Fly or die
The regatta over the last weekend proved (to me at least) that
you’ve got to be foiling… consistently… to win races in Moths
these days.
In generally light winds, the new HT Foiling Moth performed
suprisingly well to win 4 of 5 races, including one by upwards of 9
minutes. I was pretty chuffed with that, considering only a few
weeks ago I thought I could’ve beaten my foiling performances in my
previous conventional HT.
The GPS stats from Saturday were interesting, with a top speed of
16.6 knots and distance of 27kms, compared to Donosan’s low-rider
with 11 knots of boatspeed over approx 16kms of sailing. Sunday saw
a top speed of just over 20 knots in gusts no stronger than
15.
With 15 Moths in the fleet including Les, the best conventional
Moth sailor in the World, I’ve got a good benchmark now to improve
from. There are plenty of areas the equipment can be improved,
along with plenty of skills to learn (or re-learnt as it may be). I
will definitely have to make improvements to continue to do well,
with 3 other Mothies (Luka, Donosan and Pete) waiting (and waiting)
on new foil kit from WA.
So at this stage I’m happy to have taken the risk with plan B, if I
had’ve stuck with my initial plan A - getting equipment from the
same supplier as Rohan - I’d still be waiting. Although the risk in
using prototype equipment was large, Thorpey’s product and delivery
have been amazing… as usual.
Plenty of photos
from the regatta are available on flickr.
