9 Days

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....

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

Corus Moth Open

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'

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pimp my lowrider

[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

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

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

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

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.