scott.projectsomewhere

Page 5 of Monday’s Sydney Morning
Herald runs with the story “Sailors counting on this moth
really taking off” and a huge photo of me and the Moth foiling off
Balmoral. Not only page 5, the article even rates a
mention on the SMH web site.

Mothie Jon Reid, a
photographer from Fairfax put the whole thing together. The aim was
to get some spectacular shots from water level as the boat flies
past. SMH ended up not only posting the photo and caption, but a
400+ word article on foiling as well… with quotes from me!

Now as a kid in small-town Coffs Harbour I used to get a mention in
the papers pretty regularly (thanks to Dad), but to get a
relatively huge article in the front of a serious news paper (next
to an article on abortion drug funding etc) is pretty big
stuff!

Luckily Saturday’s weather held up for the photo shoot, with clear
skies and just enough wind to foil. We spent a few hours doing
flybys as Jon floated around in the middle of the Harbour. A few
close calls and a few crashes later - we had some good shots.

I’m a bit worried about the fallout from what I said about 18
footers though, with a quote in the article “… but in the right
conditions it’s more exciting than 18-foot skiffs”… Well it is
true I guess.

From the article:
Babbage took delivery of the
hydrofoils recently and expects eight boats to be fitted with the
device at the Australian titles at Lake Macquarie in January.
He says “foiling” is the most amazing
sailing he has experienced, with a feeling that one is “all on the
edge of control”.
“The key is not just to fly, but to
fly and avoid crashing
“Going from 50kmh to zero is not much
fun, but in the right conditions it’s more exciting than 18-foot
skiffs.”

Now that’s publicity that can’t be bought! My “pint-sized Moth” has
gained a bigger rap in the Sydney media than the 18 footers, Volvo
Ocean Race, even the America’s Cup…. and that’s not an
exaggeration!

Now to put together a sponsorship proposal to make use of the
exposure… Any suggestions?

Update #1: I’ve uploaded a pic of the article
to flickr.

News has it that Dave, Gooby (Iain) and Jamie are to sail on
Richard Scarr’s Dinghy
Solutions 18 Footer in next weekend’s League race.

With a light Southerly forecast, and not much weight on board, the
guys should do ok. Their idea of putting Jamie (a 16 y/o 29er
skipper) on the bow - is probably not too smart!

Other news has it that ‘04 29er World Champs Tristan &
Alain (soap-dodgers) are heading down to Australia in a few
weeks. They’ll do SIRS and some other events on Dave’s old 49er,
then Tris will steer for Jamie and Alain will crew for Dave in the
29er Nationals.

I’d have to say Dave has got the better deal there. Not surprising
that the odds are stacked in his favour.

So the weekend started well with the Moth Interclub event at
Toronto on Lake Macquarie. With 50+ boats to sail against, the Moth
turnout was disappointing - with only 5 starters and no
locals!

The foiler again was the show pony of the event. I did the routine
self-promotion by heading out early and blasting around the bay in
front of the club. It was a busy day on the lake, so there were
plenty of blatant ‘look-at-moie’ moments - and I took full
advantage of them.

The race was the usual long winded afair. With a recall at the
start I re-rounded the pin and flew through the fleet on port - not
for the faint-hearted. Halfway up the work I’d crossed the leading
505, by the top mark I was a few minutes ahead, by the bottom mark
the next boat was still back at the wing mark. Unfortunately the
wind died off in the second half of the race and I couldn’t
continue to extend the lead. I held in there for a 9+ minute win
over the 2nd boat - a 29er, with Stevo the 2nd Moth 20 minutes
back.

Yes, the foiler is obscenely quick.

So from there it was back to Sydney… for a quick Saturday-night
sojourn in the Cross for Herman’s opening night at
Dragonfly. Needless to say I was out of my depth in the
Eastern-suburbs rich & beautiful coked-to-the-eyeballs set. Fun
all the same.

Then on to the 18’s race on Sunday.

The pattern seems to be re-establishing itself. We started well and
were going fast uphill before Sweeney fell of trap and broke the
tiller after a tack. We lost plenty of time tacking back to pick
him up and taping up the broken tiller to keep racing. Then it was
a littany of abortion tacks and gybes followed by a dodgey last
gybe-drop which saw the tack-line snag and the kite tear underneath
the boat.

Despite all that we were taking minutes out of the fleet (or at
least our part of it) uphill with some smart calls in the tricky
East-South-Easterly.

We finished a respectable 9th, taking Yandoo near the last top
mark.

Who knows what we could do if we got our stuff together….

As Euan says - often - of himself… maybe we could ‘take it to
another level’.