scott.projectsomewhere

Looks like I could be moth-less again soon

With the end of Daylight Savings for another year, we’re running
out of options to sail after work. But since we need plenty of time
on the water before the upcoming 49er Worlds, it’s time to resort
to the drastic measure of pre-work training sessions.

So last week saw the first 2 sessions. At the club by 6AM, on the
water by 6.30, back on land by 7.30, in the office by 9. The water
is a bit chilly at that time, but the breeze has been ok, and more
time is not really going to hurt us at this stage.

So following on from the Thursday/Friday mornings with Nige, along
came the last training weekend with Emmett and the 49er
group.

And by the Sydney 49er fleet standard, we had a rock-star lineup.
With Nige away, Euan jumped on board our boat. Nathan & Ben
were there, fast as usual. Wilmot & Page turned up as well,
very fast and very smart after only a few times on an old 49er.
Warwick & Tim (the other WSC boat going to France) were good on
the first day, to be replaced by the equally fast Clynton & Tai
on the Sunday. Dave & Iain rounded out the tight fleet.

Wilmot & Page showed their 470 World Champion smarts in the
light weather on Saturday. The light S/SW/SE breeze out of Rose Bay
was tricky, but they dominated most races to win handily. Their
20kg weight advantage probably didn’t hurt them either.

The Sunday saw closer racing in the building SE breeze. With a
tight course and race after race after race, I was physically
destroyed. It was time to get to the back of the boat for a
relaxing steer with Euan crewing for the last few races.

Now it would be very very nice to get that fleet together every
weekend to train and race. The standard of the Aussie fleet would
go up very fast.

And so another week rolls on, with more training on Anzac day and
another few cold, dark mornings on an empty Sydney Harbour.

The almost decade-long (9 year) dominance of the Thorpe brothers
over the NSW Moth State Championships was broken this
weekend.

I don’t know that I’m going to be able to hold onto it for that
long myself, but we’ll see how far we can go.

Northbridge proved to be a nasty nasty place to foil, with the
Seaforth zone providing plenty of character building opportunitites
throughout the weekend.

Friday saw a light E/NE breeze blowing. There was not enough breeze
to foil upwind, but the long reach into Sailor’s Bay provided just
enough foiling time to put enough distance on Les and Mark to take
the race.

The second race was not so kind, with less than 50m of foiling over
the two laps. Mark and Les battled it out at the front, with both
Ian Ward & Pete Harney being slippery without the useless
foil/keel drag. Chris Dey dragged his appendages around to beat me
for 5th place.

Saturday was more interesting, with a 25-30 knot SW/S forecast. The
hills around Northbridge sheltered the course so the gusts only
fluctuated from 0-20 knots across the course.

I led the first lap of the first race before capsizing at the
bottom mark and having Chris pass early on the upwind. Chris then
had a brain explosion, forgetting the course he designed and giving
the lead back to me at the middle mark. Les was 4th I think.

The next race provided some interesting lulls place changes. Les
led to the top mark followed by Chris. I got the inside running at
the middle mark and led around every other mark, only to lose a
half-leg lead when the pressure built from behind on the way to the
finish. Chris foiled around me to win by 5m. Bugger.

The next race I built up a handy buffer on Chris after some lucky
breaks through the zone.

But the other foilers couldn’t manage to knock off Les. After 5
races I’d only built up a 5-point margin with a drop, and there
were three races left to go.

Sunday morning didn’t look good.

The first race of the day started in a light Southerly, and within
5 minutes of the start it had turned into a hideously puffy and
shifty, light and shitty breeze. Les led, we caught up, the fleet
concertina-d around the track. Les ended up winning, just, from
Ian. Stevo beat me across. The rest of the fleet drifted over the
line about half an hour later.

So with two races to go, the margin was down to 2 points.

And then the breeze kicked a little… only a little. But it was
enough to foil.

And so we did… backwards and fowards… lots… around and around
Les and the other low-riders while the course was reset and the
racing got underway.

Les still led to the top mark, since upwind foiling just wasn’t
fast enough. Chris caught up on the first downwind and the four top
boats rounded the wing-mark together. Chris and I foiled away on
the next reach to take the places. Les and Ian forgot the middle
mark (another brain explosion) on the last lap and saw Pete and
Luka (and almost Phil) go through the gap.

Lucky for us the breeze didn’t die too much for the next race, and
it was more of the same.

So that was that. I ended up taking it away by about 6 points, from
Chris in 2nd and Les 1 point behind in 3rd.

The foiling fleet is building up in Sydney now, with Les and Ben
about to kit-up their HTs with foils from Thorpey. Hopefully
they’ll have them together for the BYRA marathon around Lion Island
in 2 weeks.

Or I could go to Coffs that weekend and sail a 12… and take the
new moth/12 for a run.

… Or I could race on Atomic in the winter series… too many
options…

Well it wasn’t quite that far…

This weekend saw the Balmoral harbour marathon, with the usual
collection of random club junk racing a course from Middle Harbour,
to Manly, then Shark Island and around Ft Denison and back.

Now it would’ve been perfect conditions for a course record on the
foiler Moth (even though I’ve got no idea what that record would
be)… if only the morning’s gusty Westerly had held in.

But no.

By the time we did finally start, the westerly was dying out and
fighting a light south-easterly. The race was cut-short at Shark
Is, by which time a light easterly provided enough breeze to foil
most of the way home.

At least there were enough show-pony opportunities in the busy
harbour when I could fly… I’ll have to do it again when there’s
reasonable pressure.

While we were plodding around in Sydney, Simon Payne in the UK has
pushed the top-speed bar, hitting 24-point something knots over the
weekend. This Worlds business is going to be interesting to
watch.
…

Then it was on to Sunday and a 49er training session with Emmett in
Rose Bay. The Bay in a gusty southerly was at its painful best with
45 degree windshifts and gusts from 5-18 knots. Not great fun for
training… and even more frustrating when you’re slow. Nathan
& Ben spent the day doing 360s waiting for everyone else to
catch up. Very f&*king average.

The 18s had their final race of the season, with John & Pete
taking out the little rig and being smacked by the rest of the
fleet. That looked even more frustrating that what we were
doing.

And even though it was significantly windier on Sunday than
Saturday, the 49er could not go near topping the previous day’s
Moth top speed of 17.4 knots which was in sub-10 knot conditions.
Veeery interesting.

…

And I’ve also quickly found the downside to living close to
everthing in the Eastern suburbs…

Not many people happen to read this blog (more than I would like
actually), but plenty have been watching the youtube
videos.

The Skiff.tv
promo I put up a month or so back has had over 10340
views!

So maybe I should start video-blogging… or maybe not.

The crew swap onto the Rag went well yesterday, but having Pete and
I on the boat still didn’t improve the Rag’s season of 2nd and 3rd
places.

We were screwed on the start by an OCS Rollo, but tacked right
early and took the right-hand side of Shark in the light SE breeze.
We led around the top mark but Casio stopped us gybing when we
wanted to downwind, and we rounded 2nd at Cremorne Pt.

The places didn’t change at the top mark off Clarke, but in the
shoddy downwind to Clifton Gardens we overtook and rounded just
ahead, with 11 seconds separating 1st and 4th.

Woody had the best upwind to Shark, rounding ahead while we dropped
to 4th with Asko catching fast.

Positions didn’t change on the next upwind or downwind (lucky a
ferry stopped Asko), but on the next upwind we were further left
than Woody and came through to the finish in 3rd.

Euan took his usual high-risk strategy, banging left and taking the
lead and then the race.

So all in all it was a good day for us.

But not so good for Craig and Riss on Active, breaking the mast at
the 2nd spreader before the start. I don’t really want to know how
many DNFs we’ve had this season!

Anyway, that’s the last race for me for the 2005/06 18′ season,
with next weekend’s final race being interrupted by a NSWIS 49er
training session.

And I should probably put a little bit of time into the Moth if I
intend to do well at the upcoming State Championship… it’s going
to take a bit of effort to prise the trophy out of the Thorpe hands
that have been holding it for a decade.