scott.projectsomewhere

I took a bit of a mental health day from work today and instead spent a few hours on the water… first training session for the Moth Worlds.

Nathan, Slingsby and Stu came along. All of them seem to do nothing but sail. Or windsurf. Or kitesurf. Or play golf. Or whatever it is you do when you don’t have a real job. And it shows in their sailing.

We did plenty of runs up and down the harbour in a gusty Easterly. To be honest I was pretty happy with the performance against Nathan, but there’s plenty of room left to improve. And after sailing against Tom both on Saturday and today, I have a new benchmark for upwind straight line speed. It is no fun seeing someone walk away doing another couple of knots through the water. I guess I know how most Laser sailors feel.

It was all good fun no doubt, but I don’t know how you’d go about doing it day in day out…

That’s blog-worthy news isn’t it?

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Well it was about as close to owning one as I will get for a while…

Nathan got an invite to the Audi King of the Docklands event after winning the Moth Nationals in Geelong last year. As a winner of a division of Audi Victoria Week, he got the entry, but had to form his crew from competitors from the same boat (or in our case division).

So we flew down, did a 1h training session on the SB3, then won our heat to progress to the semi final. In the semis, our group was stacked with top boats including a couple of special invite rock stars, but we took that one as well to get through to the final.

The final was raced in next to no wind. We coasted over the start line in a good position, but the race committee attempted to postpone a minute after the start. A fair amount of heckling later they realised they couldn’t postpone a race that had already started, and they had no provision to abandon, so the race continued and we drifted around the tiny track to take another win and an Audi A4 wagon.

Not a bad effort for a few hours sailing. It’s not as if I can drive it to Dubai, but it will help me get there in one way or another.

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And now the Melbourne weather has followed us home… It’s 38 degrees in the shade and there’s bugger all wind!

The delay between posts is getting longer and longer…

But it’s not part of some grand scheme to deprive the interweb of news on what’s going on around the place. The reality is I’ve been way too busy to think much of sailing, let alone blogging about sailing.

We’ll give it a shot anyway…

In the 18s, we didn’t do much of a job of defending our NSW Championship, with a stack of DNFs after breaking both rigs. 9th placing overall.

With plenty of help from CST we got both rigs back together, and we’re now back on the water…

Though you wouldn’t have known it from the result on the weekend. A solid 9th after rounding the top mark in next to last and battling it out with our big rig when the angles didn’t suit it. Not good.

The Moth has been going along ok. No Nationals for me, but I’ve booked my ticket for Dubai.

Problem is I’m going to go into this one way under prepared. I’ve not been camped out in a tropical hideaway testing equipment, I’ve hardly managed to get on the water at all.

Oh well, I’ll just have to wing it and see. See if I can accelerate my 3 odd places a year that I slip through the rankings.

Heat 2 of the Australian Championships on Sunday, and maybe a quick training session on the Moth. Maybe.

So for another month…

So the rebranded SIRS regatta (now called Sail Sydney) is over. Probably the biggest Moth event in Australia for the year – which is both good and bad.

Today was another incredible day. Funny that Monday and Tuesday of SIRS always seem to be ideal weather and provide some of the best racing. Today was just that.

We delayed for a long time waiting for wind to come in, and when we did head out there was only 8-12 knots, but it was enough. 4 boats finished the day tied on 5 points, so the racing was close. It seemed to be one mistake and you’d be in 4th. Another and you’d be battling to stay ahead of the chasing pack.

I finished up with a 3, 2. Coming back from a terrible start in the first one to just sneak in 3rd, then losing touch with Amac in the fading breeze to get a 2nd in the final race.

Dave sailed well and won the event overall. The top 4 finishers in race 6 got thrown out, with all but the second pack doing the right number of laps. Amac had to keep a 10th place which put him out of contention, but only just. He sailed well, albeit always appearing to be on the edge of control. A few little tweaks gave him a handy but tiny speed advantage which he exploited pretty well almost every race.

Rob Gough rounded out the top 3, but had an ordinary last day, his last in the VRX.

Full results here.

The next big event is the Nationals, then on towards the Worlds in Dubai. With plenty to do in between.

Today was awesome. Perfect conditions. Flat water. Building sea breeze. Not much traffic.

No gear breakages.

I finished the day with 3 3rds. In the first one I was pretty lucky to get back to there after not foiling off the line. By the time I got up and going around the back of the tanker, I was a good 300m behind. I pulled through but never challenged Dave or Amac out in front.

Second race was better. I led around the top mark after John overlaid the layline. A bit of rudder ventilation at the bottom let Dave and Amac through, then I hit the mark avoiding Amac’s bottom mark rounding for good measure. Dave got away for the win.

Next one was another 4 lapper. This time I led at the top mark again but Dave blew past and I ditched it in a gybe to become a sitting target for a slightly out of control Amac. A few ordinary other tacks and I was the usual 50m behind on the upwinds, 150m behind on the downwinds. I even put it in the piss through a gybe on the last run just to make sure.

But you’d struggle to complain about the day though. Really tight racing through the fleet, despite being a bit of a 1-way track most of the time.

Only 1 day left, and with a pretty ordinary forecast we’ll probably be postponed on shore for a while. I’ve pulled up to 4th, but won’t go close to troubling Rob, Dave and Amac for the placings.

So the funny thing is I managed to get around the track in the Moth today with no breakdowns.

I gave away the first race with a stupid decision to go right on the second upwind, since I thought the tanker ship on the left would be too close to the left gate layline, but I was wrong. I lost a couple of hundred metres on Amac and Dave, but rounded the last mark only marginally ahead and slow out of the tack so they both blew straight through. Amac motored away for the win, but I pulled ahead of Dave to take 2nd.

Lucky I didn’t make the same mistake in the next race, and lead around the track, opening up a little each lap to take the win.

But then I had to leave to make it over to the 18s as expected, so I missed the last race which Amac won – ending the day with a 1,2,1 scorecard. I’ve now got a 2,DNC,DNC,2,1,DNC from 6 races.

Feels like the Worlds almost.

I rushed over to Double Bay for the skiff race, but probably shouldn’t have.

We got out with little rig in what was shaping up to be a great Nor-Easter. We went upwind for a bit, then set the kite to come back to the start. We bounced over a couple of waves and the forestay rack at the bow sheared in half. The jib popped up off the deck, and the kite halyard levered it’s way around the trap attachments to break the rig at the hounds. All in slow motion.

So a messy packup of broken bits in the water, and we sailed in under bare poles for an early shower.

And plenty of boatwork. Not good.

At least my weekend wasn’t as bad as John’s. After he lost both a rudder vertical and a gantry in the collision with Nathan on Friday.

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In other news, Christophe Launay has posted some awesome photos from our photoshoot/training sessions over the last couple of weeks. Pretty good… even if they’re of me.