scott.projectsomewhere

The rapidly diminishing value of the Australian dollar is slowly starting to have an effect on prices for all our imported gear.

Which is a shame really. For example, we are seeing Velociteks fly out the door at an increasing rate, but we’ve just found that they’ll be bumping the price for Australians by about $200, or close to 40%. I think that’s going to dampen sales potential just a bit. These prices will kick in from November 1. So get in quick if you are thinking about one.

The same goes for guys like Bladerider and the Mach2, with Bladerider taking a hit in their AUD sales margin for now with only between a 0-5% price increase yesterday, and the Mach2 approaching 30k delivered locally with taxes.

Sure I can deal with collapsing stocks, declining real estate values, nationalized banks, government bailouts, recessions and rising unemployment… but try to up the price on my toys… and I’m pissed.

The SailCam.tv guys have stepped up this year with their coverage of the 18 footer fleet.

The video from Sunday’s race is all there, with some good commentry from Jacqui and Killo. They’re doing a much better job than last year, but there’s still room to improve. It’s a huge step up from the “Steve Jarvis” dribble that went to air a couple of seasons back.

I reckon the live commentry is great, but they need to talk it up a bit more. It’d help if the guys doing the commentry can see what the camera is on, since there’s a lot of times when they’re talking about something that is unfortunately happening off camera.

They also need to know the sailors and their stories inside out. No excuse for not knowing who’s on Thurlow Fisher for example, and where they’ve come from. Same goes for everyone else, what boats are new, what teams have changed, who the new skippers are, who’s using new kit. Should be pretty easy to do the homework on all that and be able to keep the accurate and relevant talk going when all we’re seeing on the screen is boats going upwind.

Would also be worth having a quick chat to the winners on shore to find out their ideas on the race… slowly but surely building up the profile and personal stories behind the fleet.

But that’s not to take away from what they’ve got going on. There’s even a big improvement from the race last weekend, so hopefully they’ll be fully sorted come the important races in February.

Seabreeze and BOM got it wrong yesterday. We all looked at the forecast and the breeze in the morning and decided to safely go for the #1 rig on the 18s, which in hindsight was not the best choice.

The Rag, 7 and Fiat got on the water early for a bit of a tune up. As we launched, Geezer again failed to draw breath as he asked if the start was early today? No, it was just a couple of learners going out early to work out how to tack and gybe.

Anyway, being early-on-the-water was a bit of an eye opener. It was a bit breezier than we expected, but we assumed that it’d be windy at Bradley’s and light by Beashel, which is pretty standard. Ummm… no.

By the time the start rolled around, it was low hooks. The first work was still a bit up and down with the breeze going pretty hard left to right. We started well, but couldn’t cross out of Bradleys and ended up doing a few hand brake turns while ducking starboard tackers on our way out. We didn’t really recover well up the work from there, but still rounded in the top 5 or so, this week taking our 1-minute handicap advantage on the first lap rather than the last.

The former Manly 16’s team on Thurlow Fisher were smoking up the first work on their first hitout with their new rig and recut main. They lead easily to the middle mark, but came unstuck by the time they got to Shark Island.

We weaved our way through the carnage downwind to round 4th or 5th on the way back upwind, watching 7 and Active from behind again.

The wind kept building and despite shortening the strops, we maxed out on our vang again. The next couple of laps were a matter of hanging on, with a lot of boats littering the course after failed bearaways and dodgey gybes.

At the finish, 7 and Active decided to sail above the finish line, then Seve stepped off the boat during the last gybe to the line, and Active sailed back and through for another win, with us coming through for 2nd, and 2 minutes off our handicap.

Thankfully we’ve got a scratch race next weekend. So at least we’ll have a better guage of where everyone is at.

Only 10 of the 22 boats actually crossed the finish line this week, which given it’s only week 2 and it was top end big-rig, it’s probably to be expected. The excuses will surely start to run out as things drag on towards February.

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Saturday was not so windy thankfully, and for the first time in a while, I managed to take the Moth sailing and not break a main foil. Phew.

We had 4 boats at Woollahra for the 2nd race of the season, so the fleet is still building slowly. John’s boat has been sold to a new sailor, and a new shipment of Bladeriders is due in November, and Ben’s replacement mainfoil arrives this week, so hopefully we will slowly build a more regular racing fleet. Hopefully.

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thedailysail.com is running Frank’s article with a nice photo of the Rag, and the new 18’s site has a bunch of good photos.

It has been a big final weekend getting the new Rag Racing 18′ Skiff ready for the start of the season.

After spending a large portion of Friday night splicing, gluing and screwing things onto the boat, and most of Saturday doing the same, we stood the #1 rig (just to make sure it set-up straight) as the sun went down.

Race day Sunday morning was yet more of the same, this time re-swaging all our rig wires from our ‘08 Rag #1 mast to fit the new turnbuckles. We made the decision pretty early to go for the #1, given that putting the effort into getting the #2 ready was just a couple of hours more work, and that was a couple more hours we didn’t have.

But we finally did make it.

The boat felt a little strange to start with. A bit too much power. A bit too much helm. Everything a bit slippery. My great 1-1 traplines managed to fail instantly, so I sailed around the track without an adjuster. The kite block also ripped off one of the wings and the tramps starting coming loose, but nothing major broke. That’s a much smoother launch day than the last Rag had.

We even started the race well with the new boat, taking it to Seve at the line and ever so slowly rolling over them on the way to Bradley’s. We fought it out with them up the work, but waved goodbye as they rounded the shorter mark in the handicap course. We crossed the line in 7th after sailing a longer course on every lap, which is not such a bad result.

All in all a success.

But despite finishing the boat, the management operation that is 18 foot skiff racing continues unabated. There is still so much more to be done, and so much more after that.

As far as the rest of the fleet goes? I don’t really know. I didn’t have much time to talk before we launched, and didn’t really see much of the fleet as we sailed around the track.

Cam on Club Marine took the award for first capsize of the season, although only on a technicality. Active Air took the win in the race, with Archie contributing somewhat to their step-up in performance. 7 in their new boat were 2nd after leading for most of the course. The boats that headed overseas over winter all seem to have upped the ante, with the new teams and boats appearing to be taking their time to warm up for the season.

Next week we have another handicap race, and 7 will at least be sailing a slightly longer course with a handicap slightly closer to where they should be.

For us it’s another week of boatwork.

Herman’s new 18 foot skiff didn’t make the startline on Sunday for good reason.

No wonder, after looking at the awesome paint job that has been done on it, with artists working around the clock in Van Munster’s factory for the last week.

This is going to be one unique boat, making Woody’s classic 18’s look almost futuristic by comparison.

Much better than the bland white ones I reckon, except for the new Rag Racing of course. Hopefully this will inspire some cool paint jobs for the next batch of boats.

More photos on flickr.

After seeing this, the Moth might be in for a bit of a facelift.

SailingBits.com did get a mention in the inaugural mothcast podcast and as I mentioned there, the business is growing well, with more and more new kit each month.

October is no exception.

I’m always excited by shiny carbon bits, and the new carbon velocitek bracket we’ve sourced is no exception. As Big Kev would say, I’m excited!

The bracket weighs in at somewhere less than 100 grams, and looks incredible (did I already mention that). No Velocitek owning Bladerider sailor should be without one - in my objective opinion.

And with the Australian Dollar going down, now is the time to buy. Only $220 AUD including GST, or $200 for our lucky International customers. It also includes a handy bit of 3M adhesive dual lock to keep the SC-1 in place.

Plenty more products coming online soon, so stay tuned.