worthy and I found the photo above from Kiel. It seems like no matter where you go now you'll bump into a mothie. I was sure I recognised him when he lined up for a tuning run with Percy and Bart, and I was right, it was Andrew Landenburger, 89 Moth World Champion, and a fellow Tornado sailor as well. He's trying his hand in the Star class now.

Nationals Blog: Or the National rain survival championships...

2009-07-15T15:19:00.002+01:00

UK Nationals 09.

Race One: 12 – 15knots, a pin end biased line and a bit of a dilemma about going for the suspected wind bend on the right or a fraction more pressure in the left. I won the pin end, and headed left. I managed to squeeze through underneath Mike Lennon, and get my nose out in front enough to be able to tack and cross when I thought I was close to the layline. Those in the right looked okay but I was pleased to see them come out of the right on a bad angle in poor pressure. That would leave the race to the top mark between me and those who’d chosen a line above mine, and Mike Cooke who hadn’t had a very good start but was going fast up the middle on port. I got round first, with those above me overstanding, so it was Mike C round in second. I struggled in the waves a bit to find a good line, and Mike C got through low and fast below me. Mike L just behind him was next through. I gybed on the layline, then had a fast charging Rod Harris then roll over the top of me. Mmm 1st to fourth on the run, not ideal after the good first beat I’d had. I made gains up the next beat to round the top just behind Mike Lennon, and a few lengths ahead of Rod. Rod gained on me, but a pop out cost him some distance. Mike Cooke went for a quick swim but was able to right quick enough to lead Lennon round the leeward mark and up to the finish. Rod got passed me just before the leeward mark, but I was able to take a nice high line above him and hold him out enough to tack for the finish line first to take third.

With the visibility down to less than half the beat, and an increasing breeze forecast to get up to 42 knots later in the day the fleet was sent ashore.

Day 2,
Race 2: An average start, a bit below the fleet and tacked on the layline while many carried on to far, but it was a shocking tack, and after a brief dip of the rig in the water, I had a bit of catching up to do! Rounding the top mark around 20th was not ideal. But a short course and about 6 laps I was able to make gains. Eventually I could see the leaders just ahead, but had no real idea of my position as the course was so busy with boats on various different laps. I thought I’d climbed back in to the top ten, but was pleased to find out later I was actually 5th. Damn that first tack...

Race 3: With a pin end biased line Paul Hayden port tacked the fleet, and those off the pin end were looking good. I was about 1/3rd of the way up, and headed left until the layline. I was please to see everybody else carry on though! Mike Lennon had only gone a fraction further than me, and got over the top of me to lead round the top mark, with me a few lengths back. Paul Hayden had suffered from heading right with his great start and didn’t have the same angle as those coming out of the left. For a little while I had Mike Cooke just below me whilst going across on port, and I was worried he’d show some of his impressive pace again, but I managed to eek over him slightly, and didn’t see him again after he swim at the top of the run. On the run I was able to soak down inside Lennon and gybe for the leeward mark first to take the lead. Liking the left again I tacked off up the beat and played the shifts up the left again. This enabled me to extend my lead and start building a bit of a buffer. I was happy and fast on the runs on stbd in the flat water at the top, but I struggled in the waves on port at the bottom of the course. The chasing Mach 2’s of Lennon and Ricky Tagg got passed me at one point, but another good beat of playing the shifts got me back into the lead which I held to the finish.

Race 4: An average start and okay first beat saw me round the top mark in about 7th or 8th, but I nailed the layline on the run and got inside most of the leaders who’d gone too far, to be second at the leeward mark behind Geoff Carveth. I remained here for most of the race until I managed to drop the mainsheet up one of the beats and in the resulting crash somehow managed to pitchpole upwind! By the time I’d righted I was back into fourth. Up the subsequent beat I was sure there was quiet a wind bend at the top, and so tacked well under the layline. I got the expected shift, and sailed through underneath Lennon and Harris to get back into 2nd. I didn’t quite get the gybe location right, and in the drag race to the line, Lennon got over me, with Harris manage to get the jump over both of us to take second behind Carveth.

So the final run of the last race of the day decided who would be the overall leader after four races. It was tight at the top with Cooke leading on race win countback from Lennon, one point ahead of myself and Harris.

Day three was blown off, so the championship was to be decided on the last two races on Tuesday.

Race 5: A big sea state and 15-18 knots saw a lot of the fleet swimming on the runs trying to negotiate the waves. I really struggled to get downwind in the waves and swam a lot, which put pay to my Nationals chance. With so much swimming going on it was tricky to see who’d won. Many thought Rod Harris had won (including him!) but it turned out that Paul Hignett had got round in the best shape. Lennon was 3rd and Cooke 4th. (I think..)

Race 6: So it would come down to the final race between Harris, Lennon and Cooke. I didn’t see much of it unfortunately as I pitchpoled shortly after rounding the windward mark in second.. From watching from a distance Cooke sailed a solid race to take the win, from Hignett who was obviously liking the wavy conditions. Harris beat Lennon, but The final result wasn’t completely sure when we all got to the beach though. Few people had noticed Paul Hignett’s performance on the water and Mike Cooke wasn’t sure of his results.... Nobody was sure until the results were posted at the club.

In the final analysis Cooke took the Championships from Harris by 1 point, who in turn was 1 point ahead of Lennon. Impressive to have another close event finish after the Euros.

So Mike Cooke is the 2009 National Champion. A well deserved win for him, and a great result for his new boat. The atmosphere within the fleet is as great as ever. It was mentioned by some that although we are racing each other there is greater camaraderie amongst the fleet than you’d find in many big boat teams sailing together!

A quick review of a select few:

1st Mike Cooke. Probably won this regatta on raw pace. The Ninja is fast make no mistake, and has good control in the waves. Starting was Mike’s weak spot, but he had sufficient pace that when he’d got into a clear lane he could pull through quite quickly, so perhaps he was just being cautious. Swimming in race 1, 3, 4, and 5 could have cost him the event but he was always able to come back enough. A large mainfoil, and small rudder, but a rig positioned further fwd than normal relative to the fleet, and no rudder angle adjustment may make people think again about some of the design choices out there. One thing is certain – Mike will be busy in Aardvark HQ for a while now!

2nd Rod Harris. Another solid regatta from Rod. Probably not the fastest out there, but was always up there. Continued wand work has given him a good controllable set-up in breeze, and plenty of winter sailing has given him solid boathandling. A good result for the Prowler, and good evidence that there isn’t a lot between all the packages that a bit of tweaking can’t fix. If it had been a lighter event Rod would have been the first to admit that he wouldn’t be able to hang onto some of the lighter wind specialists, but it remained breezy and he converted that into results. Overstanding a few laylines, and not doing the full maths before the last race possibly cost him the win..

3rd Mike Lennon. Always up there, but never quite converted that into any race wins. He’d shown great pace early in the season, but either the fleet has caught up, or he’s slowed a fraction. Lots of rig playing didn’t look to have produced results yet.

4th Paul Hignett. He hadn’t really been seen up with the front four in the first four races, but a great last day with a 1st and 2nd, propelled Paul up the results sheet.

5th Ricky Tagg: A weld failure in his wand system resulted in a RTD in race one, but he started to get the feel of his new Mach 2 as the event went on, and showed impressive pace at times.

6th Geoff Carveth: Consistently up there, and with a good race win I thought Geoff was the person to get 4th from me, but I hadn’t accounted for Paul and Ricky’s final day showings.

7th Me: I struggled for control in the bigger wave races, and that showed in my pace downwind in race 1 and number of swims on the last day. In flat water I was very competitive, with all the recent little mods helping. (This afternoon I’ll fit a new wand bracket with revised geometry!) I probably made my biggest gains on calling good laylines, and I enjoyed the shifty breeze races. My new boat plans are a good subject for a future blog....

20th Katherine Knight: Fresh from learning much about high wind sailing at the Europeans Katherine sailed a great event to get round the course in conditions that were too much for most of the fleet. She had just one rtd when the shroud fitting pulled off the wingbar, but somehow she caught it and was faced with an interesting what to I do now dilemma! The Mini rig once again proved its worth, and I’ll do a proper blog post on that soon.

Equal Last: Simon Payne. Simon missed the first race as he was at his sons sports day. Many thought he’d rock up and win the remaining races, but a reoccurring issue under the bonnet stopped that. The issue was with the through deck wand control cable that had been moved slightly on his prototype boat, but didn’t remain attached enough. The two repairs attempted in the car park didn’t hold either. He lead round the windward mark in the two races he started, but headed ashore soon after.

Outside of the top few, there are a lot of people going about the same speed, but the biggest factor around the course is the extra distance being sailed by people overstanding laylines upwind and down.

Soon a quick technical review....

Star Europeans

2009-07-06T15:06:00.002+01:00

Congratulations to Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson for winning the Star Europeans. Robert Scheidt won the open title, but it was an impressive result for the guys given the 9/10 month break since winning Gold in China.

It was great to be able to go and work with them before the regatta. I think I learnt more from them than they did from me! but they've asked me back to do more with them so that is good.

Trying my hand at a spot of Star crewing - just need to put on 40kg!

Europeans

2009-07-04T07:43:00.001+01:00

From one Europeans and on to another. I’m now in Kiel, helping out the Star team of Percy and Simpson in the week leading up to their Europeans so it is a good time to reflect on the Moth Europeans just gone. It is quite funny going from flying around in a Moth the other week to a spot of Star helming and crewing! I’ve always loved the Star, but at 30-40kg underweight I think I’ll stick to the coachboat watching them for the moment!

So the Euros didn’t go so well for me, but more about that later.

In what is quickly becoming Moth tradition, we had a big case of ‘it’s not normally like this!’ 7-14knots during practice became 20/25knots with a nice chop.

Arnoud won, but it couldn’t have been any closer between him and Simon, all coming down to the final race after countback couldn’t break them. They were a class apart from the rest of the field, sharing all the race wins between them. Arnos regatta didn’t start very well when some rigging let go just a boatlength or two after launching for race 1. Fortunately the Swiss support team was quick to respond and he was back on the water after a quick re-rig, only to be back in again soon after with a wand issue. Ultimately I think Arnoud just started a fraction better than Simon, and Simon was on the back foot a little more. Third was Eelco Boers in a Bladerider VRX. Hadn’t really seen him before the event, and he kept a low profile on the race course (lots of black Bladeriders looking similar!) but good pace upwind in the breeze kept the results coming. Fourth was Mike Lennon. Always up there, but never quite able to challenge the top three. Fifth was Mike Cooke. A superb regatta from him in his new Ninja. Solid pace kept him in consistent results. Sixth: Rod Harris – A bit down before the regatta (“why spoil a good day with racing!”), Rod persevered with his wand set-up to ultimately find some good pace and control in the breeze and sailed a very solid regatta to keep chipping away good results.

Katherine and ‘Carbon Footprint’ had a great event to be first female competitor, and to get round in all four of the races on the last day, while many decided not to sail, or headed in early.
The Mini rig did her proud and once we’d tweaked the wand system to account for her lighter weight ‘The Print’ was much more controllable, with Katherine joining the 20 knot club with a 20.7 knot max. Quote of the day was; “When I die and I see the video of my life – those bear-aways will be in it!”

Unfortunately my regatta didn’t go so well. I’d done a few set-up changes before that were definitely better, and a few ride height tweaks just before racing helped again, but ultimately I was too set up for more moderate conditions and flat water. Too much sailing in Weymouth and no waves caught me out when we had breeze and waves come in, and I didn’t get the set-up changed enough to survive the downwinds, and did a fair bit of pitchpoling. The tramp ripping in half under me as I righted the boat on launching for the first race wasn’t a great way to start though! A 5th in race 2 was okay, but then a cam came off the mast in between races. So I capsized to go and try and get it back on, only for all the other ones to come off. Race three with no cams in was tricky.. Race 4 I struggled for control in the breeze downwind. More of the same on the last day until the gantry decided it had enough of the demands of me trying to survive the downwinds and left the program. It is not a nice sight still having a tiller extension in your hand but looking back at you gantry and rudder a few lengths behind you! The gantry is now back in better shape than before, and I’ll do a few wand tweaks when I get back. Slightly frustrating when I know I can fly early and had found new pace in the medium stuff. That will teach me for expecting a light wind regatta – where have we heard that before.... Ironically just down the coast in Kiel now we’ve only had one day of breeze over 10 knots all week. (Perfect Star sailing weather for me (well the under 5 knot day was anyway!)

Last day with the Star guys today then finish the drive home. Great week in Kiel, but that is a subject for another posting...

Horsens 06

2009-06-18T09:24:00.006+01:00

Before we drive on up to Denmark again I thought I'd dig out some of my photos from the 06 Worlds. I'm looking forward to going back there.

The first public appearance of the much awaited Bladerider!

Simon, Sam, Burkhard and Russ ponder foil shapes...

Moth chaos

Inside the event tent.

Simon doing his bit for foreign relations (before the last night!) "I'm sorry, I hate it when it does that"

John trying to fix his watch with a hammer?

Simon Payne - World Champion here in 06, and my odds on favourite for the Euros here this year.

PS: Apologies for the lack of blog posts - been a bit of a hectic period. Will try and report back in full after the Europeans. We've had a few Moth opens, a bit of Farr45 and Figaro sailing, a visit from the Queen, Holland regatta, squad camps and a fair bit of Moth sailing.

I'll try to get back on top of my postings soon, so Katherine's mum won't be left wondering if I'm ill or something!

Paralympic Mothing pt2

2009-06-05T08:13:00.004+01:00

"Is it a by-product of foiling that you can't stop grinning?" Those were John's words to me as he reflected on his first spin in a Moth that evening.

A few weeks ago I'd read on Sailing Anarchy about Maureen McKinnon -Tucker having a go in one of the Puma Moths in Boston. I'd met Maureen on the Paralympic circuit, and watched her win Gold in China. I thought her sailing a Moth as a great story. She loved her go, but didn't get flying, so it got me thinking....

I mentioned it to our Sonar helm John Robertson, and he was very keen to give it a try.

With the whole Paralympic team training out of Weymouth this week, and some lovely evening breeze we saw our opportunity on Wednesday. Katherine was going for a sail in Carbon Footprint after work, and I was in a rib. We finished the formal session on the water, did a very quick pack up of the boats, and got John and the rest of our Moth support team into the rib.

It is worth noting here that we didn't just stick a paraplegic friend of ours into a Moth and let him go without a bit of thought. We'd done a fair bit of thinking about how to do it, and who'd do what. (I was slightly nervous about telling our Olympic manager about what I'd done to one of our squad if it all went wrong!) So the plan was to drive the rib up to Katherine, and get the wing onto the tube, and transfer John across. Onboard the rib we had Niki Birrell was our rib bowman and wing holder. (Niki was our Skud helm in China, and next on the list for the foiling Moth experience). Mark Rushall the Sonar team coach, and Steve Thomas the Sonar mainsheet man and our main muscle for getting John back into the rib. We had a recovery plan, and everybody knew what they were to do if we had any issues.

So we got him onboard and let go! First attempt was brief, but showed it was actually quite easy to do the transfer and recovery. Attempt 2 was good, John had full control of it at lowspeed, and covered some distance, but didn't quite manage to get the bearaway in to build enoough speed to foil. Attempt 3 was to go for the bearaway, the mainfoil popped up, briefly but we didn't quite get full flight. John was cold now (no wetsuit of drysuit on!) but had the taste of it, and wanted to go again. Attempt 4 was a good bearaway, an he was up! He wasn't up for long as it did a slow roll to windward but he'd been flying! It was a very happy man that we pulled into the rib after that one!

We'll be out again over the summer, when I think he'll happily be able to foil the width of the harbour next time now he's got the feel of it.

Paralympic Mothing

2009-06-03T23:00:00.002+01:00

Mission accomplished. 2 times Sonar World Champion John Robertson left his wheelchair on the dock this evening and went for a quick spin in Katherine's Carbon Footprint! He couldn't stop grinning afterwards!

Full report and more pics tomorrow!

Close Encounters of the VX40 Kind.

2009-04-18T19:20:00.007+01:00

We were fortunate enough to be able to squeeze in a spot of VX40 sailing yesterday in between sessions of training before Hyeres regatta starts tomorrow.

Shirley Robertson was down in Hyeres training with her iShares crew, and along with her mainsheet man Hugh Styles who was my Tornado helm in the Sydney Games, kindly offered us a quick ride.

Helena and Megan didn't stop grinning all day! They both had a spin on the helm, with Helena mentioning she'd never sailed a multihull before whilst flying a hull downwind at over 20 knots.

They finished their session with a fly-by of the 2.4 fleet.

The Weapon gets a new home

2009-04-17T08:32:00.004+01:00

The Weapon has a new owner, Olivier Vidal, and many people will be sick to hear that during his test sail of the Weapon he was managing a few foiling gybes!

I got to sail Carbon Footprint for a bit and with a few (magic) wand tweaks she is flying well. Katherine was really quick with her the other day in sub foiling conditions, even with the mini rig up.

With both Katherine and Olivier out trying gybes, and the last few visitors to Portland doing the same I really should update the foiling guide notes I'd started to write, as there are a few key points to figure out in the gybes that make a big difference.

I'm now out in Hyeres with the 2.4's, so unable to make the Haylng open. I hope they get luckier with the weather this weekend. I think we had the best of it in Weymouth!

Moth Sailors/Designers - A Special Breed!

2009-04-04T08:32:00.003+01:00

1993 - drawing freaky Moth designs, then fast forward to 2009!

Sorting through my file of all Moth related info the other day I found a little cutting from a 1993 Yachts and Yachting magazine. It featured a wacky design for a Moth, designed by a young Richard Jenkins, who I mentioned the other day set the new Wind Powered Land Speed record.

Yes he was a Moth sailor! Richard the class salutes you!

So where are our next freaky designs?

Gill Advert

2009-03-31T11:59:00.003+01:00

Just heard today that GILL are using this shot of me as one of their dinghy adverts this year. It is one of Oskar's shots from Garda.

(One of the most photographed boats around is still for sale!)

Over 50 knots

2009-03-27T15:54:00.003Z

Just as I write about one speed record, it turns out that Macquarie Innovations has gone over the 50 knot mark!

Impressive stuff.

126.1 mph

2009-03-27T12:38:00.003Z

Congratulations to Richard Kenkins for breaking the World Land Speed Record for wind powered vehicles. The 'Greenbird' driven by British engineer, Jenkins clocked 126.1 mph (202.9 km/h) , eclipsing the old, American held, record of 116 mph, set by Bob Schumacher in the Iron Duck in March 1999 at the same location.

More info on his website: http://www.greenbird.co.uk (He's trying to go for the Land, Ice and Water records!)

An interesting time for speed under sail! It is great to hear that Paul Larson is well after his last crash at high speed, and is about to enter into another period of attempts on the World Sailing Speed Record.

And it could be any day that we hear if the next AC will be in Multihulls or not....

Oh and the Formula One circuit begins again this weekend, so I'll be looking forward to watching that. Looks like the smaller teams have got a march on the bigger teams early in the season, so could be interesting to follow.

Gybing

2009-03-23T09:42:00.003Z

Moth sailors around the World know our boats are quick, and also very efficient, but try and explain a foiling gybe to some other sailors and you are met with blank looks. Nobody seems to believe you that the apparent blows from the bow mid gybe. Hopefully these diagrams should be of interest to some Mothies and a few other sailors out there.

I’ve got quite a list of things to look at while testing the PI Garda box, but a diagram I saw in Seahorse has been in the back of my mind and I wanted to do a Moth version. In the Jan 2008 edition there was a great article by Steve Killing on the 2007 International C-Class Catamaran Championship, and there was a diagram that accompanied the text showing the anatomy of a C-Class gybe. I thought this was quite interesting, and following my own observations during the event I thought a foilborne gybe would be nice to try and show in this format. I’ll try and get some screen grabs from the video to go with it soon.

These gybes were selected for the consistency of the trace before and after the gybe. I got a bit carried away with having the box on, that I did quite a few gybes in quick succession and so the track wasn’t very smooth between them, with the exit from one gybe blending into the entry to the next. The gybes shown here are gybes 2, and 5 of the day, and probably not my best, but representative of good foiling gybes (I hope!). Both plots show the point of lowest speed, and when I was heading directly downwind. I got a bit more organised for the second plot, and all the points except the lowest speed one are separated by 2 seconds. So the average gybe takes about 10 seconds if you think of it terms of time taken from average reaching speed on one tack to getting back up to that speed on the other tack. This seems like a long time, but then you watch the video and it doesn’t seem that long. Now consider that your average VMG downwind through the whole manoeuvre is only just less than your standard VMG numbers…. Good gybes in these conditions have minimal loss, and open up a host of tactical options.

This was from my first day out sailing with the PI Garda box. There was an average windspeed of just over 9 knots for the period I was on the water. (Measured from my onboard weather station – which is a bit low at 1m above the sheerline on the bow, but more accurate than me guessing the windspeed or checking the harbour wall data afterwards.)

Top speed measured on the day was 19.1 knots in 10.0 knots of breeze.

Plenty more data coming as I learn more about the software and what it can do.

Performance Analysis

2009-03-16T11:34:00.006Z

I was approached recently by the guys at Cosworth about testing their new PI Garda GPS sailing system, and providing them with some data they can use. I’ve come across the PI kit before in my work with Skandia Team GBR, and Victory Challenge, but I’ve not seen it used on anything quite as small as a Moth. I’ve now had it on the boat a few times and should be able to publish the data here soon.

The Pi Garda system from Cosworth Electronics, is a sophisticated GPS linked to wind gear that records and analyses a lot of interesting factors such as wind speed and direction to produce key performance measures such as VMG and polars along with standard tracking data. On top of this the analysis software used can do a variety of analysis tasks such as; automatic tacking and gybing analysis and layline & startline tools, all synchronised with relevant video. I’m still learning about all the different features that can be done, analysed or added on in the way of sensors or custom fittings. Strain gauges, rudder sensors and inertial measurement tools have all been mentioned, but to start with I’m sailing with a system that has the ‘black box’ GPS, with an IMU giving me heel and pitch angles, all linked to some Raymarine wind gear mounted on the bow.

Testing has begun – so technical minds out there – what data would you be interested in? Data I’ve got so far to be posted soon.

About Cosworth Electronics: Cosworth Electronics’ pioneering technologies heralded a turning point in racecar innovation, helping to create champions in Formula 1, IndyCar, and many more. Now their marine division are looking into the world of performance sailing, including Americas Cup Syndicates, speed record challengers and Olympic sailors.

www.cosworth-electronics.com

www.pi-garda.com

Poole Open Day 2

2009-03-15T16:32:00.005Z

A slight reversal on the wind fortunes today. We got keen and went out, but it was light - very light. A few who'd come out of the marina the other way got foiling briefly, so I drifted over to sample a bit of the breeze they had. I got foiling twice, but it soon died off and we drifted back down to where the committee boat was.

It always amazes me how often you sail in really light conditions, but you manage to foil at least once in the day, and it all seems worth it. What was satisfying was that I was about to be overtaken by a Laser sailor who shouted over 'Not so fast today are you!', just as I got a little puff and popped up onto the foils and off into the distance before I thought of a smart reply.

Zero wind tricks soon became the order of the day:

Stern sinking - how far can you go without doing the full spin over backwards. - (The going over the front option was attempted but aborted early on!)

The transom sink spin whilst capsized - but climbing over the board to stay dry during the operation.

Bow sink spin whilst capsized - again going over the board and staying dry.

Eventually we canned it and went in for tea and cakes!

Cheers to Parkstone YC and Rod Harris for organising - A good start to the season, and congratulations to Mike Lennon for the win.

Poole Open Day 1

2009-03-14T21:00:00.002Z

A good turnout of about 15 boats today I think at Poole for the first open of the year. There were a few nervous people who hadn't sailed much over the winter as the breeze was certainly up while we rigged and sailed out to the course area.

Mike Lennon won the day with a 1,1,1,ocs scoreline, to my 2,2,2,rtd. It was good close racing though, with the lead changing about 4 times in the first race, and Mike just getting through underneath me on the final beat in the first race to win by about a boatlength. Race two he lead initially but I crossed ahead up one of the beats only for him to hook into a nice shift on the right to get me back. A silly capsize mid tack on the first beat in the third race left me with a bit to do, but I had a good run to be third at the leeward mark, and slowly ground down Rod Harris to pass him on the final run for another 2nd. A few big nosedives before the next race resulted in my little wand nipple attachment parting company with my wand bracket just before the start of the fourth race, and unable to fix it on the water, I headed home downwind in lowrider mode - which was rather wet!

A few suffered gear failure in the breeze, with unfortunately Simon Payne in his new UK Mach 2 on its second outing being amongst them. Simon was out early, and looking very fast in the early big breeze. He was high upwind, and looked very solid downwind, but his forestay attachment didn't want to stay out for the races and the mast took on a little bit more rake than intended. An issue with the first prototype boats only, so no big deal, but a shame we didn't get to properly line up against him. First impressions though - that boat is quick.

Light winds forecast for tomorrow...

Figaro Sailing

2009-03-13T20:14:00.002Z

I got to do a bit of Figaro sailing today. Nigel King is based out of the new Dean & Reddyhoff marina in Portland, and I joined him for a quick shake down sail before he sets off for the Solo Les Sables from Les Sables d’Olonne, France.

I'd met Nigel years ago on the J145 Jazz, where I did a number of the RORC races with them, and the Middle Sea Race. I bumped into him again recently at an RYA coaching meeting, and offered any help while he was Weymouth based. Hopefully I'll be able to help out a bit more when he's back in town.

Its been a while since I sailed anything much bigger than the Moth, so it was good fun to sail a new boat, and learn about the demands of solo sailing.

www.nigelkingyachting.com

Back in the country

2009-03-13T20:06:00.004Z

I've been offline for a little while as we've been away snowboarding and skiing in the resorts around Lake Tahoe, USA. Very cool - with loads of snow, and great fun off-piste in the powder!

Now just trying to catch up with stuff. Poole open this weekend, so better get ready for that.

Posts to come shortly:

Figaro sailing in Weymouth
A new foiler in town.
Full GPS instrumentation inc wind gear on a Moth - eagle eyed readers will have noticed a new supporter of mine, or seen some footage at the dinghy show.... More in full soon.

Sailrocket - Going for it again

2009-02-24T14:34:00.003Z

It is good to see Paul Larson and his team back down in Namibia for another crack at the World Sailing speed record.

Although there was little press about it, several days after Paul raised the 'boat' record last year before going flying, Macquaire Innovations down in Melbourne nudged it up a little more. Up to 48.11k from 47.36!

In Moth related news, Alex Adams has taken some time off work to go down and help out. I'm sure it will be a fascinating period, and I wish the whole team well.

Carbon Footprint Video

2009-02-15T10:58:00.002Z

Katherine has edited up a video of the build and first flight of Carbon Footprint.

Carbon Footprint Flies!

2009-02-08T16:51:00.008Z

Carbon Footprint took to the air today. We had to dust off the snow and ice this morning, but a light breeze was forecast to build during the day for perfect first flight conditions.

As she is in essence a completely new boat we planned on a short shake down sail. I took Envy out as wingman, with video and stills cameras. While I was concerned about foil angles, take off speeds, wand settings, and structural integrity, Katherine's main concern was that we got a photo of her in the air! We had a bit of lowriding first thing, but when Carbon Footprint flew she flew early and high. No adjustments needed, just flying straight away.

I was allowed a quick go, and was quite impressed. This is an old boat, but she feels like a new one. Stiff and responsive, and although we haven't weighed her yet, she feels light lifting off the trolley.

Looking a little different now from her former life as a purple seahugger!

One happy owner!

Magic Wand in action!

"This is Maverick requesting a flyby!"

Building 'The Weapon'

2009-01-30T10:13:00.005Z

I must apologise to everybody, it appears I could have warned you all about the financial situation that seems to have covered the globe...

A few years back whilst working at Airbus I chose to invest. I used up my ISA allowance, so I was advised by my local bank that an investment in their stocks and shares savings account thingy would be a good idea. All looked good on the graphs and things, with lots of things invested in across the board, perfect I'll do it. Only one problem, this was September the 10th 2001. Oddly enough my shares plummeted in value over the next few days..

The odd thing is that whenever I get the paperwork through to show that I'm almost back to what I initially invested there seems to be another worldwide financial issue. I checked it again the other day – it is still down by quite a way…

Oh well I'll continue to invest in Moths instead.

Being a sophisticated bit of kit current Moths are quite expensive. My route into the fleet has always to build / finish my own boats. You don't have to build from scratch, as this is a long process, but buying the key elements and finishing it off is a viable option for many people.

Doug Culnane and I had chatted during the Denmark Worlds about designing an easy to build boat, and the Flasheart was born. (Woof Woof) Flat panels, joined over a simple mould was the order of the day. Doug was keen to press fwd and we pressed print on the design after only the first iteration, mindful of the benefits of getting on the water. I think a Flasheart 2 could be made even easier to build, and its something I’d like to work on. I especially like the flat pack design of the Slino moth on the Perverted Moth Blog. It is great to see many other Moth build projects out there.

The other version of this is of course the Carbon Footprint project, using an old boat for the key components and giving it a new lease of life. She is all finished and on the trailer outside, just waiting for a weather window to launch in, but that is a post for another day.

-----------

Building the Weapon

With the Weapon on the market it seemed like a good time to publish some photos of her being built as she had a rather interesting build. Several different locations, and a lot of miles on the road, for a very last minute Garda Worlds campaign.

I purchased a Mistress 3 hull and deck from Full Force in shiny new prepreg carbon, collecting it just before Christmas 06. It went back to my parents house with me for Christmas and I pondered the changes I'd been considering.

I was keen to have some aerofoil wingbars and through my Tornado links with Marstrom I managed to get hold of a test A class cat mast, and set about hacksawing it up into Moth wingbars.

I was also keen to make the bow a bit finer and smaller than the original m3, so I jigsawed down the bow, opened it up a bit, and stuck in some foam.

This enabled me to reprofile the bow, and cut off some excess off the transom as I was also keen to have a slightly higher volume transom.

The original transom was removed from the deck, and a new angled one made to match the angled forward rear wingbars. Freeboard was also dropped slightly.

Then I went out to Miami coaching, and on my return I went straight out to Valencia to work for Victory Challenge through AC32.

The new shell went on the roof and Nemesis was on the road trailer ( just in case I had some spare time to get some sailing in - yeah big mistake - the only time I had time to get the boat on the water was during our final end of event party when it was all over!)

While many would suspect a Moth built within the midst of an America’s Cup would enable you access to an awesome build facility with a whole host of tools, gadgets and people. The reality isn’t quite like that! Victory Challenge was a relatively small team, that was pushed for time, so we don’t have much time for exciting little projects like the Moth. Sure I’ve picked the brains of some smart people in the know, made many useful contacts, but I was never going to see the benefit whist in the thick of it.

An America’s Cup base is purely the domain of AC yachts and the associated kit and support vessels that go with them. There isn’t actually much spare space on site for the construction of something even as small as a Moth. So construction took place under the tarpaulin covers of the Swedish Match 40’s the team used to use for Match racing, and are now in storage amongst a pile of containers behind the base!

Here is Nemesis tucked in under the 40's with AC Television kit now blocking us in. The photo below shows the rear wing bars being mocked up to check angles before bonding.

You can just see the Gill sticker on Nemesis showing through the gap.

After early small parts production, the new boat lived on the lifting framework just out in front of the 40's.

The security guards were friendly, although they were baffled by what I was building! I needed to show accreditation to get into the container area that was Moth central! After a long day on the base and out on the water, I'd try to get a few hours in my mini workshop late at night to do a few key jobs, operating out of my trailer!

While in Valencia, the centreboard case went in, the transom in, wingbars on, and foredeck. Then Victory Challenge were knocked out of the event, and after a week of wrap up meetings and final reports, I was back on the road with a half finished boat and less than a month to the Worlds...

Just before going to Valencia, I'd bought my house in Weymouth, or rather I'd bought a workshop with a nice house attached! So it was straight back into there.

Deck on and gantry nearing completion.

Ready for paint.

An attack with a spray can later...

I went to Garda via Kiel, as I was coaching the Paralympic team out there. I finished putting the fittings on in Kiel, then drove on to Garda to launch her! Perfect regatta prep, but I had less isssues at the regatta than mos. And if only I knew then what I now know about wands, the downwinds might not have been so sketchy.

There you go, a little insight into a silly bit of Moth building against the clock, and a lesson in how not to prepare for a World Championships! Good fun though.. and I was one of the most photographed boats there.

Crazy though thinking back on it now..Sometime soon I'll try not to launch a boat just before the regatta! I just have too many ideas I'd like to try...

Mid Week Mothing

2009-01-28T09:58:00.004Z

Managed to sneak out yesterday for some mid week sailing while the conditions were good. Jonnie Hutchcroft and Phil Oligario were keen for a foilertown visit, so the call was made on Tuesday afternoon.

Early morning was a story of mist, ice and no wind, but once rigged and we'd got Philipe's M1 sorted a bit more with adjustments his mainsheet strops (don't have them too short or you'll never get the boom near centreline, and have big sheet loads..) we were lucky to have around 8 knots building to around 12.

Gybe practise was the order of the day, and Jonnie is just about there now, having digested lessons from day one in foiler town. Phil was still trying to make the mental adjustment of crossing the boat earlier than most find natural.

Jonnie and I did a boat swap which was really interesting. His Raptor had a whole other gear on mine, which was great to experience. Just a few little set up differences had such differences on the feel of the boats. Much was learnt from that, and I'll be doing a few little tweaks in the workshop shortly - interesting stuff...

I got some good onboard video that I'll try and post soon.

Nothing as good as Mike Cooke's latest gantrycam though - check out the Bristol Moth Squadron site for the best camera mounting/footage yet. Nice to see some wider angled shots, which is the typical problem. My last action cam footage had to be from a 3m pole out the front of the boat to get most of the boat in!

Carbon Footprint Project - Just Add Water!

2009-01-26T09:41:00.004Z

Conversion complete - from old school lowrider to modern generation foiler.

We’ll do a full post with pics next weekend when we launch her, but she's all finished now and sat on her trolley ready to be taken for a sail. This weekend was the fit out and rope out stage (Katherine's favourite bit as there is no carbon dust involved!) Thanks to Mike Cooke for the prompt manufacture of a mast foot. The tramps were the last addition - also converted from the original ones!

We were not quite ready in time to get out over the weekend, but we snuck out for a sail with Katherine taking the Weapon for a spin before we hopefully find her a new home. (Open to part exchange offers now on her for good lowrider conversion possibilities...)

I never thought I’d be painting a boat hot magenta pink but Carbon Footprint actaully looks pretty cool, in a pink/white combo. Essential girly extras such as the star for the end of the wand are also complete!

January Sailing

2009-01-26T09:35:00.003Z

Gybe practice.

Jonnie Hutchcroft came over to Weymouth the other week to do a bit of training. He’s up to speed in his Velociraptor, and all set up right, but struggling with the maneovres. So after a bit of a sail around, we hit the gybing practice quite hard. He did a fair bit of swimming, but was determined to get it.

He left a broken man though – knackered from a long session on the water, and limping from a rather large pitchpole induced leg bruise!

I downloaded my gps plot from the day, and found out I’d done 108 gybes in the two sessions we did….

(The wiggles in the traces are when I went back to check up on a capsized Jonnie, or stop because I was laughing too much after he'd ejected himself out of the back again!)

RNLI DVD

2009-01-26T09:19:00.002Z

I've just seen a new DVD about to be released by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, featuring none other than Rod Harris! - Rod makes a star appearance in his Moth performing numerous flybys past the camera. Don’t panic though Rod there is only one clip of you capsized, and there is no rescue featured! The Moth just gets a mention as a dinghy for the more experienced sailor, and is used as an example of what is out there now. Another good little bit of coverage of the class, as it looks so much better than anything else that features on the dvd.

Bloody Mary 09 - To go or not to go?

2009-01-10T12:39:00.003Z

Early this morning I thought I'd made the right call in not heading up for the Bloody Mary, but now I'm not so sure, so I'd better stop checking the webcam and weather reports! Five hours in the car, -5 deg and 5 knots did little to sell it to me. I might sail here though to try out a new wand setting, and then catch up on loads of jobs from the to do list.

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

2009-01-01T20:04:00.002Z

Firstly Happy New Year!

I bimbled away in the workshop today on Katherine's 'Carbon Footprint'. It is nearing completion now and we'll post a proper update with photos soon.

I've enjoyed doing it, and I think it is an interesting example of reduce, re-use, recycle. In an increasingly more money and resource aware climate I find it quite amusing that we've got a practically new boat, of up to date spec from an old lowrider.

Reduce:
Freeboard reduced considerably
Weight reduced by approx 10kg
Flare size down to a bare minimum for lacing
Smaller foredeck

Re-use
The hull is original, just a lot smaller now
Original deck - just bonded on the other way round this time for the best match to the wingbars
Transom and mid bulkhead
Kingpost is a broken windsurf mast
Top element of the gantry is from the original spreader set
Bottom panels of gantry cut out of the removed topside panels
Kickbar is a rejected toe rail from the bow of SWE 96 AC yacht from the skip outside Victory Challenge.

Recycle
I'd say this is a pretty good example of how to recycle a lowrider!

Slow progress on the resin cures at the moment though as it has been so cold. The boat has had to come inside for a few nights. Just compression bars to fit now, and then we get into painting.

Tracks and Tacks.

2008-12-27T10:14:00.003Z

I dowloaded my gps track from the race at Exe the other day. It is fair to say it wasn't your typical Moth race. The main channel is less than 100m wide, making for quite a few tacks and gybes with the breeze from the North East. Add to that the light winds under the new marina development at the home buoy, and a fair bit of tide, it is pretty good practice. For the three lap 45 min race I did 26 gybes and 37 tacks. That is easily more than the entire Worlds....

Exe Sailing Club Boxing Day Race

2008-12-26T14:00:00.005Z

I took the Moth down to join in the Exe Sailing Club Boxing Day race. It was a pursuit race but with mainly Comet Trios - about 20 of them. I didn't bother with a start at the correct time, I was more interested in just having a sail around. I haven't raced here since my Cadet sailing days many years ago... So I wasn't quite so sure where the sand banks were (Hence taking the old boat!). Fortunately the Trio was no match for the Moth - although close tacking up the bank in marginal foiling conditions they may have had an edge!

With a max of 17.7 knots I might have broken the harbour speed limit of 10k slightly though!

An impressive turnout for the club was that there were four local Olympians in the fleet and the current World Match racing champion. Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes - Beijing 49er reps, Richard Sydenham - Sydney 2000 Soling crew, Ian Williams of Team Pindar, and myself. And that doesn't include many of the club legends like Phil Morrison....

Not bad for a Boxing day club fleet!

Mad

2008-12-25T20:07:00.002Z

I should know by now not to listen to my sister... She thought it was a good idea to join in with the Exmouth Christmas Day swim. Hundreds of people meet up on Exmouth seafront for a very quick swim on Christmas morning watched by thousands along the seafront.

Oh my god it was cold this year!

Almost Christmas.

2008-12-23T21:35:00.002Z

The IMCA received a Christmas card from ISAF the other day, and it was good to see it featured two Moths on it! We've featured in the last two cards now - an interesting sign of the times.....

In other festive news, if you happen to be watching Emmerdale on Christmas day watch out for the Pringles advert at 6:15. My cousin Sally entered a competition recently to come up with a jingle for a Christmas pringles ad, and she won! Below is the entry they sent in. Not sure what gets aired, but all quite funny.

More Foilers in Foilertown!

2008-12-15T07:02:00.002Z

This weekend Mike Cooke braved the floods and the cold to come down and join Alex, Helen and myself for a bit of sailing in Weymouth. Saturday was too light for Mothing, so there was plenty of tea drinking, and a bit of light wind Mini40 foiler practice. Although it was light, and not enough wind to foil, Mike's latest creation impressed us all.

It was on Sunday however that it reallly flew! We'd had a good Moth sail in the morning in 15/18 knots of breeze. We joined in the start of the Castle Cove club race and then just did some tuning runs up and down the harbour. After warming up again over more tea, we decided that it had dropped sufficiently for the Mini40 to go for some airtime.

After a few early hops and some crashes that at full scale on Hydroptere would have easily seen them claim best boat crash over Paul Larsen! we started to see some impressive bursts of speed. After a bit of practice there we sustained foiling runs and several foiling gybes. It was good to see the Moth helming instincts coming into play many times to same some crashes that looked pretty terminal.

I'll add more pics later..

Epic!

2008-12-04T07:23:00.003Z

Today's blog from Paul Larson down in Namibia is an essential read! SailRocket literally flew in her last record attempt run! Paul was fine, but the wing was badly beaten up. In only the run before they possibly bagged themselves a World Speed record, so will be interesting to hear about the data off the boat.

Hats off to Paul and his team, this brings it home what pioneering stuff trying to break World Sailing Speed records is.

http://www.sailrocket.com/live/?q=blog/3

Carbon Footprint Story - Part 5

2008-12-02T20:34:00.004Z

Katherine's Update:

OK so there has been a bit of a delay, apologies there, but here is the hotly anticipated next edition of Pimp My Low Rider!

She has undergone a bit of work fairing the hull up. Fairing the hull is a great way of learning the importance of not using knees and elbows for climbing back on board after a capsize. Oops, will be more careful in future! Anyway she is now in her working colours of gunship grey undercoat.

So the hull is cut to size and the daggerboard hole filled so it’s time for a a girls favourite activity - accessorising!

First accessory is very exciting - the centreboard case - the moth equivalent of the handbag! Modeled around the centreboard in a carbon and fibreglass sandwich to beef it up. Like all good handbags the centreboard has been made size adjustable - in this case to allow some adjustment in the centreboard angle rather than to fit that extra bargin purchase in. This was done by slitting the case down the middle, angling the top out and applying and extra layer of laminate in this position.

Next accessory on the list is a little carbon insert for the gantry attachment - remember to drill it before sticking it in if you don’t have a fancy round the corner drill.

There we have it; the start of the low rider accessory collection, coming soon SHOES - oh, no, that was meant to be FOREDECK!

Velocitek GPS

2008-12-02T15:29:00.003Z

Velocitek have just launched a new gps and it looks good. A good size screen, speed, max speed & heading modes along with some good software.

http://www.velocitek.com/

Winter Shifts

2008-12-01T16:17:00.003Z

Visited the Bristol Moth Squadron on Saturday for a little get together of South West mothies. Unfortunately a Northerly at Bristol Corinthian is somewhat shifty! We all launched but we were unable to be very constructive, with huge wind holes all over the lake producing some entertaining shifts (much easier to see it as entertaining once ashore!).

In other news I'm enjoying following constant reports from Namibia on the progress of Sailrocket's speed record attempts.

I've quite a list of things I wanted to blog about but I'm being good and trying to get up to date with my IMCA duties. Measurement manual re-write going on at the moment, so better get back to that.

Go Seb

2008-11-27T19:20:00.003Z

Good news this evening is that Seb Josse has just taken the lead in the Vendee Globe. Go the offshore Mothie! Still relatively early in the race, but a great effort so far.

Should we organise a Moth flyby when he returns?

9 Days

2008-11-14T16:52:00.004Z

9 Days is how long Paul Larson and the Sailrocket team have got before the team from the WSSRC turn up to validate their speed runs. They've been getting around 45 knots out of Sailrocket for a little while now, and I really hope they can squeeze a bit more out of her on some official runs. They've got a number of tweaks to help, so fingers crossed the weather is kind to them.

Exciting times in sailing at the moment. Two round the World races going on, and numerous records being smashed. Congrats to the guys on Ericsson 4 - achieving over 600 miles in a day is very impressive! Hydroptere are going strong with improvements on a few of their records, although still short of 50k. The kitesurfers have done over 50k now, but the WSSRC have yet to validate it..

And I read today that at the SYZ & CO Leman Sailing Speed Records Award Ceremony, Geneva, Switzerland, Jean-Pierre Ziegert in his foiling Moth won the Kilometer record with a speed of 21.90 knots. Beating the Mirabaud LX foiler into second.

The Day After....

2008-11-14T16:47:00.002Z

The day after Corus open was rather windy in Weymouth. 54 knots on the wall and Portland Bill was almost underwater.

Corus Moth Open

2008-11-11T20:56:00.004Z

Here is a quick report I wrote after the Moth open at Corus at the weekend:

International Moth Open
Corus Sailing Club, Port Talbot, South Wales
Nov 8th

Seven Moths braved the forecast, and headed to South Wales for the Corus sailing club Moth open. The ‘curse of Windguru’ was avoided and the intrepid few were greeted by a great range of conditions. Corus gave us a very warm welcome and gave us four good races.

Full use of the lake was made with a P style course giving us a start and subsequent gate off the club line, and a selection of tight and broad reaches downwind.

Race 1 saw local hero Dave Edwards lead round the top mark, with Cooke and May in close pursuit. The first few rounds were very close with numerous lead changes at the front until May got through upwind with a high mode that enabled him to lay the upwind gate in fewer tacks. Edwards was looking good for second until a broken mainsheet strop allowed Cooke through.

Race 2 saw the wind drop a lot down to marginal foiling. The first beat was again very tight but soon May pulled away, managing to foil for longer up the beats. Cooke was second again, with Edwards third.

Race 3 was held in more wind again, and solid foiling conditions. DJ was getting stronger and lead early on, but May was able to sail over the top down the second run when DJ sailed just a bit too far into a lighter spot. A little swim by Cooke up the beat while challenging for second dropped him back from the battle for the lead.

In reduced light now, race 4 saw the forecasted breeze start to show, and the fleet numbers suffered. Mike Cooke peeled off shortly after the start with a control rod issue, leaving Dave Edwards, and Adam May to battle it out. With a movement of the first gybe mark there was some discussion down the first reach as to where it had gone! DJ spotted it first and was able to stay low and prevent May from gybing. DJ then covered May well to prevent him from getting his nose through and held on well for the win. Katherine Knight showed the benefit of her Mini rig in the windier conditions, to take third.

With an absolutely shocking forecast for Sunday, the general consensus was to call it a day after 4 good races, and head over the Severn Bridge to home before the forecasted 40/50 knots came through.

This left May with the win, from Edwards and Cooke, with Knight taking fourth overall, and first lady.

On a personal note it was great to see DJ really getting to grips with his Bladerider. He'd been on the phone most of the week with various questions, and clearly doesn't need too much more help!

Mike Cooke was demonstrating some impressive near foiling tacks in between racing but they seemed to escape him on the race course.

Katherine sailed well in the Weapon with her mini rig up. She suffered in the light race 2, but not by as much as you'd have thought. She stuck out each race and was determined to finish each one which proved to be a good way to do well overall.

Moth legend from the past Robin Wood was down to watch, and it won't be long before we see him in a boat! Great times for the class to be encouraging so many people back into the class.

The racing was really good, so the South West Mothies are keen to continue to meet up over the winter. Bristol could be the first location for some training. Get in touch if you want to join in.

For Sale - 'The Weapon'

2008-10-23T14:07:00.003+01:00

For Sale

GBR 3119 (4098 in old numbers)

Mistress 3V (V for modified in Valencia)

Fastacraft foils

Aerofoil wingbars

New boat for Garda 07

Choice of sails and masts

New Marlow ropes

Cover and new launching trolley

Price - £7250 for a basic package, but negotiable depending on kit supplied.

Can supply with a new CST 40mm mast, or no rig at all if you have enough kit already.

Moths go offshore...

2008-10-16T11:41:00.007+01:00

Volvo Ocean Race.

It seems to have sneaked up on us, but the 9month or so race is now underway. It is a shame there are only 8 entries, especially when the Vendee Globe race which starts soon has about 30, but it is a great race anyway that I have always followed. This years race is an interesting one for me because I actually know so many people in the race this time. I think I know people on every boat except Delta Lloyd. A lot of the guys I worked with at Victory Challenge are involved, making it tricky to know who to support...

There is an online game running alongside the race, and with about 28,000 entires so far it is proving quite popular!

We have a small moth population in the race at the moment, but I'm sure there are more out there, so get in touch if you are getting addicted to checking your position, and waiting for the next weather update.

Currently we have:
Position: Boat: Helm:
264 Foilborne Adam May
874 Carbon Footprint Offshore Katherine Knight
1368 Road Runner Alex Adams
4975 Pudence Toby Heppell
6340 Tigger Helen Rollinson
17220 Tom Whicher Yachting Inc (Tom spent the night aground!)

Stop press - new entry in at number 822 Upsanddowns Pete Henderson, Lowrider moth sailor from Sydney and Dave in Workbench

and two entries from Dubai - 'Figjam Dubai' and 'The Express'

Mach 2 joined last night - is that Amac out there? He started late but with his pace don't bet against him!

You can still register, you just get put in the back 20% of the fleet. But there are many more legs to go.

Holt Tide Ride

2008-10-16T11:07:00.002+01:00

It was the Holt Tide Ride at Hayling Island a week or so ago, and it was a great event. Although the wind made it feel like we were back at the Worlds for most of the time.

With racing for the Moths scheduled for 4pm, a few of us decided to go for a sail in the morning as the forecast didn't look so good for the rest of the day with 50knots forecast overnight. Simon, Mike Lennon, Jason and myself all went for a quick blast around. It was a bit daunting sailing around inside Hayling at pace with little confidence of where the shallows were. I got a shock when I looked down at my GPS to see it reading 28/29! but then I remembered I'd changed the units to go for a bike ride a few days before.

Sunday dawned with planty of breeze, but all the fleets stuck around for a bit more tea drinking until in moderated. We got out around midday for 4 very short tight races. Typical race length was 12/15 mins, and with 4 laps in that it was a question of good clean lanes and boathandling. Overall, Simon was on good form, winning the first three races, and coming 2nd in the 4th, to win the no discard series. His boathandling was very good, and he was happy in the Hayling tide that caught many people out. Jason Belben was second overall with top three finishes. I was 4th with a 4,2,2,4. Poor start in the first, then got it together for the next two, and then a poor lane in the left corner in the last one left me with too much to do during the race.
Everyone enjoyed the short course racing, although there were lots of tired looking people later.. (Especially Rod, although the evening drinking probably was the cause....) The fleet is keen for more racing so I think we should have a good turnout in Wales in a few weekends time.

Development wise it was great to see such a huge variety of wands on display at the front of the fleet. Simon had his latest paddle version in high lift mode, while Mike Lennon had a fancy adjustable length paddled one, although it swung fwd so far when all the way up that we'll have to be careful soon on our 500mm bow fittings allowance.... Another thing to mention in the measurement manual I'm trying to update.

Photo from http://www.photoblink.com/sailing/tideride08/ where there are several more good shots from the weekend.

I finally got round to painting my boat, after I'd left it with just one coat of lacque for the light wind Weymouth Worlds! So I've tried a metallic blue, white & carbon combo.

China Paralympics Review in Photos

2008-10-12T06:11:00.009+01:00

Arrived in Qingdao in time for the Olympic team celebrations. Above is Shirley Robertson interviewing Bryony Shaw mid party.

We went to the sailing closing ceremony. I'd been given a comedy umbrella hat, and it seemed like a suitable time to wear it.

Check out the huge boom that surrounded the entire sailing area to protect from the potential onset of more green slime!

The Paralympic flame came through Qingdao, and it was an excuse for more fireworks.

Racing was rather close!

The main stadium in Beijing.

Mid closing ceremony.

Flying home, about to land in the 2012 Olympic venue.

Like the Olympic team before us we were flown home in a BA 747 with a Gold nosecone, but this one had Gold wingtips as well because the Paralympic team won more medals than the Olympic team.

Home News

2008-09-30T17:24:00.003+01:00

Sad news on the home front. My faithful red Peugeot died on my shortly before leaving for China and had to be scrapped. Mum and dad's Ford Focus has now become the new Moth tow vehicle. (Just need a towbar in time for the weekend.)

But there is good progress on the workshop front, with new oak doors made and fitted by Dad and myself last week. (Whilst my Mum converted the garden back from a jungle - Thanks!)

So the Moth work going on at the moment is:

Some 'Envy' mods ready for the Tide Ride this coming weekend, then 'The Carbon Footprint' then becomes the priority project. As a result 'The Weapon' is on the market if anybody is interested. I'll post a full add on here soon, but she's currently in the workshop for a tidy up, and respray before finding a new home.

New Paralympic Class....If only

2008-09-30T16:22:00.007+01:00

The vote on what classes will be used in the 2012 Paralympics in Weymouth will be soon, and it was a shame to here rumours that the 2.4 may not be so certain of the one person slot. While I believe it is the perfect boat for even close tactical racing it will be up to IFDS to decide. (And if you thought ISAF made some strange calls.....)

But what if we wanted a really high performance boat for the Paralympics? What about including the Hobie Trifoiler, and sailing rings around all the old slow Olympic classes?

Or what about putting a kite on it?

Exciting Times

2008-09-30T15:46:00.009+01:00

I was interested to see Sailing Anarchy posting a pic of a new foiling cat launched in Switzerland today. A google search later revealed a few more interesting foiler finds... and this website: http://foils.wordpress.com/

How about an lake version of Hydoptere?
Meanwhile the big version is back on the water amidst a Mistral in france about to have another crack at 50knots which was so close to being beaten by a kitesurfer recently at 49.84k!

Check out this video with footage throughout the Hydroptere project. (Great crash 2mins in...)

Hydroptère
by Lepsounet

Shopping China Style

2008-09-14T13:57:00.005+01:00

With the Paralympics now over, and containers packed it is time to catch up on some stuff before we head to Beijing for the closing ceremony. I'll do a seperate post on the event as a whole and our time out here, but today I was on a mission.

My workshop is pretty well sorted, but one thing I've been lacking for a while is a vacuum pump. I'd been told that ebay was the place to find one, but I've struggled so far. Then I saw the RYA had a shiny new one out here in our pimped up workshop container....

So after a long day of container packing (not helped by the very late night last night!) I headed into Qingdao. Not that this was an ordinary shopping trip though. I had a private driver, and an interpreter! Just didn't know were to buy vacuum pumps in town though. But I had a picture of one to point at! A great feature of this town though is that they have streets of all the same type of shop, so we headed to 'tool street' Renmin road, and after a few phone calls to a mate of the driver we'd tracked down a tool shop that could have what we were after! Lots of pointing at the picture and discussions later it was looking promising and I was shown an example of one he'd be able to get me. So while I dived off to a cashpoint machine, one was being delivered to the shop! The shop owner and numerous assistants then plugged it in to show it all worked, and then got one of his guys to take it to our car.

Quite a succesful mission, if not a slightly weird experience.

I wish I'd had more time to investigate the whole street as there are so many cool shops. If you wanted ball bearings, you could got to the bearing shop, or wheels, how about the shop with nothing but caster wheels?

Carbon Footprint Story - Part 2

2008-09-04T19:33:00.001+01:00

The freeboard was more accurately taped out and cut, (very disappointed my pink tape wouldn’t stick). Some high pressure cutting later. If you squint and the light catches her right you can just about imagine she might look mike a foiler, hurrah.

Cups of tea so far: 3 (doesn’t really count as it got left to go cold in the excitement)

Weight: Going down, but shouldn’t have had that cream cake.

China Update

2008-08-31T10:37:00.002+01:00

Finally on a reliable internet connection here in China, and catching up with emails. Into the Olympic village within the sailing venue now and settled into training. It has been a manic week of getting bits sorted, containers unloaded and packed actually as we helped the Olympic team out at the end of their regatta. We arrived into town in time for the British end of event party which was a good evening given how successful they'd been! An awesome event for the team, and great to have been involved.

Lots of news and photos to update, but I'll keep this first China post short.

Oh in vague Moth news, Gary Ireson is out here as well at the moment helping out our Sonar team, so he's keeping us entertained. (Even if he can't play snooker!...)

Carbon Footprint Story - Part 1

2008-08-23T09:05:00.002+01:00

My emotional last moments with my trusty lowrider before the chop.

As every good weight-watcher knows regular weigh ins are a must, especially that all important pre-diet number, suffice it to say, the scales didn’t go high enough.

On with the first job, stripping all bits and bobs and removing her high performance light weight metal wing bars. Liking this bit, no scary no-going-back saw action yet.

OK, the sawing can be put off no longer. Some careful measurement of free board bow and stern, a conservative bit of masking taping and...

Having discovered that cutting things up is strangely satisfying there was no stopping me. Off with the gantry, saw through the bulk heads, jigsaw around the centreboard case and that was it the deck was off.

Wanting to minimise the carbon footprint (and impact on bank balance) of the build the deck will be recycled to be stuck back on at a later date. To this end the extra width and the fashionable flares were carefully cut away and the centreboard case was removed (less carefully) with a mallet.

So, the end of day 1, in true Bridget Jones style:

Cups of tea so far: 2

Weight: breath in and think light little boat, and the weight is... I could put in something flattering here but I truth I have lost the bit of paper I wrote it down on, will up date you when I find it, at least I can lift her now.

New Vid

2008-08-17T15:58:00.001+01:00

Here is a new little video that Katherine put together recently.

Pimp my lowrider

2008-08-17T12:46:00.004+01:00

[Adam here - As promised here is an update on the Carbon Footprint project. Blog access is limited in China, so I'll hand over webmaster control to Katherine while I'm away, and let her update you on the latest Moth news from inside my little workshop.]

Pimp My Low Rider

An introduction

Let me introduce you to my lovely purple lowrider. Not as fancy as those flashy foilers but my pride and joy none the less.

Much though I have enjoyed lowriding I have to admit to being a tinsy bit jealous of said flashy foilers, so when Adam offered me a go in ‘The Weapon’ I couldn’t pass it up. I shan’t wax lyrical about it, I’m sure you all remember how good your first time was. Once ashore I tried to reassure my boat that I still loved her but the writing was on the wall, her lowriding days were over. There was only one thing for it, a jigsaw assisted weight loss program and the conversion to a foiler was underway.

The following is my account of her transformation (hopefully) into a fully fledged foiler. It is written in a step by step format so if you should find yourself similarly suffering from foiler envy you just need to find yourself and old lowrider, a saw and a workshop, (obliging boyfriend optional). I am in the fortunate position to have already completed the hardest part of the build, having chosen a name, she is to be called ‘Carbon Footprint’, so here it is the Carbon Footprint Story...

Small World

2008-08-14T10:42:00.002+01:00

Yesterday morning I was chatting on Skype to the RYA press officer Lindsey Bell out in Qingdao. I mentioned the breeze back here, then 10 mins later I find myself quoted on Andy Rice's blog site, and this morning it is in Scuttlebutt....

Freaky.

Windy Weekend

2008-08-13T08:19:00.003+01:00

While the Olympic sailing regatta in Qingdao is held in 5/6 knots of breeze, the 2012 venue has been battered by big breeze again. We got a bit unlucky with the Moth Worlds being such a windy week, and the following two weeks were perfect. Well the breeze is back and has been regularly over 30 knots on the wall since Saturday, except for a small window on Monday. Today it is gusting 45 knots.

The 18ft skiffs had their Nationals in Weymouth over Sun,Mon Tues, but only got racing in on Monday. Katherine and I got out for a short sail, and I decided to try and pace the skiffs around the outside of their course. I waited at their windward mark, and followed the fleet down around the outside of their run. I took out one boat on the run, and gained on another. They had depth, I had speed.... Okay they weren't the front runners but this was an 11ft long singlehander with an 8sqm sail up against an 18ft Skiff! I made a big gain while they dropped and sailed through to leeward up the beat. A fraction lower pointing but fast enough that I could easily sail beyond their layline, tack and cross, and round a fair way to windward of their windward mark with quite a lead. I'd caught up with the two boats battling for 4th and 5th, and started to go over the top, but higher. And then a fair bit higher as I tried to get my camera out to take some piccies of a Moth pacing a skiff! I pulled out there, and went to find Katherine and the mighty mini rig.

I think the skiffs were at the bottom end of their 2nd rigs, but I was happy to see the Moth performance being so competitive against them. We continue to get quicker....

Sailrocket Update

2008-08-10T19:33:00.002+01:00

Whilst watching the Olympics highlights today I caught up with a bit of internet surfing and saw this latest update from Paul Larson on the Sailrocket project. Paul and Helena are off out to Namibia again soon, and I hope all goes well. Paul is doing an awesome job at putting together these videos - he should be doing the media job on a Volvo boat this time around.

A friend of theirs John bought Graham Vials' Bladerider and they got out in it the other week. I'll post some pics soon.

Olympics Sailing

2008-08-10T09:27:00.003+01:00

A good start for the Brits in Qingdao. 1st in the Yngling and 49er classes, with Ben Ainsle in 2nd at the moment in the Finn. An impressive start so far......

Loving the live BBC footage on their website each morning. Shame there isn't much wind.

Windy Weymouth

2008-08-09T20:44:00.000+01:00

3/5 knots in China, gusting 35knots in Weymouth....

Cool Helicopters

2008-08-08T17:26:00.004+01:00

Whilst packing up the 2.4's down at the academy today a guy drove up and pulled out a little remote controlled helicopter from his van. This was no ordinary helicopter though, it had a remote controlled high res stills camera slung underneath it. The image from which could be viewed from the ground via funky glasses!

Very cool.

Check out some of the images he's taken on: http://www.aerialpics.org/

Olympic News

2008-08-08T09:20:00.002+01:00

With the official opening ceremony today, I'll be glued to the TV until we fly out to overlap with the end of the event. It will be cool to be out in China for the end of the Games and to catch up with everybody out there. The RYA run the Paralympic program as three extra Olympic classes, and so it is funny to now have the Olympics upon us, and we were still out on the water training in Weymouth.

Something I'll watch with interest is if Mitch Booth, and the USA team of Lovell and Ogletree use their code zero style spinnakers.... Most of the fleet have tested their own version, most dismissed the idea, but these guys stuck with it. It has the potential to be very quick upwind. When we first went to asymetrics on the Tornado we all played with it in the light stuff, and it was quick but low. A smaller specific sail could be an interesting weapon upwind, but the penalty downwind?.... It will be interesting to see.

Word from China seems to have pretty quiet that the practice races for the Finn and Yngling fleets were abandoned yesterday due to no wind! A light start to the regatta is forecast.

Velocitek Speed Challenge

2008-08-08T08:49:00.002+01:00

I've just seen the results of the Velocitek Speed Challenge during the Worlds. It is impressive for the class to see such a large number of high speeds. In the early foiling days many seemed to doubt the speed of the Moth. I don't think many question it now!

Name Sail Number 10 sec average speed Boat Type
1 Arnaud Psarofaghis SUI 3252 26.1kts Bladerider
2 James Owen-Smith AUS 9354 25.9kts Bladerider
3 Bora Gulari USA 3281 25.5kts Bladerider
4 Martin Gravare SWE 3279 25.4kts Bladerider
5 John Harris AUS 3295 25.3kts Bladerider
6 Andrew Brown NZL 3230 25.1kts Bladerider
7 Andrew McDougall AUS 3128 25.1kts Bladerider
8 Alex Knight GBR 3239 24kts Bladerider
9 Sten-Mark Bachman EST 3291 24.7kts Bladerider
10 Ben Crocker AUS 3262 24.6kts Prowler Zero
11 Simon Payne GBR 3259 24.4kts Prowler Zero
12 George Peet USA 3251 24.3kts Bladerider
13 Andrew Friend GBR 4102 24.2kts Bladerider
14 Ziegert Jean-Pierre SUI 8 24.2kts Prowler Mk4
15 Samantha England AUS 3297 23kts Bladerider
16 Glenn Raphael UAE 3300 23kts Bladerider
17 Peter Becker USA 3138 23.9kts Bladerider
18 Nigel Oswold USA 3284 23.8kts Bladerider
19 Lochlin Byrne AUS 3360 23.6kts Bladerider FX
20 Mathew Belcher AUS 3217 23.6kts Bladerider
21 Graham Vials GBR 3158 23.4kts Bladerider
22 Scott babbage AUS 3263 22kts Prowler Zero
23 Gary Ireson GBR 3261 22kts Prowler Zero
24 Mike Lennon GBR 3243 22.2kts Bladerider
25 Tim Boon GBR 4076 22.1kts Prowler
26 Ian Forsdike GBR 4095 21kts
27 Sebastien Josse FRA 3298 21.5kts Bladerider
28 Eelco Boers NED 3215 21.4kts
29 Tom Whicher GBR 3192 20.5kts Axiom v4
30 Douglas Imrie GBR 3335 20.3kts
31 James Roche GBR 4103 19.8kts
32 Douglas Culnane AUT 3202 18.3kts Flashheart
33 Paul Hignett GBR 3136 15.4kts
34 Nils Warnken GER 1032 11.1kts
35 Jason Belben GBR 4090 9.4kts Prowler (I'm guessing there were a few rouge units - Jason certainly went quicker than this!)
36 C Weber NED 3235 5.2kts

I took out the 'Weapon' with Katherine's 6.55sqm mini rig and got 23.7knots out of it, but didn't have an official Velocitek unit on.

Also check out Rohan/Bladerider's video of the action:

Shipping Back from Weymouth

2008-08-04T17:30:00.002+01:00

A check round the back of the academy today saw no moth sized boxes sitting there, so either all the shippers have finally picked up the boats or the local fleet has just got a bit bigger.

If you are still waiting for your boat post Worlds, check in with your shipper, they seem to have been pretty clueless about what they were trying to pick up. One picked up a box, just because it had a sticker 'like the one he delivered' and another picked up a Skud 18 mast instead of a Moth. Luckily it got discovered in Heathrow, and some poor Mothie didn't get a nasty surprise.

Shed News

2008-08-02T21:50:00.000+01:00

With news of a World Championships amongst Moth bloggers, I’ve been having a bit of an update, and catching up on my blog news. Things have been busy here, but I won’t bore you with any more coaching news as that is all I’ll have to talk about next month. Today’s exciting Moth related news is the new shed alongside my workshop. This now means I can put all those useless things like lawnmower, garden tools and the like in my shed, leaving the workshop free for interesting Moth related projects! A slight wood splitting incident when adding the final touches resulted in a last minute Moth related mod to cap the roof joints!

[PS – Mum and Dad I have now sealed all the windows!]

So what is scheduled for the workshop next?
· A full tidy up, with everything getting its own home, and putting up my tool rack on the wall.
· Katherine’s lowrider is being pimped into a modern foiler. We’ll use the hull and a bit of the deck from the original boat, and chop away any unnecessary structure. We are looking good for a weight reduction of around 10kg at the moment, but we’ll post full details here as we go through each stage. It won’t be a quick transformation, but I’d like to post enough info so others could do the same as well if they’d like.
· The ‘Weapon’ will be used to test a few of my more silly ideas.
· ‘Envy’ will be continued to be refined. Playing with foil set-up and tuning. New boom and spreader unit to be added shortly.

Foiling 18’s and new creations

2008-08-02T21:45:00.001+01:00

During the Worlds I spoke to Toby Heppell about an article that he’d written on www.thedailysail.com about Thomas Jundt’s foiling skiff that he’d taken down to the Europeans. The fleet didn’t seem to friendly to him, and I asked Toby for Thomas’ email address so I could get in touch and let him know that any Moth sailor I’ve spoken to thinks what he’s doing is great.

I got a nice reply back a few days later:

“Adam, Thanks’ a lot for your message. I admire you the moths, it is fantastic what you do. Of course all the credit for my projects goes to you the moth fleet, I am just copying you - so I am happy to here that you like what we do.”

Here is his latest creation ‘Mirabaud LX’.

Check out the foiling gybe just under 1min in.

Girls in Moths

2008-08-02T21:44:00.000+01:00

Team GBR’s Beijing Laser Radial rep Penny Clarke sent her husband Russ down to the Worlds with the strict instructions of getting her a Moth so that she had one waiting for her on the driveway for when she got back from China! I know Russ and Penny from the Olympic circuit and from coaching them in F18’s. I introduced Russ to Mark Robinson, and the deal was done. So we have a growing female contingent in the UK Moth fleet. Penny now joins, Katherine, Clare, Helen, and Emma. Penny will be on the water at Stokes Bay on return from Qingdao.

Dinghy Sailing Stunts Article

2008-08-02T21:43:00.000+01:00

The August issue of Dinghy Sailing magazine includes a feature on the ‘Coolest stunts ever’ and it has a large moth presence. There is the pic of me jumping off the boat in Garda, James Roche’s crash recovery at Grafham, and a nose plant by Mike Cooke.

Deed of Gift AC

2008-08-01T17:37:00.000+01:00

Another U turn in the 33rd AC fiasco…. A recent court ruling suggests a change back to the original challenging club, and possibly back to 90ft monohulls. Well until the next appeal anyway…

I was actually quite looking forward to a Deed of Gift America’s Cup. The prospect of 100ft long multihulls battling it out for the cup was an exciting prospect, and what about the development potential when two huge AC teams throw themselves into multihull sailing? Multihulls out of the Olympics and into the AC seemed only fair.

I’d just started sailing when the 1988 Deed of Gift Cup was on, but I remember well the TV footage of that event with the huge Kiwi monohull, and Conner’s wingsailed catamaran. They were cool boats. And what about Blue Arrow, the foil stabilised monohull that Peter de Savary tried to join the competition with? That was a ‘craft’ well ahead of its time. And they built it in 11 weeks!

This boat was unveiled to the press almost exactly 20 years ago. What could a Deed of Gift AC have produced this time around?

(Mothie John Claridge was onboard by the way!)

Sailing on the BBC

2008-07-31T11:10:00.002+01:00

RYA Press Release: Sailors go for gold on the BBC

There is no need to miss a second of Britain’s sailors’ quest for gold in Qingdao next month as the BBC brings you round-the-clock coverage from all the action on the water at Beijing 2008.

With full race coverage set to start at 6am – the time of the first scheduled warning signal in China – every day on the BBC Interactive ‘Red Button’ service and at least 30 minutes of sailing highlights planned on BBC One every morning, you can watch all the excitement unfold as it happens in Qingdao.

Viewers will be guided through the thrills and spills of the Olympic sailing competition by experienced sailing commentator Richard Simmonds joined by double Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson, who will provide expert analysis and insight into the sport.

All the interactive coverage will be repeated each evening while an hour-long daily Olympic highlights show will also be tracking Britain’s progress around the sports on BBC One at 7pm.

Meanwhile, on Monday 19 August – the day of the scheduled 470 medal races – BBC 5Live will be broadcasting their Breakfast Programme live from the Olympic Sailing Venue while BBC Radio’s Juliette Ferrington will be based in Qingdao for the duration of the Games.

Around 300 hours of Olympic drama will be broadcast on BBC One and Two over the course of the Games while BBC Interactive air time will be upped from 1,000 hours of coverage at the Athens Olympics to 2,450 hours in China.

The Olympic Sailing Regatta takes place from Saturday 9 August – Thursday 21 August.

All broadcast and event schedules are subject to change.

'Carbon Footprint'

2008-07-29T18:00:00.002+01:00

Coming soon: The Carbon Footprint Project.

Can’t afford a new foiler? Got an old lowrider and don’t know what to do with it? Worried about your carbon footprint? Why not cut an old lowrider in half?

Katherine has been on the fast track foiling programme. In Feb this year she’d sailed a Topper a few times, crewed a J24 in the Poole club series, and was a bit of a pro Windsurfer, so she bought a Moth! A month or so in she took it to Bristol and did one race of the two race open there. Then she took it to the Nationals, and finished 22nd out of 34. With my new boat nearing completion the deal was that she could use ‘The Weapon’ in the Worlds if my new one was done. It was a punchy call though with only a few days practice before the Worlds! Unfortunately with the windy conditions all week Katherine was one of many who didn’t manage to finish a race. Although she did get a mini rig built on the morning of the first day in an effort to get racing! Undaunted though she’s a foiler convert now, and so the old lowrider had to be modified….

After a particularly good sail one weekend (she giggled lots saying that bearing away made her tummy go funny!), the jigsaw came out that evening, and work began on the ‘Carbon Footprint’ project.

Full details in coming posts.