04/07/2008
Not long to go now... The Worlds start tomorrow and I have to admit I really wish I was there. Unfortunately starting a new job and not having any holidays or money doesn't help. I'll definitelly have to be there next time..
I haven't written my result predictions yet, and it's probably too late to blog about it now. If I had to pick one person for the win, I'd have to say it would be Simon Payne.
It seems he has had the best preparation. He is sailing a Zero which I believe is still the fastest design around and he has done it all before. He also has all the latest bits from CST like small diameter masts and high modulus boom as well as a number of Fastacraft and KA sails to choose from .
Sydney sailors Scott and John Harris will also be up there as well as Amac, Matt Balcher, Graham Vials, Jason Belben and maybe Bora.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are multiple heat winners unlike the last few Worlds so it should be fun following.
02/07/2008Another one of my sponsors to have launched a new website reecently is Zhik. This one I actually helped build while I worked for them, so it's good to finally see it finished and looking great.
The website features many new products such as Yachting range, Hybrid Gear, trapeze harness, new boots and more...
There is also a world-wide dealer list, updated team pages, info on Zhik's products and materials as well as the latest news.
Have a look at
www.zhik.com 23/06/2008
Not sure if people have stumbled across a new website
www.carbonfibreexpress.com
It's a new brand by CST Composites designed to make purchasing their composites products easier and quicker. The website is set up with online purchasing facillities so now you can order your new Moth masts, booms wings or whatever by paying online and it gets delivered to your door within days.
They also sell spars and tubes for other classes as well as solid carbon rod + other specialty products.
John Harris will be compeating in Carbonfibreexpress sponsored boat at Weymouth, there is a nice photo of him mid-tack on their website too...
20/06/2008
Fiiiinally!
Got my website back again after having a few issues renewing my domain name. It's paid now for the next three years so should be all good for a while.
12/05/2008
Some nice breeze finally came through on Sunday. 10kn from SE so Dave and I headed out early. I used my flapless centerboard first, but still wasn't happy with how it handled so I swaped it for Clive's standard prowler foil.
I think the boat is definitely faster than I it was at the States, as I seemed to pace Dave on the downwind legs...
I might head out again this week again, possibly tomorrow at Kurnell and join Shaun Langman's launch of his Wot Rocket (hydrofoil speed craft) Will it break 50kn? Probably not, but I'd love to have a look at what they came up with...
10/05/2008
Lots of waiting around for some breeze, but unfortunately the Easterly hardly got to 4kn. Hopefully, we'll have better luck tomorrow...
Also a reminder to St George Mothies that the St George Prezo Night is on 24th of this month. Tickets are $38 and you can get them from the club.
05/05/2008
More sailing in Sydney's light winter winds over the weekend...
Dave, John Gilmour, myself and Lea (back from Europe) were all out. I tried the new Fastacraft sail from John, and It worked really well in the light stuff. The MSL 12 however might be a little better for sailing in medium to heavy wind range.
I also have the new "Experimental Hydrofoil" working now, but still need to change the wand gearing if I want to stop the pourposing effect.
The weather forecast looks good for the next few days, so might head out again before the Saturday race at Balmoral.
28/04/200817 boats, 20 knots and flat water....what more could you want for the last race of the season?
The Anzac day regatta last Friday was just that + a few clowns like Donosan, Grant, Kylie and I choosing to participate in the new "fancy dress" theme. Donosan won the prestigious price (apron with boobs) for his efforts sailing in his pyjama.
Dave won the race after leading from the very start. John Harris had great speed and was not far behind in 2nd and I finished 3rd. Unfortunately Scott missed the start with a few mast issues and few others failed to finish.
22/04/2008
Last club pointscore race of the season was short lived once again. Looks like my experimental foil will need further strengthening to make it last a full race.
For those who don't know I have been experimenting using a flapless centreboard with the whole hydrofoil moving to adjust the altitude of the boat. As you can imagine the loads on all linkages are about 5 times more than on a conventional centreboard so everything has to be super strong. This means no brass, carbon or nylon fittings. Everything has to be stainless.
It lasted upwind, but had a tendency to make the boat bunny-hop with any wand adjustment. I think I know how to fix this so it should be interesting to see if I can make it work better this Friday.
We are having the annual Anzac Day Regatta with other Sydney mothies invited. The only difference this year is that, we thought we would spice it up with a fancy dress theme. More info from Grant about the day
here.
14/04/2008
Short lived sail this weekend after my centerboard push rod collapsed again... Might have to make some nice strong stainless steel ones. I wasn't too disappointed as the breeze hardly got over 6kn for the entire race and it was a good chance to give my back a bit of a rest.
The light weather expert Phil, won convincingly!
09/04/2008
So after almost getting dumped for forgetting to mention that Kylie won the 1st Scow and Female trophy at the States, I might use this opportunity to officially congratulate her. Well done my dear!
The season is nearing the end, however I have been finding more and more things to do on the boat. The new
CST High Modulus mast is now ready and I finally fixed my broken gantry from weeks ago. I also have a centreboard to use before my new replacement from fastacraft arrives, and I have been testing some new bits and pieces too.
I broke the centreboard push rod on the weekend so I failed to finish the race, however Dave won that one convincingly from Donosan. I'm pretty sure with only 2 pointscore races to go, Dave has the 2007-08 Club champion title as well. He has been super quick lately and has not only got excellent boat speed but also has been sailing well too. Pity neither of us will be going to Weymouth this year.
Balmoral marathon is on this weekend, however I'm not sure if my injured back will be ok by then. As a tip, don't try to manually move a 1tone yacht no matter how light it looks!
29/03/2008Well, my home internet finally works again so I better do some updating....
I had a very interesting last few weeks and I’m glad things are back to a slower pace. Literally.
Since breaking my main foil few weeks ago I have been doing a hell of a lot of boat work and sailing trying to get back to the same pace I had at the Nationals. Clive from CST very generously lent me his Prowler main foil and gantry so I could do the States in my own boat. Unfortunately the foil is just a little different from the one I had so it meant that my set up couldn’t be applied. I won’t bore you with why I spent 10’s of hours trying to figure out why two foils that are exactly the same are actually a little different, but regardless I couldn’t work it out in time for the 1st race. I was running out of time and bringing out epoxy and carbon a day before it all starts is never a good idea.
We arrived on Friday, and had the forecast southerly blowing at around 18-20kn. Sounds nice...except that there was 2 meter swell also present. Fear of breaking someone else’s precious parts and slight push rod problems prevented me from sailing in the 1st heat. The next day, I scored a 4 and 5th and really struggled for speed. Then the light winds came and I sort of lost it... probably mentally as well as skill wise. Now that I have had some time to think about it, I think my light wind technique has little to be desired for. People like Les were just awesome to watch in that stuff.
Well done to Scott for winning in his new Prowler, as well as Phil for having a great regatta and coming second.
So now that the States are over, I have been doing a lot of development work on the new High Modulus 40mm OD masts from CST Composites. I got the 1st prototype built, followed by Dave and Simon Payne. Actually I’m currently fitting out my 2nd stiffer version and should have that on the water next Saturday. Busy, Busy..Should be getting my new centreboard from John within the next few weeks also and have a new Fastacraft sail ready to use.
04/03/2008
What a disastrous weekend... We had the St George interclub with a 20kn Southerly breeze. It looked present enough so we ventured out.
Unfortunately Doink was the first one back with a broken wand as he tried to launch. The breeze seemed to pick up to about 25kn just before the start so I drifted around waiting. I sailed upwind and went for the bear away but realised there was quite bit of pressure on. The bow went down so I wound more rudder suck and tried to bear away again. What an awesome 10 second that was before I heard a massive crack and was thrown straight on the side stay. Ouch.
I think I hurt my knee and where is my centerboard? It literally exploded.
Bottom hydrofoil delaminated and the top snapped just under the hull. I laid in the water with shattered bits of carbon everywhere, wondering what happened. The gantry also broke with the rudder pin pulling out the back of the carbon tube. There must have been some load on...
After having a closer look at remaining bits I’m pretty sure I ran into something. There are a fair few crab pots laying around so it could have been that, or maybe it was something else in the water.
None the less, it’s all a bit concerning with only a few weeks before the States. I might be able to borrow Clive’s centreboard for the event, but I wonder if I will have the same boat speed.
Might have to get the gantry fixed and see how it all fits this weekend.
Dave also had a few issues, breaking his vang in the Southerly that freshened to 30kn.
Alan, Donosan and Grant all retired while Peter Harney survived the day to take the win from Phil.
22/02/2008
Interesting rumour I heard today...Ovington Boats in UK is said to be gearing up for production of foiling Moths.
Not sure who is involved in this but the source seems pretty reliable
18/02/2008
Two more races have gone past in the St George calendar. Last Saturday we sailed in a light southerly where I won from Dave and Donosan in 3rd.
This Saturday we had one of the best days this year. A perfect 15-20kn Southeaster and dead flat water. I still don’t think there is a better place to sail in Sydney than SE breeze at St George. I clocked 23.4kn on the last run during the race with a best 10 second average of 22.4kn.
Dave was 2nd again, however he lost more time than he should have after his centreboard push rod de-threaded from the flap. Apparently gybing was quite interesting with the boat continuing to raise and crash mid way through... Grant sailed very well and finished in 3rd while taking the handicap win as well.
So with everybody getting involved in the “OPEN RULES”
debate on the Moth forum, I should probably say my thoughts as well. I am generally opposed to any change seeing that the numbers are up and that more changes could cause instability in the class without necessarily improving the boats. I just don’t think it’s worth the risk seeing that the things are going so well.
Sure it would be nice to see more innovation and wacky ideas, I love that stuff, but is this the best way to attract new members?
What I do believe needs to be changed is restriction number of equipment used, eg multiple sails, foils and rigs. I brought this up at the IMCA World meeting back in 2005. I can’t believe that the class still allows the use of multiple sails and hence MSL9’s at association events offering an unfair advantage to anybody that has one. The old argument of allowing them as it would impact older boats has completely been thrown in the water as most of these are used on new boats seeking competitive advantage.
More of a concern is also a possibility of someone with a lot of money coming into the class and racing with multiple sets of foils. While this hasn’t happened yet (and may not be proven faster), why not just change the rules and make sure that it can’t? If it does that than it’s too late as you are definitely set to upset somebody. At 4-5 grand for the set, do we want to be spending 8 or 12 grand on foils alone?
Surely it also more innovative to design a set of foils that work in all conditions than only ones that work for a specific wind range. I agree with Bruce, let’s turn the forum debate into a vote so that we can decide where most of our members what the class go.
01/02/2008
Another Australia day regatta and yet another Northeaster....Actually I don't think I have ever done that race with breeze blowing from a different direction.
The difference this year though was that it hardly got over 12kn. For most of the race it was marginal foiling. Donosan and I had similar upwind speed and rounded the top mark together. Downwind I extended my lead and finished about a minute in front of fast aproaching Dave who brought down the pressure and overtook Steve.
Also you can have a look at an interwiew from the Walaroo nationals here:
http://www.bymnews.com/photos/displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pid=5340123/01/2008
The annual Australia Day Regatta is on again at St George this Saturday. Start should be at around 1.30pm, and we should get a good turnout with a few of the Balmoral guys coming.
15/01/2008Back in Sydney and finally have some internet access.
Well, the Nationals were certainly very interesting... Well done to Matt for winning. He sailed very well and deserved his win. Same also goes to Amac who got 2nd and I think Gary Ireson from UK should get a mention as well. He sailed a new Prowler mk5 and finished 5th! UK fleet better watch out!
While there was some wind, I had a good regatta. Won the 1st race in 10-15kn by 2 minutes and after a cartwheel came 3rd in windy afternoon one. Then on day 2 the sea breeze came. Shortly after the start it got to 25-30kn and 2 meter swell. Going up the 1st work there was some confusion about the course being port or starboard. Most of us rounded the port mark to port as that seemed the obvious choice and was implied in the sailing instructions as the only option.
Matt rounded 1st with Bora and I was 3rd. Then downwind I gained and was in the leading pack. Some guys went back up to the top mark after the wing mark and started doing the starboard course.
After 2 laps Bora (now leading) Matt and I cleared out minutes in front of everybody. Matt overlayed the lay line to the top mark so I sneaked into 2nd and Bora undelayed so had to do two extra tacks. He capsized and I hit the lead with only 2 legs to go. It was blowing solid 30kn by now and the only way to get downwind was to hide behind the jetty and throw in a gybe to the finish. I looked back and Matt and Bora were still swimming at the top mark. I took it really easy and nursed the boat to the finish.
Wow what a race! I got the thumbs up from the finish boat and went back to beach. Matt was 2nd and bora 3rd.
Soon it turns out that the committee intended for us to sail the starboard course and awarded us a DNF. What the? Sounds like they haven’t read the sailing instructions so Matt Bora and I put in a protest. It was decided that the committee had to run a post course (as indicated by the SI) and that the green flag on the start boat was irrelevant and misleading. The port course guys would be awarded points and I would win the race.
One problem though.....for some reason my finishing time was not recorded and they only had Matt and Bora’s time along with starboard people. The whole race was thrown out and I no longer had my 2nd win.
That afternoon and the next day it blew 30+ kn again so we didn’t race.
Day 3, and things were starting to look a bit grim with marginal foiling and low riding conditions all day. Combine this with 1.5m swell and 60degree wind shifts, it was like sailing at Northbridge and Black Rock at the same time. Lovely!
Matt did really well and won all 3 races while I struggled for boat speed. 3 more races in under 8kn on the following day and 3 more firsts for Matt. He was just untouchable in the light stuff. I just couldn’t keep up, and my 83kg weight certainly wasn’t helping either. I had to foot off 5 degrees upwind just to stay on foils and then go high and do extra gybes to get to the bottom mark.
Last day of the regatta and the wind finally came up. 15-18 kn for the morning race. I had an average start and had to capsize the boat on the 1st work to get a coral tree of my centreboard. I was about 7th around the top mark, but had loads of speed. Last lap and I was 3rd after Matt and Amac. I gybed early in pressure and got into 1st. Amac passed Matt and I won the race by 30-40 seconds.
Last race of the day was light again. Not even foiling conditions for most of the time. I don’t seem to suffer as much when it’s like that so Matt and I cleared out by the wing mark. Then the breeze came up to about 6kn. Matt flew away and a fleet of Bladeriders overtook me as I tried to get liftoff. I eventually got up, but picked up more weed and had to swim again. Matt won the race and I finished some time back.
So now that it’s all over, I feel quite disappointed. Lots of hard work and sailing didn’t pay off as the conditions just didn’t suit my weight. Actually I can’t remember ever doing a regatta where 7 out of the 10 races were sailed in under 10kn.
That’s what you get I suppose, the guys in front were simply faster. Will have to wait for a 12+kn wind regatta before I can expect to do better.
27/12/2007
Interesting debate starting on Sailing Anarchy...
http://www.sailinganarchy.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6535525/12/2007
Zhik Australia is proud to announce sponsorship of the 2008 Australian Moth Championships in SA.
Prizes have been donated for winners of each major division, including 1-6 on scratch, Scow, Narrow and Fat Skiff Champions as well as 1st Female, Junior and Master.
To see Zhik's full wet gear range visit
www.zhik.com23/12/2007
I'm trying to make up for lack of posts lately so here goes another one....
I had a great sail today in 15-25kn SE. Flat water, and some 16's to race against with Lea, what more could you ask for? Ok, maybe a few other Moths. Anyway Dave couldn't join us and he cracked his wings yesterday trying to break the Moth speed record. He got pretty close too, scoring 24.8kn.
Few other ones were a no show.
If anybody else is keen to do some more sailing at St george, Dave and I will be out tomorrow and probably later in the week.
21/12/2007
I've been so busy in the last few weeks, just haven't had the time to update the website.
Things should ease off a little now as I am on holidays until the 14th of January.
We had 2 more heats of the Club Championship at St George, both won by Dave. I couldn't sail in the 1st one and last weekend I had a swim right on the start line which made things hard in that one. Dave's winning margin was 35 seconds, so I was still happy with my race considering the less than glamorous start.
I have also done a lot of work on the boat and can't wait to see where we stand against Bladeriders. I now run a canting rudder system and have been working with Dave on more tweaks. It's good to feel I have boat speed 2 weeks before the nationals...
Rumour is that Rohan won't be racing so Amac, and probably Chris in Shegami's Prowler should be the main competition. Or maybe there is someone else that has picked up some speed? Les is fast in survival stuff, but lacks boat speed in anything less.
I think It will all come to sailing conditions. Bit like at Garda. If we get 25kn and large waves, things will be a bit harder for me as the Black Rock guys sail in that all the time. On the other hand, if we get some off shore breeze and flat water, I would be surprised if the Bladeriders will keep up. We'll see...
I also ordered a new Prowler from john and should be getting delivery of it in September next year. If I can get some money together to do the worlds Skywalka will be for sale in Europe after the event, otherwise I'll sell it locally during the Aussie winter...
In other news, Bruce has finally finished building his boat and foiled quite well last Saturday. Have a look at the video on his website. Marty broke his mast stump but has it all fixed now for the Nationals.
Andrew Stevo sailed Phil's Hungry Tiger last weekend and broke the main foil (luckily he found the broken bit), and James Birdsall lent his Hungry Tiger to ex 18ft sailor and current IOM World Champ Brad Gibson, who had a really bad hull failure. With the rudder load, the whole deck peeled off like a banana skin and consequently the insurance has written the hull off.
Looks like Thorpey will be making one more foiler like Scott's a few years ago.
There should be a few of us sailing from St George this Sunday. the forecast looks good with 13-18kn SE.
29/11/2007
I just uploaded heat 1 of the Club championship at St George on Youtube, taken by Mike Halkes.
Have a look
here.
22/11/2007
Back to Sydney after my work related visit to Belmont last weekend where I raced against the 49ers (and seemed to be faster a lot of the time..) On Saturday we sailed in 15-20kn northeaster and a run out tide which made for some interesting downwind legs. Robbo and Matt Dey visited again, so we had a good turnout too.
With most boats missing the start by minutes, Dave and I cleared out and started to have our 2 boat race. Robbo joined us briefly but seemed to struggle holding the pace (still more time needed familiarising himself with the Bladerider?).
The largest margin between Dave and myself was 6 seconds at the bottom mark, so with same boat speed it was yet again down to who would make least mistakes. I made the 1st one after I misjudged the layline and had to tack 2 extra times. This allowed him to gain a few hundred meters lead.
Unfortunately for him I seemed to find better pressure and catch right up just before the second last mark. There was again nothing in this until Dave had a swim rounding the bottom mark. Excellent! I made my gybe and cruised to the finish. Dave had another swim just before the finish, and ended up being 2 minutes behind. The margin certainly doesn’t show how close that race was, it would have been very exciting to have raced the least few hundred meters.
Lea finished 3rd and is again getting faster. Not sure who was 4th.
Clive raced his new Prowler for the 1st time and Scott came down to tune Matt’s boat before he raced it next weekend.
Bruce unfortunately didn’t get his new boat to the start line after the tramps turned out to be too long. He should be there next weekend as well as a new member that bought Karma Package Deal from Queensland.
Can’t wait for next race!
05/11/2007
We had heat 1 of the Club Championship at St George and about 7 boats starting.
Dave led around the top mark after a good first work and I was 20 meters behind following an ordinary start at the pin end (serves me right for not wearing my watch).
Lea was also doing quite well with some good upwind speed and so was Grant. Around the bottom mark Dave still lead and extended a little more on the next work as I made another mistake. Lucky the onboard camera that I was carrying didn’t have audio as I was “slightly upset” with my sailing.
Around the top mark Dave had a good lead, probably about a minute. Unfortunately for him I seemed to bring down the breeze, and as he picked up some weed on his centreboard, I got really close. To top things of he had a swim and I found myself in the lead.
With less than a lap to go we were side by side going upwind. He rounded the top mark for the last time just in front, but sailed out of pressure on the run allowing me to get back in front. I extended a little by the bottom mark and won the race by 40 seconds.
Grant sailed very well and got past Lea to finish 3rd , however he later disqualified himself after not rounding the bottom mark. 4th was consequently Phil, Kylie 5th and Marty still sorting out his set-up was 6th.
There is no club racing next weekend with Balmoral interclub on, however I have to go up to Belmont for work so I’ll have to give that a miss.
We should have 2 more boats for the next race as Bruce is just about finished building his Gilmour hull and Clive from CST purchased Darrek’s Prowler from Melbourne.
26/10/2007Last Saturday’s race report is coming a bit late...but better late than never.
We had a very good turnout of 9 boats and 8 foilers. All no more than few years old!
Robbo was there to launch his new Bladerider and Matt s Day was also visiting in his Prowler.
With a very biased pin end of the line I had a good port tack start and lead with Robbo to the right of the course. We tacked and picked up a very good lift looking very famous. Unfortunately we both seemed to sail into a light patch and had to watch Dave sail underneath us in more pressure. It’s just amazing how quickly you can lose hundreds of meters lead in foiling Moths compared to anything else I ever sailed.
Anyway, Robbo and I still rounded the top mark together only meters in front of Dave. The speed of Bladerider on the reach was less impressive (maybe the new boat needs more tuning?)as Dave got into second only meters behind me. We opened a good lead and were charging to the wing mark.
Then I realised I had to let Dave gybe first around the mark as he would probably spear right into back of me had I decided otherwise. I watched him reach for the bridle as I sailed past the mark so I went into my turn. As I was coming out of my gybe I looked up and saw Dave’s bow heading straight for my head. I had no choice but to dive back on the old tack and throw the boat into the drink. I was quite pissed off, and watched Robbo sail past as Dave was half a leg in front.
By the time I got back upright I was about 2 minutes behind, but caught and went past Robbo who had to capsize to fix his bridle. 2nd time around the bridge mark and I was quite close to Dave. I think he felt bad and was probably happy not pushing as hard. ½ way up the work and we were side by side. I was all on again! I had quite good height upwind and extended to a good lead around the top mark.
Then I pulled away to about 1min lead and finished 1st. Lea had a great race and finished at the same time as Robbo, some 6 minutes behind.
Tomorrow’s forecast is looking quite similar with a light North-easterly, so I’m looking forward to another close race...
15/10/2007
The season finally kicked off at St George with a nice Southeaster...
We had a reasonable turnout, however it was going to be a two boat race with Dave and I doing a lot of training together and finding identical boatspeed through all the changes we made.
I had a good start and took the early lead while Dave was slowed down by a capsize. By the top mark, I was probably 30cec in front.
My next work was quite ordinary though as I had a swim trying to pull off a semi-foiling tack, then overlaying the top mark and alowing Dave to sneak though.
I didn't seem to catch up at all on the next run but got fairly close on the following work.
Not enough though as the distance seemed to stay at over 30 sec.
Dave won and I had to sattle fof 2nd.
Next week should be fun with Robbo launching his new Bladerider, Matt Dey in his Prowler and Scott joing the race.
Scott took some nice shots of the racing
here.
08/10/2007
Another cancelled race at St George this Saturday with a 45kn Southerly. Lucky that all Moths were de-rigged by the time the big breeze hit, as it could have done some real demage.
So with 2 out of 2 races cancelled since the start of the season, I can't wait for this Saturday. It's been too long since racing at Garda!
29/09/2007
I just uploaded a new video of Dave and I training before the 1st race of the season at St George.
Here
Donosan did the filming, and there should be a few more to follow in the next few weeks...
24/09/2007The Southerly blew at around 30kn on Saturday, so there was no racing held. The only Mothie to go out was Lea on his windsurfer, so there was some entertainment at least.
We did go out on Sunday though in a perfect 10-15kn NE. Dave and I started the race with the 16’s and had a really close race up the 1st work. He rounded in front of me by about 25 meters and the 16’s were at least 2-3 minutes behind. I caught and went past on the square run to finish about 10 seconds in front of Dave and by the time the 16’s got to the bottom mark it was another 3-4 minutes.
I have never beaten the 16’s by such a large margin before. With the new set-up the boat is noticeably faster. Dave and I reckon we are at least 10% quicker than Rohan at the moment...
21/09/2007
The 07-08 St George Moth racing program is up in the events section.
Also, now that I have finally figured out how to re-set the poll counter, there is a new "ideal weight" poll online.
The weather forecast for tomorrow looks reasonable too, with 20kn SW breeze. I haven't tried my new set-up in anything more than 10kn so could be an interesting day...
18/09/2007
The season kicked off with a nice 10kn ESE breeze and a smaller than usuall fleet of 6 boats.
I had a shocker of a start after I somehow managed to muck up my tack and go for a swim. By the time I got the boat upright I was late, on the wrong end of the very biased pin end and in lots of dirty air.
Dave did very well and hit the line with full speed and on this massive lift, so by the time I tacked behind him he was 200m in front.
Around the top mark Dave rounded in 1st, I was 2nd and Phil doing quite well in his IC was 3rd.
With Donosan filming on the shore along with a number of other boatless mothies that came down for registration, I really had to get back into the lead. Then to make things a little harder, Dave rounded the wing mark the wrong way and avoided the slow head up, tack and bear away routine we usually do, and extended a little more.
With our boatspeed around the course exactly the same, I had to do something special and on the 2nd work I hit the left side hard to make use of the swinging breeze. It worked and I cought back a little, however in front of me Dave proceeded to return back to the beach. What happened? Quit while in front?
Turns out the old carbon mast finally gave up fighting the massive downhaul loads and snapped. I had a very easy sail after that, and managed to lap Grant who was now in 2nd place. Lea did well to finish his 1st Moth race and is already showing great signs of improvement.
14/09/2007
More mothing at St George last weekend, however with the season starting this weekend, we will fianlly get some indication of speed around the course.
Dave has been very fast since getting an MSL11 and also has a new CST mast on order. For the start I think we should have some good races , and then Donosan will be getting his boat in December to spice things up.
Also, looks like I sold my Lazich to QLD Moth association. They plan to build some foils for it and use it as a "try foiling" boat. It's quite funny really, as I reckon this boat should win some sort of an award for introducing the most people to mothing. Since I owned it more than 50 people had a go at sailing it.
I might also remind all St George sailors that, they need to be in the club from 10-1pm this saturday for the registration. The fees are similar to last year at $165 boat shed storage, $17 club membership and $52 YA Fee.
Also, you need to bring a copy of your insurance policy if you intend to store the boat in the club.
06/09/2007
Got the new wand on the boat going really well after last weekends sail, so it will be interesting to see how fast it is come season start in a week and a bit time.
Tomorrow is a public holiday in Sydney so there will be a few of us down at St George going for a burn.
Also, seeing there has been quite a lot of interest about my
Lazich Mk2 I have for sale I might write about it here to save time responding to e-mails..
Basically it's a standard Thorpe built fiberglass shell that Chris Dey finished off in about 1995. It has smaller flares and a smaller nose cone, so looks slighly more modern than other boats of that era. The hull weighs about 17kg which is about standard for boats this old and in this price range.
Last season it went for a major re-furbishment by Mark Wolny and was stripped back to glass and painted yellow with 2 pack paint. I did the conversion to foiling and carbon re-enforced the centerboard case and transom to take the new loads.
The foils used on it were Stevenson ones built for Melbourne Worlds, however they don't come with the boat.
Included with the hull are original alloy wings, Thorpe carbon lowriding foils, alloy boom, Barracouta pocket luff sail in ok condition, craddle and wand with cable.
There are a few bits missing like tramps, some fittings mast and spreaders.
It's for sale for $1200 and would make a cheap foiler for someone willing to source the missing bits and get hydrofoils for it.
30/08/2007
Went out for a sail again yesterday with Dave and Grant, so it was a good chance to try my new wand and linkage set-up.
I have to say it made a massive difference in boat control in waves (I could have done with this at Garda) , however it still needs more refining.
Also I spoke to St George Mothie Anthony who is now based in Melbourne and should be joining the Black Rock fleet. Richard Herritage too will be leaving the club after getting re-located for work to Perth. He will be taking his Moth with him, so hopefully we might see a bit more activity in WA.
So with the numbers down a little for the start of the season, Bruce McLeod has also been flat out trying to get his boat finished. (I'm actually using his internet at the moment...thanks). The with wing mounts are already in, and he should be close to fairing the hull and painting it sometime next week.
28/08/2007
More Moth activity at St George last weekend with Dave, Lea, Phil, Bruce Gult and myself showing up. Unfortunately the breeze hardly got past 7kn so most of the time it was sub-foiling conditions.
I also tried to get out yesterday, but with the breeze light again I didn't have much luck.
By the way, thanks Phil and Laurell fot the AGM-BBQ on Sunday. We agreed on the NSW states venue and things also look set for St George season with some new courses. I have updated the St George page with the new info.
23/08/2007
Been busy doing boat work throughout this week and hope to try my new wand system against a few Moths this Saturday.
Also, I'm contemplating getting another boat sometime after the aussie Nationals, allthough I'm still not certain. With the changes I am about to make It will probably be as fast anyway.
Reminder to all St George mothies about the season start on the 15th of September with AGM BBQ at Phil's place this Sunday.
20/08/2007
Went out for a sail again yesterday with Dave and Grant, so it was a good chance to try my new wand and linkage set-up.I have to say it made a massive difference in boat control in waves (I could have done with this at Garda) , however it still needs more refining.
Also I spoke to St George Mothie Anthony who is now based in Melbourne and should be joining the Black Rock fleet. Richard Herritage too will be leaving the club after getting re-located for work to Perth. He will be taking his Moth with him, so hopefully we might see a bit more activity in WA.
So with the numbers down a little for the start of the season, Bruce McLeod has also been flat out trying to get his boat finished. (I'm actually using his internet at the moment...thanks). The with wing mounts are already in, and he should be close to fairing the hull and painting it sometime next week.
More Moth activity at St George last weekend with Dave, Lea, Phil, Bruce Gult and myself showing up. Unfortunately the breeze hardly got past 7kn so most of the time it was sub-foiling conditions.I also tried to get out yesterday, but with the breeze light again I didn't have much luck.By the way, thanks Phil and Laurell fot the AGM-BBQ on Sunday. We agreed on the NSW states venue and things also look set for St George season with some new courses.
I have updated the St George page with the new info.
18/08/2007
Been busy doing boat work throughout this week and hope to try my new wand system against a few Moths this Saturday.Also, I'm contemplating getting another boat sometime after the aussie Nationals, allthough I'm still not certain. With the changes I am about to make It will probably be as fast anyway.Reminder to all St George mothies about the season start on the 15th of September with AGM BBQ at Phil's place this Sunday.
On Sunday I crewed for Scott on his 49er and we managed to win the Woolahra marathon in a small fleet other Bethweite boats and an I14. Read the full report
here.
09/08/2007
My boat arrived to Sydney few days ago so I'm just waiting for the customs to clear it before I can go pick it up.
Interestingly in the same container was Ned Delly Prowler that just got sold to Lea Sitja, so hopefully St George might have one more registration.
At the moment we are looking at heaving about 13 registered boats with the season/rego day on 15th of September.
27/07/2007
Got back from Croatia about a week ago, however I haven't had the best of weeks.
I am in the process of looking for a new job after problems following my return to work on Monday. This is why I haven't updated the website for a while as my focus at the moment is only is getting over this hurdle. Fingers crossed things will be back to normal pretty soon.
I still haven't got my boat as it is in transit from Italy, so I haven't sailed since Garda. I am expecting it will take another 3-4 weeks before I see it.
There has been lots of activity at St George too with David Lister about to paint his newly compleated Gilmour hull. It looks very good and the overall weight should be under 11kg.
Bruce McLeod has also been busy, not only editing
videos of myself cartwheeling in 25kn, but also compleating his hull. I went over a few days ago and he just has to make the foredeck before it's ready to fair.
So not much else has happening.... Luckily the trip to Italy is still fresh in my mind so that's keeping me happy. I'm looking forward to catching up with the Italians soon, especially Luigi, Umberto and Marco and others who made us feel very welcome.
By the way, if you need to contact me I am only using my
luka@australia.edu e-mail.
05/07/2007I finally found an internet cafe in Croatia so it's a good chance to update the website.
We left Italy in a bit of a rush with our lift to Croatia leaving straight after the prezo. Thanks Ozren ( the only Croatian Moth sailor!).
So with no time to write updates for the last 2 days of racing, I'm sure most saw that I had a less than glemorous end to my regatta. 5,7 and 11th followed by 11,11,12 on the last day. It's all a little disapointing as I was expecting to be in the top 5, or if not definitelly in the top 10...
12th overall, and I'm sort of wondering what went wrong. I don't remember being better prepared for a regatta either. I did the training and went over the boat to make sure everything was 100%... Then the Gantry went in the 1st race. I had no drops left so everything was going to count from
then on. Also what was surprising was that I swam more in the last 2 weeks
that in the last 2 years sailing a Moth.
Sure the breeze was strong most of the time with large waves, however thisisn't all that different to sailing at St George. Ithought I was reasonably fast and would be in the top 5 most races, then to only have 1,2 or 3 swims to finish around 11th spot. Anyway, I have to put it all down to experience and work on a few things for the next championship.
The surprise of the regatta?.....The speed of Bladeriders. We all knew that they would have reliability issues with foils snapping left right and centre (probably literally), however I have to give it to them when it comes to getting speed out of their boats. They got to Garda early and really finetuned their boats for the conditions. Their boatspeed at Grada is certainly very different to what I saw at boat the Aussie Nationals and NSW States.
I think the control has been the biggest seacret. Downwind the top Bladeriders all foiled higher but seemed rock solid unlike most other boats that seemed to bunny-hop in 1-1.5m waves.
Well done to Si Payne who finished 3rd overall in his Powler which was clearly down on boatspeed. Scott did well with his limited preparation to come 2nd and well done also goes to Rohan taking the win with all 1st's.
Have to go now, there I have a ferry to catch followed by more ralaxing and windsurfing...
27/06/2007
From one extreme to the next....
All racing was called off today, with no wind thanks to a large storm above the lake.
I hope that we can get some racing in soon, as I need as many heats to be sailed so that I can use my 2 drops!!
26/06/2007
No racing today, with Ora blowing 30 - 35 knots.........
25/06/2007
It has been a bad start to the regatta....
We had the Ora blowing 25knots again and after an average start I managed to pull back and get behind Adam May into 5th position, then just before the bottom mark I had a massive cartwheel, thanks to some really steep Garda swell. A lap later, I found another big wave and launched straight off it, followed by a loud bang...... my rudder gantry exploded!!
I got a tow home (upside down, it seems that´s how locals do it), however I unfortunately scored a DNF followed by a DNS for the next race.
With the breeze and swell conditions that we have been having there has been plenty of breakages. Simon Payne managed to tear the back of his boat off (gantry Incl), and there has been at least 10 Bladerider issues.
So far Rohan is winning with 2 firsts, and the remainder of the sea worthy Bladeriders are filling the minor places.
Looks like I will have a long night trying to fix my boat.........
24/06/2007
Arrived at Torbole 3 days ago, it has been quite a long trip 36 hours door to door!! The boat also arrived safely so that a bonus.
I have only been out once so far, after discovering a crack in my boom (forgot to reinforce part of it).
It has been really windy here. Over 20 knots every day, so It looks like my friend Lea was 100% right "if the weather is clear then expect 25 with a kick to 28 knots for most races"......
Competition starts tomorrow so I will keep you posted.
Also if you need to contact me use my luka@australia.edu email.
15/06/2007
With no boat to sail I have been doing quite a bit of training to build my fitness for the event, so I’m quite positive about the whole thing.
Seeing everybody else is trying to predict who will win, it’s only appropriate that I give my 2 cents worth.
As for the rest of the fleet, I really don’t know. There will be 10-15 sailors that could all potentially do quite well and come 3rd.
In other news, Dave Lister is building the first hull out of John Gilmour’s mould over the weekend. I will probably spend a fair bit of time over there helping, then Bruce will be starting his, while I am away.
I’ve been really busy the last few days and hence the lack of posts.
CST did a great job and finished my new mast bottom section on Friday, so the plan was to fit it out and use on the weekend. Little did I know that the mast plug would refused to come off the old mast, so it took me an extra few days to grind all the carbon off and get it all ready for sailing.
I also got new trampolines from John and went to Balmoral on Saturday to set them up, however the breeze was too light (again), so an early start of Sunday with Les and Alan we managed to foil in 8-10kn Westerly.
I did about 4 different foil set-up changes and compared my speed to Les until I came up with a fast compromise between good downwind and upwind speed. I’d say improvements of around 11.56% could be expected for Garda :)
So with all sailing done for the weekend I unpacked the boat on Sunday night and 50 meters of bubble wrap later, I dropped it off to the depot this morning…. What a relief... maybe I'll be able to get some sleep for a change.
So with the NE sea breezes struggling to get to any reasonable strength at this time of the year, Alan, Les and I met at 7am on Sunday hoping to catch the morning Westerly. After lots of waiting around, we decided not to go out as it didn’t look like foiling weather either. The afternoon was a replica of Saturday, so I gave it a miss.
Looks like we might only get one or two (at best) training weekends before the boats get packed for Garda. My new trampolines are coming sometime this week and hopefully the new CST mast bottom section will be finished soon too.
Watching Les and Alan sail in Middle Harbour from the balcony was as close I got to sailing this weekend. I spent most of the time moving into our new unit and then cleaning the old one in order to get our bond back.
Lately I have been contemplating what to do with my boat after Garda. Do I sell it or keep it for another season? I had 2 enquiries already and I haven’t even advertised it, so there seems to be a high demand for good 2nd hand boats in Europe.
The reasons for are quite obvious…I can save myself some money and hassle not having to bring it back.
On the other hand if I sell it I need to find out how this will effect the carnet and also, I would need to put a fair bit of work putting the new boat together. Then tune it as well…
I guess it all depends on how much I could get for it. It’s only a little over 6 months old and still looks like new plus I just bought a new KA MSL12 for the championship.
I also have a new set of tramps coming from Fastacraft and I’ll be speaking to CST about a new mast sometime this week.
If it does sell, it will have to happen pretty quickly as I would need to order a new one pretty soon to get it for the start of the sailing season.
At Balmoral we had 5-8kn ENE breeze, and on Sunday I went to Rose bay to sail with Scott and John Harris. The Northeaster kicked in to about 8-10kn, so we stayed out for quite a while.
The only downside to all this is that I stood on my mast trying to get the boat off the roof and cracked it. I’ll probably have to get a new bottom section, and add more debt on my credit card.
Also, Donosan sold his HT few days ago so looks like I’ll definitely have another Prowler to race against.
CST Composites have just updated their Moth page with prices for unassembled masts, booms, wings etc.
The Masts are 2 piece type, with the bottom section small enough to fit inside a boat box for travel overseas. Same mast as mine retails for $952.95+GST, and elliptical boom is $375+GST.
Also, I just picked up the keys for our new unit. With any luck we might get some breeze on the weekend, otherwise I’ll have to paint the walls…
07/05/2007
No much wind in Sydney this weekend...
Les gave me a hand getting my boat over to Balmoral for their sprint series (thanks), however we ended up waiting on the beach for hours with the wind never gusting over 5kn. It wasn't much fun so we packed up and went home...
I did rig the boat with the new CST Boom though. Lots of late nights carboning, so it's good to finally have it done. It looks very nice with CST's weive carbon effect and eliptical shape.
Nicole Williams also sent me some photos she took a few weeks back. They came up really good.
Went for a practice sail on Sunday with John Harris and Scott, at Rose Bay. We had a typical gusty and frustrating westerly ranging anywhere from 3-20+ knots.
John’s sail unfortunately ended early after rigging failure, resulting in his mast breaking, so I paced myself against Scott with my new set up I was trialing. If felt quite quick although it’s hard to be sure in such variable conditions.
Scott ended up cracking his rudder box, so I did a bit more sailing/tweaking by myself.
This weekend Balmoral is hosting some sprint races, with BYRA marathon race on Sunday.
I might have to get a lift there as my car is at smash repairers, but than again at this time of the year it’s better to see the forecast before making any plans.
27/04/2007
Good turnout of 10 boats for last race of the season at St George, for the annual Anzac day regatta.
It was quite light, shifty and gusty which made foiling quite difficult. Most of the time we only had 3-7kn breeze, which is quite usual for Sydney at this time of the year.
Scott had great speed in the light conditions and won with a good margin.
I struggled to foil for most of the race (I’m sure my 83kg current weight didn’t help here) and managed only 2nd, Donosan got past Les on the last lap and finished 3nd. Alan did quite well again sailing Chainsaw and came 5th. Roger was 6th, then Phil, Ian, Kylie and Dave had to leave early scoring a DNF.
23/04/2007
Another light weekend in Sydney…We had a reasonable turnout to Saturday’s handicap race at St George.
I trialed a new wand set up that seemed to work quite well in getting the boat foiling in marginal conditions, but it probably wasn’t all that fast around the course.
I started on scratch 6 mins behind Donosan and with good speed got past, however I couldn’t quite catch the next group which started around the 20min mark.
Alan sailed Phil Stevo’s Chainsaw and with great pace won the race by minutes.
I was planning to sail on Sunday as well, however I woke up with a swollen foot. I went to the doctor instead and it appears to be the same problem I had few months ago. Not sure what it is, few have suggested gout but apparantly I'm too young to get that...
I really want to get back to training hard for Garda, however I’m just not feeling all that great at the moment.
Also John’s finished his new
female mould and should be ready to build the 5 hulls fairly soon. It all looks very nice.
Marty e-mailed me on the progress of his new moth too (see photos below). I’m not 100% sure but it could be the 1st ever Nomex pre/preg moth built. It’s quite deferent in shape to the current production boats with a very rounded bow and sharp chine at the back. It’s also “less pintail” probably somewhere in between the Prowler and Lazich mk2.
17/04/2007
Nice 10-12kn ENE breeze for Saturday’s Handicap race…
Donosan and I actually missed the start while deciding if the building breeze would get strong enough for foiling and ended up practicing foiling gybes all day. He is getting quite good at it now, and I seem to pull about 8 out of 10 without touching the water.
Grant won the race, From Phil and Richard in 3rd.
In other news, Grant has just put his Hungry Tiger for sale. I don’t think he will have any troubles selling it seeing Scott won the States in it 12 months ago He is asking $14 000 and it comes with a brand new KA MSL12. The plain is then to order a new Prowler just like Donosan did (roomer is, Ben Crocker and Dave Henderson will get one for next season too).
Hopefully if things go to plan we could have 3 Prowlers racing at St George. It should be a great benefit to all of us, as it gives us the opportunity to try different set-ups and have identical boats to compare to.
So with 2 new Prowlers getting delivered around August/September for Grant and Steve, 4 boats getting built out of John Gilmour’s mould for Dave Lister, Mark, John, Bruce and Marty’s new boat getting built to his own design, we will have 7 brand new boats for the start of 07-08 season.
. Not sure about Phil, but he might also build a MK2 Chainsaw, so surely this has to be some sort of a record with this many new boats!
In the meantime John Ilett is completing 4 Prowlers due for delivery in June. One is coming to Sydney (for Shigemi), 2 are going to UK and one to Italy.
Things are looking good for Fastacraft with 3 new orders after the States at Easter.
13/04/2007
NSW States report in now up on the Aus. Moth
website.
09/04/2007
I just got back from NSW States and am super happy after I won the regatta. We had a mix of conditions over the 3 days of racing, and about 25 boats competing.
We also had 3 visiting boats, Rohan, Amac and Ned who were eligible for points, but not the trophy by not being IMCA NSW members. Rohan did well to score the lowest overall points.
After reading other States reports on the net, I would like to give some credit to both Chris and Les who sailed older less competitive boats and managed to beat faster foilers around the top mark on a number of occasions, only to lose downwind purely on boat speed. Well done Chris for coming 2nd and it’s also great to see Les on top of his foiling after only few months of practice coming 3rd (thanks for the trampoline too).
4th was Peter Harney, who sailed quite consistently in his Hungry Tiger with Fastacraft foils.
Scott was 5th who experienced a fair share of problems on his production Bladerider. Broken centerboard in heat one, and later the boat suffered with delaminating foredeck and wand linkage issues.
I had a mix of results with a 1st in race one, then 5th, 2nd, 2nd, 5th, 2nd, 2nd.
I was quite happy with my overall performance even though I had some hurdles to contend with. While rigging the boat on Sunday morning, I tripped over my spreaders and cut my foot pretty badly. It needed stitches, however I couldn’t afford to do this with 3 races on the day, so Grant rigged my boat while Kylie bandaged my foot.
Then as I got on the water, my wing trampoline tore making the boat very difficoult to sail. I think I weakened the material when I washed them in Napi-san after the Nationals. I really though I was just not meant to win, however luck turned my way eventually.
So how was my boat speed over the weekend?
I seemed to lack upwind height in light foiling conditions. It’s either something to do with my boat set-up or maybe I’m just slower because I weigh 10-15kg more than all other top 6 sailors. I had to foot off and sail flat just to stay on foils while, others could heal to windward and charge off.
None the less, as noticed by most other sailors, my Prowler was by far the quickest boat in the fleet downwind.
If I could be anywhere near the top few by the top mark, I would usually open 100’s of meters distance on all Bladeriders and Hungry Tigers by the bottom mark.
I am still convinced that the Prowler is still the quickest production foiler on the market and the new CST rig with KA sail worked really well too.
It was also good to catch up with Catharine and Josh who live on the Lake. Josh took some photos from the racing, so I’ll see If I can put those up tomorrow.
05/04/2007
The weather forecast for the States still looks good. 15-20kn tomorrow and 5-15kn for both Saturday and Sunday.
Looks like everybody is trying to predict who will win. These are
Bruce’s thoughts.
Also, It will be interesting to see how close NSW boats are to Rohan, as well as how fast the production Bladeriders are with Scott sailing his newly delivered boat.
My main goal however will be to do the best I can, and use this as preparation for the Worlds.
It would be nice to beat Rohan of course, however I will be reminding myself that he is not eligible to win (being from Vic.), and therefore I have to try and beat NSW boats as no1 priority. Having said this I’m glad he is making the trip up…
02/04/3007
I had an early start on Saturday, with Scott taking my boat out for a sail and some last minute changes to the boat’s set-up before the Sates. The breeze was from the south 13-20kn, really gusty.
I went out first to make sure the boat is sailable with the new set-up and in the process had a nosedive and cut my foot, as I tried to land on somewhere soft. I then changed things back to original settings and gave the boat to Scott. He sailed quite well (no surprises there) even though he had done minimal Moth sailing during the last 12 months.
I went out again in the afternoon, but decided not to race as I started to limp around with my foot getting more sore.
Phil won the race by a big margin from Grant and Bruce in 3rd.
On Sunday I went down with John and tried a few different settings again. The boat seemed to foil really well and felt very fast. I clocked 20.5kn in 10-12kn of breeze just mucking around.
I then though I should race the GRSC 16’s and see if I could beat them. I was last of the start, but got to 3rd by the top mark. By the bottom mark I was in 2nd and then rolled them on a tight reach to open a good 2min lead. I seemed to increase this to 3+ minutes and after 4 laps decided that I had finally proven my point. I was really happy as this is the first time I beat them fair and square around the course.
I feel quite confident going into the States, hopefully I can do well there too. As Scott mentioned on his
blog, I think Chris, Rohan, Scott, Donosan, Amac and I should be the ones with the best chance.
30/03/2007
We paid our deposit for the unit yesterday, so things are finally locked in.
The forecast for the weekend looks good too with a nice S-SW breeze, 10-15kn. Scott is coming down for his 1st sail on the Prowler, and I also need to do some adjustments on the foils before the States, starting next week.
Also, Kylie's brother Rob just launched his music website:
http://myspace.com/bobbylowryEven though I am into Dance music, I really like his stuff. With a bit of luck he will have a radio quality recording within the next month. Hopefully get signed up one day too.....
27/03/2007
Went down to St George on Saturday for the pointscore race, however things were not looking good.
We had a 1-3kn Northerly breeze and at some stage of the day we were going to get a strong 30kn Southerly change. There was also a strong NW forecast thrown in there, so it looked like the BOM was as confused about the breeze as I was.
I waited for breeze all morning and just before the start I got offered to skipper Infinite Property Solutions 16. I thought drifting in a 16 is less horrible than drifting in a Moth (at least you can sit down) so I committed myself to that.
The Moths started with a handicap start. Kylie was off first, then Bruce, Phil, Grant and Chris (not sure if I missed anyone else)…
All 16 went big rig and with a handicap start also, we started on scratch with Joe Walsh Rigging. It was a match race for most of 1st lap, however we sailed a little more aggressively and opened up a good 1+ min lead.
By the 2nd lap, we got a reasonable NE breeze (10-15kn and totally against every forecast) we extended even more. With the breeze freshening it was getting more and more difficult to get to the marks with the big spinnaker and on 2 occasions we lost out to finish 30 or so seconds in front of Joe.
I have to admit I was sorry didn’t sail the Moth as they had mostly foiling conditions.
Sailing a 16 is a bit like pushing a brick through the water while someone is throwing bucketfuls of water in your face.
In Moths, Chris got both the Scratch and Handicap win. I’m not sure what the rest of positions are….
Also there has been a very positive development with Garda. I think I might be going after all. I got a very generous offer through a close family friend to lend me the money for the trip.
I have now been franticly trying to organize accommodation, boat transport, plane tickets etc..
20/03/2007
What an action packed week!…I’ll start with last Saturday’s race that was sailed in 15-20+kn Southerly and dead flat water. Absolutely awesome!
Pity I didn’t have my GPS on, but I reckon this is as fast as I ever went. Donosan’s numbers show just under 23kn, I don’t think mine would have been any less as it felt a lot faster than my best 22.4kn.
I lead the race from early on by a few meters with Donosan in 2nd and Chris 30 sec back after missing the start. There seemed to be little boat speed difference upwind between the top 3 so the race to the top mark was very tactical. Donosan did a little better than Chris and I and rounded 1st by about 5 meters. Downwind I had great speed and gybed inside him at the wing mark and rounded the bottom mark back in 1st.
Up the 2nd work the positions and distances stayed about the same, so if I put a good downwind run together I could open up a nice lead. Then the wind really kicked in with a rainsquall and things got very exciting. With flat water I felt quite under control even though the boat was frighteningly fast. Then I looked behind and I couldn’t see anybody there. Steve had a swim and Chris was some distance behind.
Or the next 2 laps I seemed to extend my lead and Chis was now in 2nd after some great sailing.
With a nice distance to 2nd and one work remaining I relaxed a little and made some silly mistakes getting caught in a fleet of Skates. Chris caught up and pressed hard right until the end, however I managed to win by 3 minutes and Donosan was another 4 minutes behind Chris.
Now in other news, things have been quite exciting too. Now anybody that knows me well will be aware that I am quite thorough, calculated and have an obsessive personality.
I will spend months calculating whether Prowler is a better buy than a Bladerider and will probably drive everybody around me insane before I finally make up my mind.
Then I will move onto the next temporary obsession and contemplate a new Alfa Romeo 156 over my Peugeot 306 for months before seriously thinking about doing anything..
Having said this, I just bought a 1br unit with kylie in Mosman after about 2 weeks of looking. We haven’t signed the papers just yet, however we agreed on the price and at this stage things are looking good.
The original plan was (as you can guess) look for months, compare, contemplate, than talk about it some more… before making a decision, however we saw a unit we really liked and figured let’s get it.
It was just what we have been hoping to get. It’s cheap, needs renovating, has great water views over Balmoral + the lovely traffic noise we have become so accustomed to living right next to a freeway.
We had a friend value the unit and it confirmed that it is well priced so we found it hard to find reasons against.
Actually there is one reason against, however sometimes you just have to make sacrifices. And that reason is Garda worlds. Realistically, I can no longer see it happening unless somebody offers to pay for my trip or I win the lotto.
It would have been great to go, however there is always next year. Yes it won’t be Garda, however there will be plenty of world championships to come…
12/03/2007
Handicap start for last Saturdays race with a nice turnout of 9 Moths and a good 15kn SE breeze with flat water. Perfect!
Kylie started first on 27min followed by Bruce then Mark, Phil, Grant, Donosan on 3 min, Chris on 2 min and was the scratch boat.
With our “1 extra lap for foilers rule” + Kylie’s 27 min handicap, I had to sail pretty damn fast to win this one…I have to admit my main goal was to see if I could catch up to Steve and Chris.
By the time I started these two were already at the top mark. I had a good work but unfortunately just as I was about to round the wing mark a huge cruiser crossed right in front of me producing 1.5 meter waves. As you can imagine I cart wheeled right over them and exchanged some less than kind words with the inconsiderate driver…
Now I was even further back, however these are my favorite conditions and normally I have great boat speed in this range too.
I tried to sail really well and started catching up to Chris who had to sail with 4mm mainsheet after his outer core broke. None the less, Chris still had plenty of pace and had a great race with Donosan (who found extra speed since last weekend). By the last work I got quite close, but not quite close enough to finish 26seconds behind. Donosan was about 1 min 10 further in front.
The handicap race at the end was quite close with all boat finishing within 5 minutes. Bruce sailed his fat skiff really well winning the race by about 2 minutes from Grant than Kylie another 20 seconds back. 5th was Phil, than Donosan, Chris, myself and Mark
I took out the scratch win from Steve and Chris in 3rd so I was happy at the end of the day too.
On Sunday, I went to GRSC to race the 16’s again and this week I had really good pace upwind in a 8kn NE. I crossed most of the fleet after the start and was looking good to battle it out for first around the top mark, when my mainsheet bridle broke.
It took me a while to fix, so I re-joined mid race in 3rd spot, right next to Brydens Law Office. I had to sail higher angles down wind, but was traveling faster. I soon caught up to Bob Jane T-Marts and still side by side with Brydens we rounded the bottom mark meters apart. Upwind I got past and started to catch up to leader (Riley).
Unfortunately, the next run was far less successful for me as the breeze eased off to 6-7kn and at times not enough to foil. Brydens went past so, I figured 3 hours sailing was enough for the day and went back to the beach.
07/03/2007
More Prowlers from Fastacraft!….
The 4 boats below have just been completed and will be shipped within the next few days. Looks like red ones are becoming more popular too…
Also, construction on the batch of next 4 Moths has started and completion of those will be before Garda.
I have been working on foil set-up with John so all new Prowlers are now “ready to go fast” straight out of the box. This a real bonus to all those that don’t have much foiling experience, as it makes the learning process so much easier.
06/03/2007
Another strong NE 18-23kn forecast with run out tide for Saturday, however the breeze never really picked up. It was mostly from the East, 10-13kn.
The race was also a heat of the Club Championship so we had a good turnout of the fast boats. I lead early on with the help of a good port, pin-end start. Chris was a close 2nd and Donosan in 3rd.
Around the top mark I had a reasonable lead and after Chris had a swim I managed to extend this to over a minute. Then as I was about to gybe on the lay-line to the wing mark, I saw a line of weed just in front of me. Not much chance of gybing instantly to avoid it when you are doing 18kn, so I sailed through and collected 2 huge chunks on both the centerboard and rudder foil.
The boat felt horrible. I had loads off lee helm and was doing about 5kn. I gybed to get it off, but it didn’t work. Few erratic steering maneuvers and it still didn’t come off, so I figured the only option is to capsize clean the damn thing off and get on with the race.
When I got the boat back upright, Donosan (now in 2nd) just got past and rounded the wing mark meters in front of me. I managed to get around the commons reef and little quicker and was back into 1st, while Donosan found a new patch of weed and dropped right back.
Around the bottom mark I was 1st and now Chris Dey was again in close 2nd. For the next 2 laps my lead stayed the same at about 1 minute. I had to sail really well just to stay in front, and towards the end of the last lap I managed to find more weed. This time it came off after some effort, however Chris got really close. He sailed better up the last work and came 2nd by just under 20sec. Donosan was another 4.5 minutes further back. Grant sailed well, but was a long 25 minutes behind Steve, then Bruce and John Gilmour returning to racing in Kylie’s scow.
On Sunday I went to G.R.S.C. and after a 3 hour wait for some breeze, sailed in 6-8kn Easterly. The plan was to beat the 16’s, however in these marginal foiling conditions the Moths just don’t point upwind and I was about 1min per lap slower. I think another 5kn of breeze and I would have had a really good chance.
I might have to try this again next Sunday….
27/02/2007
Interesting race at Balmoral on the weekend…
We had 8 boats and another 15-18kn Northeaster.
There seemed to be a fair bit of confusion at the start with Les, Chris and Myself all starting 5+ minutes late, after failing to see any activity around the start line.
I actually started last and rounded the top mark about a minute behind Les, as most of the fleet was already around the bottom mark. I had great pace downwind and got past Les after the wing mark.
Chris was still at least a minute in front of me as we proceeded to catch and pass all of the fleet including, Ben, Roger, Alan and Finally Peter Harney.
It felt like a handicap race, and after 4 laps it was Chris Dey 1st, me 2nd then Pete in 3rd.
There still seems to be a fair bit of a difference between Chris, Donosan, Myself and the rest of the NSW fleet as they go through what we went at the start of last season. And that is trying to figure out how the hell to set up these hydrofoils.
I think there can be 10 minutes difference around the course between 2 identical boats with different foil set ups, not to mention that pulling foil-borne gybes would be nearly impossible.
It will be interesting to see how long Les takes to get competitive especially with his new Thuflo sail. The 1st ever built specifically for foiling…
In other news I got my 2nd ultrasound done of Friday and they couldn’t see a definite Hernia. There seems to be some bulging in the area, however nothing conclusive.
It makes things very difficult as I have been trying to rest, not hike as hard and reduce sailing to just 1 day a week while at the same time I need to get as much practice and improve my fitness for Garda.
It also looks like the trip could be very expensive with not enough interest in Australia to justify a container. It basically means that the cost of getting the boat there and back goes from about 1 to 3 grand.
Also, I just ordered another set of Fastacraft hydrofoils for Dave Lister who I sailed with on Racing Line 16 foot skiff for many seasons.
We are going to build a new hull of a modified Webster mould used to make AUS9295 Shiny Red Cherry.
All carbon bits like the mast and wings are going to be transferred from my Lazich hull and I think we will have a very competitive boat for minimum $.
20/02/2007
Another fresh NE breeze with a huge run out tide was the conditions for Saturday’s St George race.
Slightly smaller turnout of 5 Moths showed up with Kylie rowing, Donosan in Canberra, Richard working, Mark injured and John overseas.
I had a good start at the pin end and lead for most of the work with Chris meters behind and Grant quite close too.
As we got closer to the top mark the waves really started to pick up. They were steep and high, created by the very fast run out tide.
I can’t remember if Chris or I lead around the top mark, however it didn’t matter as whoever was going to survive the downwind leg would lead around the bottom mark.
I had real difficulty keeping the boat in the water as I seemed to scrape the crests of the waves and then just fly out and crash down. Most of the time I recovered, until I got a really steep one. I was probably doing at least 18kn when the boat flew right into the wave in front. A trip around the forestay and by the time I got the boat up I was right in front of Phil who proceeded to do the same. Chris also had a cartwheel in front and I had another one right after my gybe. Carnage everywhere!
As we got in the flatter water, Chris led by about a minute, but capsized right next to the wing mark. I went past and led around the bottom mark, but had a bad work and Chris was in front again.
The 3rd downwind was a little easier as the tide started to ease, however I still had my 3rd cartwheel. By now Chris had a solid lead and unless he made a big mistake he was going to win.
I menaged to close the gap to 1-2 minutes by the last 2 legs, but had yet another swim. That’s 4 swims in one race and boat handling is meant to be my strong point!
Chris proceeded to win the race comfortably (well done Chris) however I must say I was happy to hear he had 3 swims too ;-) Grant was some distance behind in 3
rd and Phil followed by about a minute in 4
th. Bruce sailed the fat skiff and didn’t have half as much trouble getting around the course as did the foilers. He has some nice GPS date from the race on his
website.
12/02/2007
I decided not to go to Sunshine this weekend, so instead I headed down to St George for a sail.
Fortunately 6 other Moths turned up which was enough to justify organizing a non point-score race.
We started in 10-12kn SE breeze, that soon started to fade and swing to ENE. After a dodgy pin end port tack start I was sure I would be able to cross Donosan on starboard, however I didn’t have enough room and got in his way. Luckily he let me get away with it so I tacked (probably because I felt bad) and tried to tuck in behind him.
Around the top mark I lead by meters, and from then on it was a tight race. Tricky conditions meant that we had ESE breeze in Wooloware Bay and NE at the wing mark. My lead dissolved to nothing after a bad downwind run in a frustrating and light breeze that wouldn’t decide which way to go. Steve rounded 1st and lead for most of the work, but underlayed the top mark by inches as I rolled over the top of him. I rounded 1st and started to feel more comfortable with the breeze settling in to NE.
2 laps later and I won by about 1 minute from Donosan and Grant another 4-5 minutes in 3rd.
It was a really exciting race with small details like foil-borne gybes making the difference. Donosan sailed very well as did Grant, so I can’t wait for the next one.
Had to miss a weekend of sailing due to a mysterious illness. I’ve had pain in my belly and lower back for about 6-7 days and recent blood test shows everything to be ok.
I might have to get an ultrasound done later this week if things don’t improve…
The race on Saturday was Heat 4 of the Club Championship, so looks like I won’t have a chance of winning this year. Chris Dey won the race from Phil Stevenson in a 20+kn run out tide North-Easter while the rough conditions proved too much for rest of the fleet.
30/01/2007
I Just uploaded a
new video by Marty Johnson and John Gilmour.
The video was filmed just before the Nationals, 1st time sailing the new boat...
29/01/2007
Sailed the Australia Day Marathon on Friday, however I didn’t finish the race. It probably had something to do with the 10km long work and some set up issues, after making pre race adjustments.
Also Kylie and were keen to leave for our weekend away to Blue Mountains, so maybe I just needed an excuse.
Chris Dey sailed very well and won the race from Donosan, then Les Thorpe in 3rd.
22/01/2007
Perfect conditions for Saturday’s
Zhik photo shoot, with a nice 10-15kn North Easter at St George.
We made an early start and met at the club at 8am. 2 photographers + William from
sailcam.tv with his video camera and after about 2.5 hours of sailing we had about 400 shots on one camera and a few hundred more on the other.
Surely there will be at last one good one in there…
I haven’t seen the video footage yet, however Will seemed happy about that too. Then it was back on shore for some lunch and them another photo shoot of the latest Zhik street wear with rigged Moths in the background.
All up, things went very well. Not sure what the photos and the video footage will exactly be used for yet, possibly add's in Aus. Sailing??
Donosan had to leave for work early, so only Grant and I sailed the afternoon race as well. I was about 5 minutes late for the start by time I got changed again, however I managed to catch up by the top mark and open a good lead (in what was now a 20kn breeze with decent sized waves created by a strong run out tide). After 2 laps of survival downwind sailing, I managed to win by a comfortable margin from Grant and Mark in 3rd.
Bruce also sailed and fare welled Virtual Reality while John broke his rudder.
This Friday St George is hosting the Australia Day Regatta ("round the bay marathon"). All moths are welcome and the start time should be at around 1pm.
8/01/2007
Racing starts again this Saturday with a Zhik photo session planned from 8:30am. Hopefully the weather will be a little more kind this Saturday.
Also, I spoke to John from Fastacraft recently, who is currently working of 4 Prowlers to be completed by the end of February.
All 4 shells with internal framing are done, and as soon as foredecks are mounted they will be sent to spray painters.
John has just employed yet another boatbuilder, so it’s good to see that they are increasing in size to cope with the demand. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are few extra orders coming in after the Nationals showdown.
15/01/2007
Unfortunately the wind blew just a little too hard for the photo shoot on Saturday, so we decided to postpone this for next weekend.
Pity we couldn’t do it on Sunday as we got perfect sailing conditions. Not a cloud in the sky and 15kn from SE with flat water. I didn’t sail, however I popped down to the club to wash all the Cootheraba mud of my sail and wing tramps.
Also, Nationals results have just been posted on
IMCA Aus. website.
11/01/2007
No racing this weekend, instead Grant, Donosan and myself are heading down to St George for a photo/video shoot for Zhik.
Also chanel 7 news report from the Nationals has just been uploaded on you tube by Rohan. See it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hL3g5ejXwQ09/01/2007
Just came back to Sydney after a great Nationals regatta at Lake Cotheraba.
First of all congratulations to Rohan on winning the Nationals despite suffering from lack of boat speed at times. He is still the most skilled Moth sailor in Australia and it just proves that his years of foiling experience made a considerable difference.
Another long time foiler, Mark Robinson did quite well and finished 3rd. 4th was Steve Donovan who had a great regatta and managed to beat Chris in the last race (who then had to settle for 5th).
I have to say I am very impressed with both Steve and Chris's sailing. They have both been foiling for a relatively short period and yet they are both right on pace. I should also mention that they are probably the fairest competitors I have ever raced against.
I am also very happy about my performance. I managed to get 2nd overall after a win in heat 7 and 10.
The goal for the regatta was to finish in the top 3 and win a race, so things are right on track for Garda.
I still feel that I can go a lot faster too. I had no vang and cunningham adjustment all regatta as the cleats I carboned on the mast stump could not be cleated (because of the angle) from the wing bar. Also the sail needs a bit of work with some modifications to the camber inducers. The luff pocket would always flap in the breeze and this also contributed to my average upwind speed and height.
All this is typical when you launch a boat 2 weeks before a major regatta. None the less I am very impressed with the boat. You will notice that all the things that didn’t work properly were made my myself.
The package John produces is superb. It is very rare for any boat builder to produce boats that can be rigged for the first time and instantly win races.
I had no damage to any of the equipment and it’s also good to see that the Prowler is still the fastest Moth around despite Rohan’s win.
I would also like to thank Harken for their support and I look forward to closer association with them in the future.
The new CST rig worked very well too. Once I make the sail suit the mast a little better, it should be a faster combination with the advantage of a smaller diameter mast.
Congratulations also would have to go to Peter Williamson and other helpers for organizing the regatta, as well as Lake Cotheraba S.C.
It was a very well run regatta, although I must sat that I was very disappointed with the race comities decision to abandon race 8 after 2 completed laps (while I had a minutes lead over Robbo, Donosan in 3rd and Rohan in 4th), due to a 30 degree wind shift. If every race was to be abandoned just because the wind shifts, how would Northbridge complete any of their races?
None the less, it didn’t make any difference to my overall position after I menaged to beat Robbo in the last race.
The plan now is to finish off a few last things on the boat (like building the new boom), then get as much sailing practice as I can.
With my very poor pre Nationals preparation, and a very new boat just before the event I really couldn’t be any happier with the final outcome.
Congratulations also to Kylie, for winning the “Women’s Trophy” who managed to beat Sam sailing a Bladerider.
