scott.projectsomewhere

Plenty of waves out there yesterday.

Continuing in the theme of “it’s not normally like this” we had a 20 odd knot breeze blowing at times with a nice rolling swell and a reasonable wind chop on top. Almost blowing Rob Mundle. Fun conditions for Moth sailing.

Bora, Arnaud, Simon and I went out first to blast up and back a few times. Arnaud wasn’t on form. Simon was quick with a softer mast, and Bora was smoking upwind.

Downwind was a bit more interesting. The first bear away Bora ventilated the rudder and crashed out in the first 50m. Arnaud crashed out a bit further on and Simon seemed to cruise downwind unaffected. It seemed no matter how many boats we’d start with, it would be a race of attrition to get to the bottom, with boats launching into space left and right.

The last few hundred metres to shore was the worst, as the breeze built and waves shortened up. At times you’d be heading up to avoid going down the face of the wave, only to accelerate through the beam reach and then have to accelerate again through another bear away. All the while trying to slow down to avoid a pitchpole.

At the end of the day there would’ve been more than a few bruised sailors, and a bunch of boatwork to be done, with the guys at our place staying up late working on major repairs to two boats… and the regatta proper doesn’t start for another 5 days.

Though in true form, the regatta will be nothing like yesterday. Today the breeze is significantly lighter, and the forecast for the next few days looks lighter again.

… almost.

I think I was having flashbacks of Weymouth yesterday sitting inside at DOSC. Everyone seemed to be inside drinking coffee, eating and posting on facebook while it rained.

So for the life of me I can’t work out which is the more significant of the two greatest recent inventions in the Moth class, hydrofoils or free wifi?

At least the rain cleared for a while yesterday so I could finish putting the boat together and head out for a sail.

Unfortunately the guys that built Dubai didn’t really consider that it would rain, so there’s no storm water drainage… and now there’s a pretty foul smelling run off that sits along the shoreline near where we launch. We all hoped the slick was oil, but it sure didn’t smell like it.

The 30 odd knots that was forecast didn’t eventuate, but the rest of the week is apparently set for big breeze and big waves before it goes back to sub 10 knots for Monday’s first race of the Worlds. Yesterday we sailed around in a building, shifty breeze from about 10 to 18 knots offshore.

I managed to get plenty of straight line speed testing in with Arnaud and JPZ, before doing a bunch of impromptu short races with the Swiss and Simon & Adam. The boat felt as though it was going ok, despite being out of range and locked at full lift on the rudder. Of course the big test for everyone will be over the next few days now that the American’s boats have arrived.

Time for me to get a sailing lesson maybe.

It’s raining today in Dubai. One of the supposedly 5 days a year it rains.

The 30 knots that was forecast didn’t arrive, so we have a cloudy drizzling day with not much breeze. Sort of feels like Weymouth, but 10 degrees hotter.

All the usual suspects are here, except the Aussies. And the American’s boats.

I took a bit of a mental health day from work today and instead spent a few hours on the water… first training session for the Moth Worlds.

Nathan, Slingsby and Stu came along. All of them seem to do nothing but sail. Or windsurf. Or kitesurf. Or play golf. Or whatever it is you do when you don’t have a real job. And it shows in their sailing.

We did plenty of runs up and down the harbour in a gusty Easterly. To be honest I was pretty happy with the performance against Nathan, but there’s plenty of room left to improve. And after sailing against Tom both on Saturday and today, I have a new benchmark for upwind straight line speed. It is no fun seeing someone walk away doing another couple of knots through the water. I guess I know how most Laser sailors feel.

It was all good fun no doubt, but I don’t know how you’d go about doing it day in day out…

That’s blog-worthy news isn’t it?

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Well it was about as close to owning one as I will get for a while…

Nathan got an invite to the Audi King of the Docklands event after winning the Moth Nationals in Geelong last year. As a winner of a division of Audi Victoria Week, he got the entry, but had to form his crew from competitors from the same boat (or in our case division).

So we flew down, did a 1h training session on the SB3, then won our heat to progress to the semi final. In the semis, our group was stacked with top boats including a couple of special invite rock stars, but we took that one as well to get through to the final.

The final was raced in next to no wind. We coasted over the start line in a good position, but the race committee attempted to postpone a minute after the start. A fair amount of heckling later they realised they couldn’t postpone a race that had already started, and they had no provision to abandon, so the race continued and we drifted around the tiny track to take another win and an Audi A4 wagon.

Not a bad effort for a few hours sailing. It’s not as if I can drive it to Dubai, but it will help me get there in one way or another.

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And now the Melbourne weather has followed us home… It’s 38 degrees in the shade and there’s bugger all wind!

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…