scott.projectsomewhere

The new Moth was only pseudo christened at the recent NSW Championships, but already has a new ‘racing’ name… appliancesonline.com.au.

AppliancesOnline.com.au is back online as a main sponsor of the new boat, and the campaign for the Worlds in Weymouth.

I think I’ll have to pack one of their coffee machines in the box so John can function for the two-weeks of the trip.

I have been less than enthusiastic about the prospect of spending $10k going to Weymouth in July and had almost reached the point of ruling myself out… til the NSW States over the weekend fired me up… if only a little.

Now it’s on. I’m going to get there and give the regatta a run.

Thankfully pulling off a win at the recent States on Jervis Bay has given me that motivation to get the campaign back on the rails.

Day 1 was windy. And wavy. The waves were worse than Garda, but luckily we didn’t have the really fresh breeze which would’ve made it practically unsailable. I headed out with a new stiff wand setup, and headed back to the shore in no time to switch back to normal. I managed to get back out there in time to start the invitation race.

In pretty short order, myself and John and Mat on their Bladeriders launched out of the blocks and led the fleet upwind. I capsized on the first of many ordinary tacks. John and I rounded the first mark together, with my pitchpole soon after putting John into the lead. It didn’t last for long though, with the gnarly waves claiming pretty much everyone at some point. I sailed reasonably conservatively, in fear of breaking anything, but thankfullly I was quick and upright enough to win.

Unfortunately as an invitation race it counted for nothing.

Race 1 was more of the same. Les was out after ripping the gantry off his borrowed boat. Dave Lister broke his gantry bolts. Every scow on the water lost their rigs (or at least they all appeared to have). Luka didn’t risk his borrowed foils in the windy stuff and stayed on shore. Belcher was on the beach running back to the club to retrieve a hammer and screwdriver to re-attach his rudder foil. By the time we started, the fleet was slightly depleted.

I raced around without a capsize to get a reasonable lead, despite not pushing anywhere near as hard as Ben, who sent his boat straight down the waves with just a bit more conviction than I could manage. Then by the time the last lap rolled around, I was quite chuffed with having avoided a swin, only to piss it in twice within a couple of hundred metres of the line. Ben was second, and Donosan was 3rd to make a ProwlerZero trifecta. Belcher dropped from 3rd to 6th in the last downwind, and John pulled up stumps after lowriding with a broken pushrod for two laps.

So plenty of repairs to do in preparation for Heat 2, Day 2.

Day 2 brought more of the same, albeit with a fading breeze. I won a close race against Dave Lister, who was very fast as expected. The first lap seemed to be a matter of leap-frogging the leader as they went over the mine downwind.

Race 3 was a disaster for me. Belcher, John, Dave and myself were within a couple of lengths as we launched our way towards the middle mark, but I managed to round down into a capsize next to the mark, and spend a huge amount of time getting it upright. The leaders fought their way around the track, and I spent another couple of minutes capsizing another 3 or 4 times in pretty spectacular fashion. If you’re going to stuff up, I guess it’s good to get it all over and done with in 1 race.

By the afternoon, the breeze had died completely - taking the waves with it. In drifting conditions, Belcher, Phil, Les and the lowriders were very fast. At times it was a contest of disconnecting foil controls to minimize drag and then panicking to reconnect them when a puff came down the course. Stevo won both races, with Belcher forgetting the course while in the lead and on the way to the finish in the final race.

Sunday saw more of the same. After a long postponement we hit the water in non-foiling conditions, then drifted through the first 1-lap-wonder of a race. I think I finished 4th, losing valuable points on Belcher in the process.

The breeze came in a touch for race 7, and while the course was reset I managed to foil around with the dolphins near the shore. Unbelievable to have a dolphin the size of the boat crusing along directly underneath the foils… unbeliveable and slightly unnerving.

Anyway, I led the race til the tight reach, where Belcher and Matt Day ran over the top of me as I tried to reconnect foil connections. Belcher did the same at the wing mark and we all launched into a gust. Somehow I managed to hang onto it for longer, and kept foiling around the bottom mark and out to the upwind layline…. where it all went bad. I low-rode the next half of the work as Belcher and Day flew up behind, over the top, and down the reach in front of me. Luckily lightning struct twice and Belcher forgot the course on the final leg, I foiled around the wing mark and all the way to the finish for a valuable race win, and an unbeatable lead in the regatta.

More of the same for race 8, at times dragging foils around, and then more stuffing around to reconnect them. I managed to foil on the final broad reach to pass 5 or 6 boats and take 3rd. Thanks to that wonderful F-Box thingo.

So all in all a good event. Tough racing in light winds - I have plenty of work to do to keep up with sailors of Belcher’s ability.

The next Moth event on the calendar is the Anzac Day race at St George, then the BYRA Marathon around Lion Island (provided the wind blows).

Then the Worlds…

The NSW Moth State Championships are being sailed at Jervis Bay over the Easter weekend. 9 races are scheduled for the series, with only 1 race on Friday, then 4 races each day over Saturday and Sunday.

That schedule is sure to upset the big guys, with a 20+ knot day forecast for Point Perpendicular on Friday, and sub 10 knots for the rest of the event. Perfect training for Weymouth perhaps.

There will be a whole bunch of good boats there, with National Champ Mat Belcher bringing his BR down from the Gold Coast, along with training partner and on-again-off-again mothie Rod Ray.

Then there’s John in his new BR, and Les in Geezer’s BR, and Doink (if his boat hasn’t expired from overuse).

And the St George boats with Luka on a borrowed Prowler, Dave’s super fast home build, and Grant on my old HT. Then Donosan and Ben in their new Prowler-Zeros, and Phil and Bruce with their new foils.

And a couple of Victorians including a possible Amac, and the South Australians Greg and Ned putting in the miles.

All in all it should be an awesome regatta.

If I can finish the first heat, it will be an improvement on last year, and I’ll be happy. If I get through the regatta without too many mistakes and with no breakages, I’ll be very happy.

Given that as this point last year I was on the phone to the shipping agent trying to get my boat delivered, then assembling it for the first time on the Friday, I’m pretty relaxed about the whole thing. It should be fun.

Finally the day arrives to launch the new Moth, and it just so happens to be blowing 20 to 30 knots from the South. Perfect conditions for the maiden flight.

I spent 80% of the day doing the final 20% of the assembly, then had the fun of pulling it all out and starting again when I’d put the rear wing bar on the wrong way. There’s a trick for new players.

Anyway. I ended up ditching John who was still tooling away on his new Bladerider, and ventured out for a sail. Given the conditions, I set up with -1 degrees and had the odd sensation of flying fast and level, but so far bow down that I looked like I was about to pitchpole. The flap controls all worked well, but I ran out of rudder travel trying to counteract the bow down attitude. Canting the board back to 0 and it felt a bit better.

All the lines bedded in, and the tramps and straps started to go a bit sloppy, so I turned and headed back to shore.

So the day was a success. No catastrophic failures. A whole bunch of capsizes, but no repairs. I’ve got a long list of work to do on the boat from here, but for day zero, it felt great.

By the time I returned, John had finished putting his shiny red boat together, but thought it best not to sail in the breeze which seemed to be building. Probably a good idea. Hopefully the weather is a bit more forgiving tomorrow.