scott.projectsomewhere

If only the new 49er carbon rigs were around on Friday night…

I went out for a quick sail with Dave on his 49er in what was left of the gusty south-easterly, and we just put the kite up, did a gybe and were talking about how lame it was to be using an alloy rig in 2008, when next gybe, bang, we hit the piss and peel the Athens games mast off the boat.

Beautiful. An expensive 20 minutes on the water.

I caught the Point Piper YA mark as we drifted downwind, and tied up there as we tried to sort out the rubble. Thankfully we were in Sydney Harbour, and not Port Philip or San Fran in a run-out-tide. By the time we’d got everything together, the water police had arrived and gave us a tow back to the sailing club.

Welcome back to 49er sailing.

I’ve had a couple of people ring me in the last week wanting me to put some time into crewing on a 49er in the lead-up to the Europeans in March. Some people must think I know how to sail or something given the artificially-blog-inflated-profile I seem to have.

It’s pretty late in the game to be stepping onto a boat with any expectations of doing well… considering it’s an Olympic year and all. That and I haven’t got the build to do it brilliantly (I’m going to attempt to go sub-70kg for Weymouth).

And that thing called work gets in the way as well. And the upcoming JJ takes me out til the end of Feb. And a new Moth on the way by the end of Jan.

It’d be nice to train up with Nath, Ben and Emmett, but where am I supposed to fit it in exactly? And how am I going to pay for it?

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.

Nice little startline video from Paul & Mark at the 49er Nationals… it looks like a headcam is the latest gadget for sailing geeks.

One of the little side-projects I’ve been working on has gone live… in an alpha-release sort of way.

What is it?

It’s the place to get a bunch of custom gear for high performance boats like 18 footers, 29ers, 49ers, Moths and the like. The list of products is small, but slowly expanding.

Why?

I’ve talked about it for a while, but a trip to the legendary BestWind on Lake Garda brought the message home. Sailing gear is expensive. Great gear is really expensive. Really great gear is almost impossible to get if the sailing world doesn’t revolve around you. So John, Alex and I started throwing around a few ideas, and out popped SailingBits. We’re pulling together the good ropes, gear and toys that we use and like, with the aim of getting it to anyone, anywhere as cheaply as possible.

Alpha?

The catalogue is a bit sparse on launch date, but you’ve got to say go at some point. We’ve done a little bit of testing, and I know there are a bunch of ‘look and feel’ glitches, but it works. If you want to test it out and give some feedback on how to improve it, go ahead. Next stage is the ubiquitous web 2.0 beta phase.

Ideas?

We’ve gone and included some left-of-centre products… like the super-grippy and super-cheap Atlas gloves for 29ers and 49ers - which I use all the time. We’ve also got some good-value nappy-style skiff trap harnesses from Ocean Gear. Then we’ve got all the Moth tricks that we put on our boats for the Worlds, like the vang-system with high-load thimbles which work infinitely better than the commercial high-load blocks. And then there’s almost every piece of string for your 18′ skiff… including new tacklines.

But there’s always room for more. If you know of some great gear, or have some gucci components that you’d like to sell, drop me an email and we’ll start selling them.

It’s always fun waking up and finding out what Qingdao has thrown at everyone during the Pre-Olympic regatta.

Perhaps not perfect conditions for the 2012 Olympic Moth, but anyway.

Nathan & Ben are doing well in the 49ers, currently running 3rd. It’s great to see them progress so far, and it’s going to be good to see what they can do given another year. It makes me want to get a 49er just so I can sail against them (at least on the startline).

Finns Lauri & Heikki are also enjoying the light stuff, in good company in 13th.

Sijla and her team in the Ynglings are also performing well, in 6th.

The rest of the Australian Sailing Team is doing well in both mens and womens 470 and the Tornado. Plenty of time left for everyone else though, if the regatta actually gets enough races in.