scott.projectsomewhere

And I thought my breakages were spectacular…

The Moth does well in the 6th Annual Sailing Anarchy Awards…

Best Race Boat:

Moth defines race like no other boat short of a windsurfer. What impressed us the most is that they learned to fly on foils en masse, a first class to do so in any sort of a reliable fashion, and then made flying a production purchase option for others by introducing at least three different builder models to the public. While doing it they seemed to be able to maintain their existing base, no doubt due to quick testing and availability of reliable packages from the builders involved with the class. They also put forth a well-organized effort to bring the boat into the Olympics, which just might be a success.

This weekend’s NSW Moth States have been an education.

My boat did arrive on Thursday. Just in time. After waiting all afternoon I rang the freight company at 4.45 to find out what was going on - the 3rd or 4th such call of the day. The boat was still sitting in their warehouse 15 minutes down the road… where it had been for a day or so. Anyway, come 7pm it did finally arrive. I went ahead and un-boxed it, started putting bits together and started putting more bits in the car for the trip to the Lake in the morning.

I started packing again at 5am the next day and arrived at Mannering Park on Lake Macquarie a couple of hours later… to start the assembly.

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As an aside, Mannering Park is a very nice place to sail. It’s tucked well away into the southern end of the Lake, but it’s close to Sydney, flat water, no traffic and easily accessible. Well worth coming back for.

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Anyway, the boat started coming together with a little bit of coercion, and by 2pm I was ready to race for the first heat.

Needless to say the boat was impressive. At least initially. I blasted away with Amac up the first work and rounded ahead. Rohan came back well and took the lead, but I was always fast uphill and took distance off him each time. But I did struggle downwind, and as the race progressed I started struggling more.

I pulled through at the end of the 2nd lap in 3rd, and what I thought was the finish. But no, Les, Amac and Chris gybed and started yet another lap. The next upwind proved again how quick the boat was, pulling through everyone to round the top mark a boat length behind Luka, back into 3rd.

As Rohan lead away in the wrong direction, Luka and I headed downhill in what would now be about 18 knots, gusting over 20. I was shaping up for a comfortable 2nd, when… bang.

Like hitting a rock, the boat stopped instantly and catapulted me well over the bow. When I eventually resurfaced, the boat was on it’s side and the leading-edge of the centreboard was facing the sky. Not pretty. I tried sailing back upwind to the club, but the boat wouldn’t move with the blade opening up and flopping around underneath. I capsized and waited for help to arrive with a pair of pliers so I could cut away the foil cabling and get a tow back to the beach.

So there ended the first day. Not particularly happy at that point.

We cannibalized the prototype so I could get back on the water for Saturday’s racing, re-attaching my lifting foil to the proto centreboard.

In the first race of the day I port tacked the start, but mistimed by a couple of seconds and had to take Amac and Rohan’s stern. As I blasted out infront of the fleet to the right, a squall came in from the left and I was left well behind as the fleet lifted out inside. I was in still in touch, until the last remnants of the rain squall foiled the first 5 boats away from the wing mark, leaving me behind. The next lap and a half were a painful half-foil-half-drag around the track by myself for a 6th place finish.

The next race was better. Rohan jumped away from the fleet again, but I stayed in touch with upwind speed, only to be overrun by Luka downwind. Bugger we always finish downwind.

After a quick lunch we were back on the water for the last race of the day in a good 15-20 knots. Again I was uncomfortable downwind on the way to the start, but everything seemed to be in place, so I couldn’t work out why. When the race got underway I was still quick upwind, rounding the top mark in 3rd. But the downwind was just tragic. 3 boats sailed through me on the first half-square, then another 2 went through on the broad reach as the boat dragged and bounced it’s way downwind. I stopped to adjust the cabling, but to no avail, it still struggled to fly downwind and towards the end of the race struggled to fly upwind.

Not happy Jan.

I was at a loss to explain what had changed, since I hadn’t even removed the foils between races. The only variable was rig tension, but I can’t see it having that massive an effect.

So by the end of the 2nd day my regatta was pretty shot and I wasn’t particularly happy with how things were going generally.

Then Sunday rolls around, and 2 light wind morning races. In the first race, Rohan, Luka and I foiled off to the right in good pressure, only to be hung out to dry as Chris, Pete and the rest of the fleet sailed through in a big left-hander. Not good. I rounded the top mark fairly deep, but not far behind Rohan. Then I noticed the foil linkage bolt at the bow had disappeared, so the boat wouldn’t fly. Great. Already deep in the pack, I sailed back to the beach for repairs, and more alphabet for my scoresheet.

Thanks to the long between-race delay, I was able to get back out in time for the next race, only to have the nut from the wand fall off early after the start. Great.

In the partial foiling breeze I did pretty well, rounding the top mark a couple of lengths behind Rohan. Unfortunately he foiled away downwind as I stopped and waited for more pressure - and the rest of the fleet to join me. At the finish, after 2 laps of snakes and ladders, I sneaked past Chris to score another 3rd.

So at this stage I’ve had a DNF, 6, 3, 8, DNF, 3. Not particularly good.

As my foiling was progressively deteriorating, I handed my boat over to Rohan on the way back to shore. Sure enough he couldn’t get it to go either. Nice.

So I grab Rohan’s main foil for the next race, and Rohan - having already won the series with a 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, films from a power boat.

And what a difference that makes.

I blasted out from the start again, this time even quicker upwind. By the top mark on the shorter course I was already a couple of hundred metres ahead. But a quick capsize to clear weed, and lazy pitchpole soon after put me back in 3rd behind Amac with the MSL9 and Luka. I pull back another few hundred metres upwind to lead around for the 2nd downwind. But now the boat goes downwind well too, and I pace Luka out to the wing mark. That’s more like it. I got a bit shaky in the gybes and Luka pulled out again for the final lap. Lucky for me I went fast and stayed in pressure on the next uphill to pull back on Luka, then extend for a huge lead at the top, which I kept most of til the finish.

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So after all that I’m still having a manic-depressive relationship with my new boat. At certain points of the weekend I could’ve given it back but after the last race, I was grinning like an idiot.

My result was not great, 7th overall and 5th NSW, but what can you expect really given 30 minutes of Mothing in the last 12 months and a boat that was hastily put together the first morning of the event. I have a hell of a lot of work to do before Garda, and the todo list of boatwork just keeps getting longer.

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Bring on next weekend’s Balmoral Marathon.

It was 3.30 and I still hadn’t heard from the freight company… so I had to give them a call and find out what was going on.

So, now the new boat is to be delivered sometime before 11.30 am Thursday.

Might be just enough time to go and buy a rubber mallet to put it all together… and to polish the trophy… but not enough time to get much training in on the lake.

… all 37 minutes of it.

I pulled a few frames of the Asko crash off the TV coverage of the JJ…