Sailrocket - Going for it again

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

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

Carbon Footprint Flies!

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'

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.

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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

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!

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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!

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

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

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

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.