Nats Prep

Not much time for blogging lately as all of my time has been consumed getting myself and the boat ready for the Nationals.

I sailed most days last week, however this week is alocated to boat work.

I am starting to burn out a little though, as I haven’t spent a single day over the last 4 weeks not doing some sort moth related chore. Hopefully it will be all worth it? It wasn’t last year but that’s another story.

I’ll be glad when it’s all over and I am back to more laid back club racing.

Heat 3 of Club Championship

Poor turnout for 3rd heat of St George club championship only saw 5 boats start the race. The wind finally co-operated with 12kn from SE.

Dave was 1st around the top mark with good upwind speed as I lost time in a light patch and ‘lowrode’ on the lay line. I got a few nice gusts downwind though and cought right up only to lose it up the next work. I went right to get the ingoing tide advantage but it didn’t pay off.  He extended his lead and I was still in 2nd with Phil some distance behind.

The next reach was quite disastrous for me as I eased connoes in a really light spot, making the bottom camber pop of the mast. I had no choice but to capsize and fix it, and then I heard more popping. Crap, they are all of now!

I wrestled with them for about 10 minutes and couldn’t get them back on with water over the sail, so I limped back in.

Dave won convincingly form Phil and Bruce and Kylie also failed to finish.

The new KA MSL13 sail arrives before Christmas so I’ll probably have to re-visit how many spacers I should use to fix the problem. Looks like in my search for speed with new bits being made every day, I have overlooked some of the more obvious issues.

Latest Alpha for St George

With 4 Alpha design Moths succesfully sailing around, it’s certainly great to see the completion of the 5th hull. This one was built by Mark Wolny and is probably the best one yet.

It’s been work in progress for over 12 months, and will join St George fleet after Nationals.

Big Westerlies hit Sydney

Another 30kn weekend in Sydney saw all races cancelled at St George on Saturday and carnage on the Harbour on Sunday.

I did however get a chance to catch up on loads of boat work and get through 1/3 of my list. The hull now sports Zhik and CST Composites stickers and the boat even has a name. It’s called ‘Ready’. Why ready?…. Well, the fact that I waited for it to arive for 16months has something to do with it and it’s probably a suitable name for a red boat as well.

This Saturday we have yeat another 20-30kn forecast. This time though it will be from the South and should ease later, hopefully in time for the race…

Mothcast with John Ilett

The 3rd Mothcast show has just been uploaded on www.mothcast.net . This one is probably the most interesting so far with loads of Moth foiling history covered…

In the intro of the show, we mentioned some new R&D done for Bladerider, so here is the link for those interested….

http://compositecomponents.blogspot.com/

St George Interclub

Another windy Saturday for St George heat of the Inter-club. We had 13 boats start the race however some expected boats, (one in particular that really should have been there) did not show. Not surprisingly this caused plenty of colourful accusations during the rigging up time. I’d go into more detail as into what they were, but this site is G rated….  :)

Anyways back to the racing, I had a shocker of a start after dropping my tiler in a bare away and subsequently capsized as the gun went. Starting 30sec behind I played catch up. By the bottom mark I was in 4th, with Andrew Stevo leading from Dave and Ben Crocker.

The next 3 laps were some of the best racing I ever had. I reckon the positions changed 10 times between 2-4th as Andrew seemed to stay a steady distance ahead. During the last lap, Dave dropped of after having to fix his centerboard and Ben and I started to Catch Andrew. Up the last work, I was just in front of Ben and tacked late to get out of the 4kn outgoing tide. Andrew slipped back behind Ben and I lead around the last mark. Reach home in 20+ knots was just awesome! I played it safe and Ben finished meters behind, with Andrew 20 sec back in 3rd.

Dave was 4th, then Donosan and Phil wrapping up the top six.

1st Win for the new boat…I’m very happy with that.

35kn anyone?

No racing on Saturday with westerly winds gusting to 35kn!… So what better to do than watch the carnage at GRSC, hosting a heat of 16ft Skiff States.

In my time racing 16′s with Dave at GRSC I can remember only one or 2 races being cancelled. Basically it has to be absolutely ridiculous before the though of abandoning might entertain the race committee….anyways great for spectating and that’s what we were there to do.

Riley won convincingly after some very impressive sailing, and made me eve re-evaluate my decision of declining a crewing role with Jack few years ago. Absolutely awesome boat handling skills, and shows the depth of Sailing in Australia at the moment. 2nd was ex mothie Peter Thorpe on CST Composites while the rest of the field failed to finish.

Similar breeze strenght prevailed on Sunday wit 18′s abandoning the racing for the day. It would have been another good one to watch.

So with a bit of luck the wind gods will be a little kinder for St George interclub next Saturday, because at the moment I feel quite riped off.

Mothcast with Phil

So if you have missed Bruce’s post, the second episode of Mothcast is now up.  Next in line is John Ilett, with interview to be recorded later this week…

Balmoral interclub

Wow, what a difference a new sail makes! The Interclub at Balmoral on Saturday saw first glimpses of speed from the new boat all thanks to Amac’s loaner sail.

I had a good mid line start and went left into more pressure to round the top mark in 1st, meters in front of Andrew Stevo and Scott. Over to the wing mark and we seem to be all exactly the same speed. Andrew had some issues one the run leaving Scott and Myself to battle for the lead.

I still rounded in 1st and extended my lead to about a minute by the top mark after Scott went too far right and out of the pressure. Down the next run it was starting to get lighter, probably only 10kn and I lost out to Scott who picked a few nice gusts down to the bottom mark.

Up the next work I picked the layline into the top mark only to get knocked 30 degrees and find myself in the middle of 2 start boats trying to lay some marks. A bad tack and breeze dropping to 5kn alowed Scott and Dave to foil past as they went further left into more pressure. Matt day also gained however I managed to get in front of Dave just before the top mark as he hit a lowriding patch too. Over to the wing mark, Matt managed to get up and foil away into the distance leaving Dave and myself lowriding for the next few hundred meters. I was the next to finally get up and finished in 3rd with Dave finished some distance behind after struggling to foil down the last run.

So all in all, I’m really happy. When the breeze was up I lead for 1/2 the race and I still feel I can get loads more speed out of the boat. I think Dave still has the fastest boat, and probably the best boat-handling, but he needs more than 8kn to do well. Scott is also very quick and makes few mistakes, but surely the fastest moth in Sydney at the moment is the World Champion?

Weekend testing

More sailing on the weekend with a club race at St George as well as some Harbour sailing with Marty and Alistair on Sunday.

I’m really just treating the racing as tune up time as I need to get this boat going fast asap and start getting ready for the Nationals.

We have a Balmoral Interclub on Saturday, so it will be good to line up against other Sydney Mothies unless they boycot the event just like we have apparently boycoted the SIRS from Woolahra. I’m not even going to waste my time justifying that one, it’s a rude accusation considering what most St George members including myself have done to boost club racing in Sydney.

Anyways, I do have a KA sail coming for this weekend which should make a considerable improvement to my boat speed, and with a new wand being built in my kitchen I’m slightly ticking things off the list.