scott.projectsomewhere

Last night… 20+ knot South Easterly… practically empty harbour… flat water… awesome sailing conditions!

There were 10 or 11 18′ skiffs rigged in the park for a quiet Thursday night training session. A few went big rig and got pasted, a bunch more went 2nd rig and had some of the fastest rides this year… if not the fastest.

Unfortunately nobody had a GPS to get accurate data, but it would’ve gone well over Cam’s 26 knots from Sunday.

The Ullman team was out to do some tuning runs, and it was surprising how close we could be all the way upwind (despite the pressure being uneven at times).

The JJ Champions on Fiat looked a bit lonely out there by themselves, with only Cocko senior, Neville and North Cocko to keep them company on the chase boat. Without their tuning partners on 7 to speed test with, the Fiat guys joined in a couple of runs with Asko, Rag and CST. A bit of a surprise really that they’d choose to tune up with the enemy rather than the spooners… why?

All in all a worthwhile blast (given the rig and de-rig time required). 3 good runs with little rig in a row!

The next Moth Nationals are set for either Geelong or Blairgowrie, sometime around new-year.

I’ll have a boat at Nationals time for the first time since 2005… so I’m looking forward to it already!

After what feels like a long break, it was back to racing at the 18s yesterday. NE seabreeze, 20+ knots at times and a big run out tide making for some nice waves to bounce over downhill. Can’t complain about that.

The Rag had a good race. After having Asko bounce out of the start below us, and 7 roll over a couple of hundred metres down the track, we tacked out into a clear lane and started working our way up through the fleet. After repeatedly running into chop off the back of the American’s spectator boat (not a good idea to be in the middle of the course if you’re expecting to be given a boat to sail guys)…. we rounded in 5th, just ahead of Club Marine and Macquarie.

After misjudging the layline around Shark, we were 6th, then 5th again at the top. Then when Asko crashed into a wave downwind whilst in the lead, we went into 4th.

Beasho on Club Marine kept coming back to us, but we held him off over the last lap and made gains on Smeg and Yandoo up in front. Yet another moron in a cruising yacht on the layline put us back a couple of boatlengths… which could’ve made a whole load of difference… but then we gained on Woody with an early gybe, then went on his line around Shark and gained little by little towards the line (it helps to be 3-stringing when Woody is sitting on the wing)… In the last ragging of the chute to make the finish, we rolled over Yandoo (with our sponsor and owner of the Rag on the bow) to take 3rd place.

So that’s another good finish in the bank. It could’ve been worse… it could’ve been better.

Fiat ended the day early when their 3kg lighter centreboard snapped before the start… our friendly sailmaker ferried Nath in to pick up their old one from shore… but they’d done too good a job on the casing and couldn’t get the old board in in time for the start. 7 would’ve been watching that situation apprehensively… as their new board would be ticking away towards it’s expiry date (after Asko broke their same-spec board on Friday night).

Plenty of good photos to come later in the week.

In the meantime I’ve uploaded the video footage from the VX40 test day against the 18′ and Tornado up to Youtube.

New Moth ETA… end of the month…

There’s been plenty happening over the last couple of weeks, but limited internet connectivity has kept me out of the loop for the most part…

In 18′ news…. John and Pete had one of the best races of the year - without me on board. At least we can be happy with the new rig… the regular sheethand… not so much.

In Mothing news, I took out Rohan and Mark’s Bladeriders from Sorrento while the Australian (and foreign) Moth fleet was off racing in Wallaroo. After spending a few weeks in a coach boat watching 9ers, it only brought home how incredible the Moth is to sail. I even managed to pull off a bunch of 2-up foiling gybes with one of the 29er helms in about 15 knots. Nice.

And in the 9er news… I’ve been down coaching at the 29er Nationals and Worlds, from Safety Beach and Sorrento respectively. After some good, solid sailing from the heavy-weight Perth boys, Australia thankfully managed to hold onto the trophy in it’s own waters. The regatta proved a good test, and would have surely been disappointing for a lot of the teams who came in with high expectations. But then there can only be one winner… and unfortunately for Byron & Will, nobody will remember who came second.

And if you hadn’t noticed, Nathan & Ben pulled off a great win in the 49er Worlds. Awesome to watch and a great boost for them towards the games.

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And once that event is over… season 09 for the 18s… and Nathan’s new campaign to cut Seve’s lunch.