scott.projectsomewhere

It seems the blogosphere has moved beyond the world of Mothing and into the wider sailing community… to a degree.

A few 18′ skiff related blogs have started up, making for some entertaining post-race-Sunday reading. First up is Bill Robson’s http://18footer.abeachsomewhere.net, with the story of the rebuilding and racing of Dawn Link Financial. The SFS boys are putting in plenty of effort and their “higher and faster than most of the fleet” setup will surely pay dividends eventually.

Then there’s Simon Nelson’s http://another-mid-life-crisis.blogspot.com, recounting the Englishman’s experience sailing both the Bladerider and 18 footer in Sydney. Perhaps his weekly update has so far been hampered by the bad back… as they say… if you can’t lift it, you can’t sail it.

And then there’s always here, going strong since 2003.

Anyway…. as for the weekend update…

Someone said we had fastest time around the track. After losing our lane and sailing the first work in bad air, we gave away a big handicap to the lead pack. Then… slowly but surely we chipped away at the boats around us and eventually sailed through for a 2nd place over the line.

Hollis’ Ullman Sails scored 1,2,3 (with Asko, Rag and Smeg) in the moderate NE breeze. But with the Southern Rigs and new Norths ready for the 11th, who knows what’s in store.

Sam has posted a bunch of photos on facebook of the RS600FF.

It looks like the FullForce guys have got that boat going pretty well…. for what it is.

Now get back to making real boats people.

Doug has got all excited in his latest blog post on the potential for patents in the Moth class.

I do tend to agree with him. In an ideal world we’d all share, innovate and improve. But we’re a long way from ideal.

It does make me wonder what the response of the Moth class would’ve been if Fastacraft had’ve jumped the shark and patented their foil control system. I’d say there would’ve been a decidedly frosty reception from the already anti-foiler establishment back in 2003.

Anyway. I hope the ideas that are subject to pending patent are published eventually, and that they’ve got signed authority for all future rights and patents from the original inventors.

I think it might cost more than a free sail to get those signatures.

With not much on on Saturday I lobbed down to St George to watch their club racing. A good fleet of 5 or 6 foilers were heading out in a good but fading Southerly.

After watching them go at it for an hour or so, I’m itching to get back on the foiler. My next boat is still a way off, so I’m going to have to get Nige’s Bladerider back in action to get my fix every now and then.

The speed of the new Gilmour/Fastacraft foilers was a bit of a surprise, with Dave Lister taking down National runner-up Luka in one of their early-season races. The fleet down there is going to be close when Donosan gets his new boat on the water as well. Robo and Matt are taking their boats there next weekend to blow away the cobwebs. It’s all happening.

Yesterday saw an easy, nice, warm, moderate Nor-Easter for the opening race of the 2007/08 18 Footer Season.

There were plenty of new faces in the boatpark, plenty of the usual trash-talk, and plenty of enthusiasm to get on the water early.

The good thing for us was that our boat was parked in one of the ramps down to the water, so while we took our good time getting sorted, everyone parked up behind us waited… and waited some more. Pays to get the boat in position early.

The three-bouys handicap was in action again, with the handicapper putting the 7 guys on the 2nd mark for some unknown reason. They started well but we bounced them late on the first leg, then crossed as we headed on up to the furthest top mark. We rounded that mark in the lead, just ahead of Cocko on Fiat. So not a bad first work for the first race of the season. At least we’re not overly slow at this point.

Anyway, the race progressed from there, with the handicapped boats rounding ahead over the 3-lap course. We crossed the line about 7th, and 2nd on scratch behind Fiat.

Not too bad.

The new Van-Munster built Kinder Caring raced well out of the blocks, unsurprisingly quick given Van-Munster built it for himself. Unfortunately they clipped a yacht and blew the rig out of the boat. Smeg also lost their mast above the hounds when the top-spreader broke, but they completed the course with the rest of the mast in the air and the main jury-rigged half-up.

Macquarie’s new black boat was turning heads with it’s painted black sails. It looked good, but didn’t go too quick early when they’re rigged the #2 spinnaker on the #1 mast (after also trying to put the #2 main on during rigging).

Fiat also sported their stiffened mast, with an extra 200mm or so less luff round in the head - making for an even bigger roach. As the breeze built the top couple of battens just flicked in and out like a Moth rig - sort of. They were quick, but not setting the World on fire at this point. Maybe the season-old-hull re-spray wasn’t quite enough. There’s probably plenty more in the extra-budget to blow on upgrades before the season is out.

None of the team North guys pulled out their new Southern Rigs, I can only guess they’re keeping them under-cover for as long as possible.

So all in all an easy day on the water. No real surprises. Maybe late October can bring out some fun days like last year to keep the newcomers on their toes.

It’s old news now that Rohan has been nominated for the 2007 World Sailor of the Year - his second such nomination.

It’s a shame ISAF isn’t a model of democracy in action, since there’s enough tech geeks in the Moth fleet to make sure he’d win an online poll in a land slide.

Anyway, I hope he pulls it off. Taking down Baird, Cammas, Onorato and Scheidt & Prada would be one big coup.

Lucky Rohan’s got some loud cheerleaders. Doink himself would be impressed with the support.