scott.projectsomewhere

The poor blog has been lonely of late. What is the World coming to?

That’s not to say there’s been nothing happening – just too busy to update.

I’m about to board a plane for Italy via the UK for the 18 regatta at Malcesine. I’ll be new middle guy on the spooner program with Seve & Sam. Should be fun, but now that I’m on the red boat I might have to selectively delete some of my posts from the last few years.

Or maybe not.

The RAG program wound up at the end of the season, with John deciding to focus his available time on the Moth in the leadup to the Belmont Worlds. It would’ve been a bit tough slotting into the steering role – given I don’t have the time to sort out a half-reasonable program. Anyway, Pete and I went our separate ways, with Pete taking on the front on the Appliances Online, and me slotting into the 7.

I’ve taken on Tom’s spot on the boat, and he’s taken on the middle on the RAG, which continues with Jack on the stick and Drew on the bow.

Anyway, Garda should be a nice little intro… Any reason to go sailing there again.

In the meantime the Moth has been getting a little bit of attention, only just a little. We had 7 or so boats out this morning at 7.30, making the most of the early winter Westerly. We’ve got a reasonable group of boats coming regularly for the early starts, and last week we got some nice footage from the camera cat to show what sort of coverage we could do for the upcoming Worlds.

The Belmont organisation is getting there. Albeit slowly. I should have a chance to modify the draft NOR on the flight today. All 22 hours of it. The major sponsor has still not signed on the dotted line unfortunately, but hopefully we can lock something in soon.

Belmont did a pretty good job with the NSW States at Easter. I didn’t.

I was sailing well for a while, having a bunch of good races with Nathan & John. But then my vang broke in one race, and I cleaned up the finish boat in another, missed the start of the next, then rushed the re-rig and ended up with a two-piece mast not quite together for the next. From about 6 points to 60 in 3 races.

Excuses excuses.

The delay between posts is getting longer and longer…

But it’s not part of some grand scheme to deprive the interweb of news on what’s going on around the place. The reality is I’ve been way too busy to think much of sailing, let alone blogging about sailing.

We’ll give it a shot anyway…

In the 18s, we didn’t do much of a job of defending our NSW Championship, with a stack of DNFs after breaking both rigs. 9th placing overall.

With plenty of help from CST we got both rigs back together, and we’re now back on the water…

Though you wouldn’t have known it from the result on the weekend. A solid 9th after rounding the top mark in next to last and battling it out with our big rig when the angles didn’t suit it. Not good.

The Moth has been going along ok. No Nationals for me, but I’ve booked my ticket for Dubai.

Problem is I’m going to go into this one way under prepared. I’ve not been camped out in a tropical hideaway testing equipment, I’ve hardly managed to get on the water at all.

Oh well, I’ll just have to wing it and see. See if I can accelerate my 3 odd places a year that I slip through the rankings.

Heat 2 of the Australian Championships on Sunday, and maybe a quick training session on the Moth. Maybe.

So for another month…

Time flies when you’re having fun. And when you’re neglecting your blog.

Not much to note of late to be honest. I’m slowly working the new Mach2 up. Finding it’s limits here and there. I even managed to get my sister Tina out for a spin on Saturday. Not much of a load test to be honest, but good to see how it went. The boat actually felt faster, but the handling through tacks and gybes with two on board was a bit tough.

We had 4 more races at Woollahra, so we’re up to 36 races for the spring pointscore so far. Phil still leads handily, but I’m closing the gap now that I’m on the water a bit more. Once we include the visitors in the scoresheet I might be looking good. Anyways, the boat felt good. By the time our late start finally got underway I’d be sailing for a few hours and was generally stuffed, but I got away with a few good shifts and the boat held out to get me over the line each time.

Sunday was a general disaster. 40 degrees, close to 0 humidity. It was like rigging and sailing in a hair dryer. The 18 fleet generally went big rig even though the forecast was nasty. The Nor-Wester was generally shite, with plenty of big shifts which tended to telegraph their appearance with a change in temperature.

We had an ordinary start after Archie and the guys on Asko managed to lee-bow tack too close under us on the approach then lock wings… we weren’t too concerned til they started to call up a few seconds later. Poor form. To infringe so blatantly and do nothing about it, then try to call for rights is just bizarre. I would’ve thought fair sailing would dictate that you’d take yourself out of the situation to do a penalty rather than try your luck for advantage. But then maybe I’m just soft.

We still managed to hold our lane out of the blocks despite reversing out and starting again from below, but we had to take some evasive action to avoid Woody, then got taken for a ride around the top mark when Evan couldn’t bear away. By that stage we were back in the pack and going the wrong side of the course.

We picked back a bit by the next top mark, but this time downwind BoatMate decided to t-bone us as we headed downwind under full noise with the kite up. The first we heard about it was the bang as we saw them disappear out behind our boat without a bow. We gybe-dropped and started a 360 capsize before we noticed our wing had broken in the collision.

I still don’t quite understand what they were thinking. Technically they were in the right, but given an 18 has no visibility to leeward going downwind, a quick yell or a luff to slow down and avoid a catastrophe wouldn’t go astray. It’s not as if a week of boatwork is a good outcome in any situation.

Anyways, it was a generally shite day. Probably one of the worst days we’d raced. Hours of boatwork in the blazing heat, some shite sailing, no result, and a bunch of repairs.

Maybe next week…

It’s been a while between blogs. Over a month.

You know it’s bad when your Mum rings to find out if everything is ok because the blog hasn’t been updated.

But in all honesty there hasn’t been much blogworthy to write about. That hasn’t stopped me before.

Yes, there was the end of an old job. There was a debaucherous bucks-week in Vegas. The start of a new job. The start of the 18 season. And another bucks day. Some Bladerider sailing. Not much really.

No new Moth yet though. Apparently it is in the country. I think I’ve forgotten what they look like.

The 18s are going well, with a bunch of handicap races to start the season. We had a good win in week two. But it’s only week two. The season is shaping up to be interesting, even though yesterday’s race was a 3+ hour drift-off. At least it didn’t resort to a paddling race for everyone.

I’ve been so off the pace I haven’t been following what’s been going on in the mothosphere in my absence. Anyone? Anyone? Maybe Dave Lister has killed the mothosphere star?

A week or so at home and I’m back into the rhythm of work. Great.

No sailing unfortunately as my boat is still AWOL, so there’s been plenty of time to debrief, get things underway for 2011, talk through some sponsorship ideas and work out what needs to be done to go faster. So still plenty on.

And just to top off the fact that I don’t have a boat, it’s been 25+ degrees and windy enough. It’s still technically winter though, but the sailing season can’t be far away.

The 18s are ramping back up again for their October season start. The San Fran regatta kicks off soon enough, and a couple of teams have been out training on the harbour already.

Marcus and his new team on CST apparently broke a rig and lost their #1 mainsail on the tow home. So they’re having a typical introduction to 18s.

And the 7 program has been back at it, with a couple of morning training sessions trying to get their pocket luff mainsail working. Having worked out their last season rig was slower than the one before, it looks like they’re after a boat speed edge to put them back on top. Shame their cone of silence has more leaks than a watering can and everyone already knows they’re struggling to work out their cams.

Let the games begin.

The 18 footer season is over for the year. Finally. For some reason this one seemed to drag on for a long time, probably something to do with the lack of wind in the last 2 or 3 months.

It’s as if our 2nd rigs have been rotting on the trailers for ever.

Yesterday ‘was’ going to be more of the same, til the Nor-Easter decided to blow and gave us a nice top end big rig race to finish things off.

Unfortunately I got a bit excited on the tack line on the first kite set and put us in the piss. Or maybe the halyard went up too slow, but it’s not as if I’m going to say that. Anyway, after our time-consuming capsize and recovery we came back through the field slowly and finished 4th.

But since it’s all over, there’s a sunday-shaped gaping hole in the week. It used to be a given that I’d be racing the 18, but it’s time to re-adjust.

Luckily I have a new boat coming to keep me occupied. It apparently left the factory on Friday, so I will have it sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

I think I’ve got about 14 weekends before the boat needs to be boxed up and sent off to the Gorge, so those spare Sundays might be put to good use after all.