scott.projectsomewhere

As I said previously, I had a couple of issues with Ben’s board yesterday, but like everything there is a silver lining.

The good news is that Ben is getting a new centreboard for his boat.

The bad news is that I’m buying it for him, after I broke his board in my boat yesterday.

I’m not having a great run with those at the moment. 2 boards in 2 weeks. Both the same way at the same spot.

I was blasting along in a gusty westerly which hit 25 knots at times before it happened. Luckily I was close to shore and drifting in comfortably, til a 35+ knot southerly came through, turned me around and started blowing me back down the bay. I had to resort to sailing upwind in a gale with the remains of the centreboard strapped to the deck, then beach on a sandbar while a rescue squad of 6 or 7 kids from the club and another bunch of bystanders helped me de-rig and drag the whole catastrophe back home.

So I’m going to take a couple of weeks off. I’ve been offered yet another board to use, but given my run lately I might pass on it for now. It’s a good reason to focus on getting the new 18 on the water anyway.

Poor old me will be eating baked beans on toast while I pay down all these foils. If only I was one of those mythical team riders that our mates at Pravda are now working themselves into a lather arguing against.

It seems to be a bit like that lately.

I thought I’d worked it all out when I put some thought into how much flap movement I was getting and how that related to my downwind control. But it seems I was too smart by half.

The changes worked on my board, and it improved dramatically. So dramatic that Dave spent the next month in the workshop trying to figure out what I’d done and trying to better it.

Then it broke.

I found the same inital problems with Ben’s board in my boat, so on Saturday I made the same changes that I made to mine previously, but went one step further with the gearing. It didn’t work.

What I was finding was that the boat would fly along, relatively low in the water, then when it did go up, the wand would come forward, but stall in mid air about where the flap would be neutral. No amount of wand elastic would override it. On shore it was fine, the wand would move freely and easily through the full range from flap up to flap down.

What I had done was over gear the centreboard bellcrank, so it became almost a 1:1 relationship between the vertical and horizontal pushrod. The problem I think was that the flow over the flap became a stronger force than the flow (or lack of it) over the wand as it came free of the water.

So the boat would rise, the wand would come clear, and you’d get this floating sensation as it became unresponsive til either you pushed the boat down to get the wand tip back into the water, or you crashed.

I crashed a couple of times.

That’s my latest theory at least. There was no significant friction in the system, there wasn’t any significant play. Neither the bellcrank, or the pushrod, or the wand, or the ball socket was bottoming out, so I can’t think of any other explanation for why the wand would refuse to flick forward.

Next step is to restore the ratio in the centreboard, and then power up the wand gearing accordingly. That should get me back to where I started, in a round about sort of way.

Interestingly the wand didn’t have the same reaction that a Bladerider does, even though I was using all Bladerider parts. The BR wand movement appears to generate power as it comes forward, and I haven’t yet worked out how or why.

Anyway, I’ve got a while to work it out now, since there’s more important things to think about after the weekend.

Not that the new boat needs a birthday anyway…

But that was my weekend. 24 odd hours working on the new 18.

The new Rag is shiny white. It looks great, but not quite as striking as the Cooper’s green of the last boat.

Progress was a bit slow at first, with a bit of a stocktake needed on what bits we didn’t have to do the fitout, then a fair amount of measuring and leveling to try and find the centerline and make sure the mast step and jib track weren’t out of whack. But since everything on these boats is well out of alignment, it should hardly matter.

Munster said we didn’t do too badly on the tools for a bunch of pen pushers. I think that was a compliment.

Now we’ve got a couple of weekends to get everything sorted before the season starts on October 12th. And John is leaving this week for a couple of weeks, so there’s going to be a bit on getting it all together.

What I would do for a fully cocked workshop, close to home and with a full-time staff about now…

The Heaven Can Wait 1 Lap Dash is running on Saturday October 4th, and looks like an interesting race for the Moth… again if the conditions are right.

It’s a 27 odd mile race around Lake Macquarie, 1 lap of the 24 hour race that starts at the same time. 24 hours is a bit much for me, but if the conditions are right and I can average 15 knots or so (with a lot of reaching), it could be pretty quick.

But I don’t have a centreboard to use yet.

Anyone else interested?

Is an art that I’m not particularly good at.

But I’ve been practicing lately.

Rohan has been trying hard to get me to rejoin the team, and help Bladerider maintain their dominance. But the timeframe for acceptance is just too soon for me. I’ve said no. Not because the offer was bad - it was great. It’s just that I have unfinished business with my boat, and I’d like to see it get to it’s full potential, so I’m going to run with it.

But it’ll cost me a lot more. Such is life.

Thankfully it’s been a win for everyone. A spot has opened up for Nathan Outteridge to become involved. Now I’ve probably just gone and made sure Bladerider will win the next couple of Worlds. I’ve just cut my own lunch. But I think it’s worth it. To get Nath into the class will be big. He’ll be incredibly competitive in a short space of time, and racing against him will just be more fun, even if he beats me… which he most likely will.

Everyone’s a winner.

This week, I’ve also been given an invitation to join the Australian Sailing Team Development Squad which has been sufficiently expanded post-Olympics to stretch far enough down to me. The problem is I’m not ‘technically’ sailing an Olympic class at the moment. Yes, I’ve done a bit this year, but it looks as though my skipper Dave has a better team (in a lot of ways) with Gooby. So I’m skipperless, campaignless, boatless. But I’ve still got the invite. It’d be easy to say yes to a week on Hamilton Island, but I don’t want to waste everyone’s time.

So I might still get a chance to practice my saying no skills again. Maybe.

Or maybe not.

It’s a tough game this Mothing, full of back room tactics, secrecy and intrigue.

The appearance of the Mach2 project on t’internet less than a fortnight ago has forced a lot of hands. It seems Simon and Amac are following a plan to slowly drip information to the Mothosphere, staying above the fray in a way while everyone else flames out in activity and expectation.

Amac brings to his project a large amount of respect, and a supportive following with essentially the entire Moth fleet using his sails, with another large following ready to order his foils when they are available. He has earnt this not so much through promotion as performance, and price, and availability, and intertia. Loyalty if you will.

I think they’ll be very successful, and I hope they are.

Rohan seems to be a bit upset about the competition, and the potential that the current team members will buy from another manufacturer. It might just be me, but the latest ’show me the money’ blog post does read like it has the potential to be misinterpreted, perhaps even as mildly offensive to team members past or present. Or otherwise.

I was the guy who sold out last time around. Despite having a very fast boat that finished 2nd at the Worlds, and a financially attractive opportunity to continue on, I didn’t stay. It sure would’ve been easier to roll into another one, easier on the pocket, and easier to sail in Weymouth. But easy wasn’t exactly what I was after at that point. I thought the boat could be improved, and I knew John at Fastacraft was going to be receptive to improving his gear as a result of Garda. It wasn’t just the boat. It wasn’t just the money. It wasn’t about loyalty. And in the end it didn’t make any difference to Bladerider.

But at this point the Mach2 is vaporware. Why all the fuss?

At this point I don’t think there’s a need for desperate measures or panicked decision making. Bladerider has many strengths it can leverage to build it’s business, the market and it’s share of it.

The way I see it, Amac’s boats will appeal to those in the know. Those who’ve been around for a while and know Amac or Simon personally.

But Bladerider hasn’t been completely successful selling to these people in the past anyway. Where Bladerider has been hugely successful is in selling to new Moth sailors. I think they’ve been successful there due in no small part to Rohan’s profile in the wider sailing world, and their generally very good availability. I think they’re strengths they can leverage on.

The Mach2 seems to be pitching itself at the top of the market, with a retail price that shows it is not aiming to win any price war.

But these new Mothies are not looking to buy the most expensive boat possible. For most of them, price is the biggest stumbling block, and that’s a battle Bladerider can easily win, they just haven’t been trying. Do you really think all the Bladerider sailors would be buying the latest MSL sail direct from KA if their next X8 sail was only $800? Bladerider can easily continue to dominate the new Moth sailor market. Their price point is a very effective tool.

Then it can use it’s strengths to leverage loyalty in these new sailors. If they’re looked after, if they’re made to feel important, if they’ve got personal service, if their problems and questions are dealt with immediately, if they can get a boat shipped the day after they order it, if they can order a part off the internet and have it sent immediately, then that’s the kind of service which will lead to repeat business. Loyalty if you will. I think they can win here. They showed it in Garda and Weymouth, their workshop and the hard work put in by Simon Owen-Smith was just awesome. The goodwill they generated by assisting all comers - even non Bladerider sailors - was not insignificant. Will Mach2 be able to offer the same? Are Amac and Simon up for that at the Gorge, or are they taking after-sales support to a whole new level again?

As much as results matter, I don’t think you need to dominate the front of the fleet to ensure you sell boats in the future. People who’ve been in the class for more than 5 minutes can see that equipment is not everything, so much of the performance equation is made up by the sailor. There are so many brilliant sailors from outside the Mothosphere that could be brought into bolster the ranks of any team that is hunting championship glory.

On that note, I’ve been trying to convince Rohan to make a comeback, and hopefully this will be the motivation. It’s one thing leading a team from a RIB, and something else being the face of the brand on the race course. If winning was everything, then Bladerider still has an ace up it’s sleeve, if only it would use it.

So where does all this leave the other builders? Fastacraft, Velociraptor, Aardvark, Assassin?

They still have loyal customers. They still have value. Being small isn’t necessarily bad, especially in a class that develops very quickly. It will be difficult to win a price war against a Chinese manufacturer (unless you’re building in New Zealand), but it won’t be difficult to win a battle on quality. It won’t be difficult for these guys to win a battle on personal service. And it definitely won’t be a hard to win on innovation. Look after your customers and they’ll have no hesitation to recommend you to their friends. Stay light and quick, and I think you’ll stay afloat.

I think the Mothosphere is but one example of the unique nature of the Moth. It’s sailors aren’t just looking to buy a boat. It’s not all about a financial transaction then off you go. It’s a story. It’s a challenge. The people involved are so passionate about it, and I think there’s plenty of room for all of the builders to feed into that passion.

I don’t think one has to fail for the other to succeed. I don’t think it’s an either-or proposition.