scott.projectsomewhere

The sailing itch has returned with a vengeance, but at the moment
I’m at a loss to work out how to scratch it.

Though its not as if I’m not trying - spending most weekends
sailing, coming off a series of regattas and looking forward to the
18 Worlds (if we qualify of course).

What is to be the next challenge (other than repairing the blog)?
Suggestions are more than welcome.

Sure I’ll continue to do a regatta here and there in the 29ers. But
they’re not an option.

The 49er has been a big contender in the last few months. I’ve been
keen to get into one since training with Tristano on Lake Garda
back in June. There are a few big positives for the 49er, but also
a few big negatives.
- The competition is fantastic internationally (+)
- The competition & fleet sizes are poor locally (-)
- Good boats are expensive (-)
- Resale value is poor (-)
- Its a new challenge, with lots of new skills to learn (++)
- Its more fun working with a crew to put together a good result
(+)
- Its incredibly hard to find someone with similar skills,
motivation, enthusiasm, finance, fitness, committments and physical
attributes who also wants to sail with you (-)
- There is potential to improve the fleet, with a bunch of young
rock-stars entering (+)
- The class has a relatively high profile (+)

So there’s a reasonable balance of pros and cons for that
one.

Where else?

The 18 is of course continuing on as usual. I can (and most likely
will) continue racing this boat on Sundays during the season. Yet
there are pros and cons for that as well.
- The fleet is reasonably large locally (+)
- There are plenty of sailing gurus racing the boats every week
(+)
- Plenty of room for playing with the boats/rigs/etc (+)
- Inexpensive. Since it costs pretty much nothing to turn up and
sail the boat, I would say its very inexpensive (+)
- Plenty of room to improve (+)
- High profile in Sydney (+)
- An international circuit in
the making, if it ever eventuates (+)
- Good bunch of blokes to race with and against (+)
- Racing on the harbour is a bitch, with traffic and wind
variations removing a lot of tactics, boat on boat and fleet racing
aspects that you would find in other classes. It feels like a
scenic tour sometimes rather than a serious race (-)
- The boats do feel a bit like tanks. They’re not that
sweet to sail, though perhaps the new ones are better?
(-)
- Their isn’t much transparency in the organisation, and it appears
to be a bit of a boys club. Politics and breeding again (-)
- Not sure what boat we’ll end up racing next season. Could be
good, could be the same again (-)
- As much a team game as anything (+-)

What else is there then?

I guess Northies might be ok.
Though they are a bit of a girls boat. The competition might be ok
in the top few… maybe. Downwind without a spinnaker would be a
pain in the arse… next.

16s? Next.

Moths. Now there’s an interesting prospect.
The most amazing boat in the World to sail from a sensation
perspective. Hmmm
- Feels great… really great (+)
- Easier to organise one person (+)
- Expensive to stay at the top (-)
- Cheaper than the other options, other than the 18 (+)
- Poor resale value, unless you sell at the right time. You will
probably still lose less than the other boats (-+)
- Small fleet sizes both locally and Internationally (-)
- Really great bunch of people (+)
- Plenty of bitching politics, especially when you’re on both sides
of the arguments (-)
- Room for improvement, as always (+)
- Easier to get to the top than any of the others (+)
- Racing might be a bit one-sided (-)
- Not recognized in the conventional sailing world, its pretty much
a one-way street (-)
- Plenty of room to play and experiment (+)
- The builders take too long to get their kit together (-)

So there’s good and bad sides to everything I know. I guess if
someone came to me with the ability to get into a boat soon, I
would probably jump at it.

So what do you think?

Update: I’m off to Melbourne in a week to see how hydrofoil Mothing
is…

Silja has been doing some more sailing in her last week in
Australia… I wonder what she got upto in the other two weeks

Julian has pulled the 29er big rig out of the container, with Tai
and Silja being test pilots during the week, and Silja and I
sailing it on Saturday.

In 20+ knots the boat becomes nice and tricky, taking away all the
easy parts of normal 29er sailing… good fun I would say. We did
go for a swim more than once, and Silja was very happy that I put
it in the piss on the first bear-away after taking over the helm. I
would argue that it was due to the sheets being normal 29er size…
ie you can’t let it out all the way and stay on the wire… but
then that’s just an excuse isn’t it.

The new boat rig needs a lot of work, perhaps I’ll just have to
drop down a bit more often and take it sailing

Some photos on Tai’s site…

Update #1

Here’s an email I sen’t off to Julian with some feedback…
–
Julian,

Some feedback on sailing the 29erX both with Silja last week, and
today (as well as for a few months back in 2000).

Great fun, much more challenging that the usual, though maybe a
little too challenging for most.

There are a lot of little tweaks that can be made to the boat to
make the ride more user-friendly. It’s always annoying to have
things not working exactly how you’d like them to. The list of
things I would change:
- Make the standard sheets longer so the main and jib can be out
while the helm is still on trapeze.
- The tillers need to be longer so they can’t fall inside the
shrouds, or inside the helms harness.
- The bridle is too short.
- The trapeze lines are too long.
- V-cleats are absolutely useless.
- Footloops would be nice downhill.

A few comments on the new rig:

- The jib is hard to set up so that it looks right. I feel the foot
needs to be shorter and the width needs to be greater higher up. It
seems to set up too far away from the spreader/mast.

- The standard jib track is too short to give a good range of
adjustment. It felt better sheeting bottom clewboard and no pins
for the crew weights (and winds) I sailed in.

- The head of the mainsail seems to be too full. Uphill in strong
winds the head battens seems to almost set permanenly intervted.
When they do flick into and out of position there feels to be a
huge change in available power. It’s difficult to keep the boat
flat (and fast) when the power changes so much. In Moths we tended
to sail with much larger roaches, but have a flatter head. I
wouldn’t mind trying a larger, flatter head, the sail does what it
likes uphill but has plenty of area downhill. Probably a lower
centre of effort (less drive up there) would help too. You’re the
guru in that deparment though.

- The luff pocket is too long, and too wide. It’s hard to get
enough downhaul tension, and pulling the downhaul seems to pull too
much on the foot.

- It doesn’t feel as though the crew weight can be moved far enough
back going downwind. I haven’t sailed the boat in chop, though I
think it would make for a pretty scary ride. With two on the wire
its not possible to get the weight even as far aft as a standard
29er, and a 49er allows the weight to be moved further aft relative
to the rig. This is not something you can’t fix easily, and where
the cut-off transom becomes a bit of a liability. With you on the
helm there wouldn’t be a problem, but with a heavier crew and some
big waves - ouch.

- With the narrow width, it feels as though the helm is pulled
further forward by the trapeze. I can’t say I remember this on a
49er or the 18, which may be due to the wings. Again you’ve put
more thought into the geometry than I have. It feels as though, as
a helm, you can’t get your weight outboard with the aft body-angle
to counteract the trap.

- I hear you are looking at making the spinnaker smaller. It feels
a little narrow to me, so perhaps I would prefer bigger shoulders.
Again you’ve got more experience there than me, but would more area
up high give more lift? And less area down low make it easier to
hang on to?

- I don’t have all that much confidence that the standard 29er gear
will hold up with the increased loads. The racing life of the hulls
would almost certainly be reduced. It will also be interesting to
see how the rudders hold up. A standard 29er rudder tends to get
kinks where the blade exits the bottom of the box after sailing the
boat pretty hard. The new rig would put greater load on this point
again. I have also blown up various vang joints in my time (which
is probably a bit long!) the life of the joints on this rig might
be less.

I hope I haven’t been too negative. As I’ve said earlier, the boat
is great fun. I would love to continue to be involved in improving
it.

Cheers,
Scott
–