Just getting to know each other!
Another busy Saturday morning before the 1st Heat of the club Championship at St George. Plenty of ropes to splice, thighs to adjust and rig Clive’s sail to suit my 40mm CST Mast. Good trick here is to use plastic chain links (that you can get from any hardware shop) if you are short on sail spacers. I must admit this was Lea’s clever last minute idea…
So I got it all ready, (or at least 5 out of the list of 30+ things that are on to-do list) and the breeze was looking great. 15-20kn SE and flat water. Excellent! Well it was for a little while before my rudder pin refused to go through the gantry. So I pushed a little harder and then got it stuck with no chance of getting it out. F*5$k it went in fine last week?. I reckon I must have called my boat every offensive word I knew. 20 minutes later, I watched Dave and others start as I contemplated weather I just leave the thing there and drive home or maybe it’s worth while getting it back on the beach?
Anyways, very frustrating. I went back on Sunday to sort out the problem (bent pin or whatever it could have been) and the rudder went on first go! HHmmm, maybe there is something wrong with me?
Luckily John Ilett called later and I think we have it sorted. With very fine tolerances to minimize slop there is a frictionless point that the pin fits best through, so I might mark this for next weekend. Not boats fault after all, I think we just need to get to know each other better!
Zero Time
I’ve been absolutely flat out lately… Work is busy, new boat arrived a little while ago and there was a regatta to do. Ok, maybe things aren’t so bad.
I launched the new boat (just in time) for the 1st race at Sunshine on Saturday. Lovely 10-12kn seabreeze and things were looking good. I started few minutes behind the fleet and had to take a few swims to make set up adjustments so I though bugger the 1st race I’ll get the boat sorted for the 2nd one.
I had a reasonable start there and seemed to hold my ground against Rodney and Ben, with Dave slowly creeping away. Around the top mark I was is 3rd behind Ben (who since world is loads faster) and Rodney was not too far behind. Some time into the race I start to realise that I’m way to unfit for this as I got overtaken by Rodney and with Dave breaking his mast stump, I ended up 3rd.
The next day, I went out early and got the boat more sorted, although still not too happy with the sail I was using. I started well and lead along with Dave and Alistair. Around the top mark Dave was meters in front and once again pulled away on downwind legs. Things remained unchanged for the next 2 laps and I finished 2nd, not too far in front of Ben who seemed to catch up in the building breeze.
So, overall I’m super happy. I really haven’t even started looking at the set up of this boat and I’ve come away with a 3rd and 2nd. I think with a new sail and a few tweeks I can gain minutes around the course, not to mention what a reasonable fitness level could do for me….
I’ll see if I can get a few snap shots of the boat soon and go into some detail about what’s different about it, in the meantime here is one taken by a SLMASC volunteer.
New site
Thanks to Bruce McLeod, this site has been re-done with wordpress.
It shoud be much easier to use and now comes with rss feed and comments section. wohoo.
Appart from this it should be pretty much the same as the old one. I should have all pages up to date within a few days…
Zero for US
After much interest in foiling Moths from the US sailing community, Fastacraft has sent a demo boat and appointed a local distributor.
The Fastacraft Zero will be first displayed at US Boat Show in Annapolis from 9th to 13th of October.
Mothcast launched!
For the last few months Bruce and I have been working on a seacret little project that we can now reveal. Mothcast is a Moth sailing podcast which we hope will be interesting and fun. To listen or surscribe to the show go to www.mothcast.net
The finishing room
No boat so no sailing on Saturday for me. I helped in the finishing room, and watched a good size fleet sail windward/leeward courses.
We didn’t do as well as last year when Scott and I won the event also on a 49er, but it was fun none the less. Probably too much at times, as we lost one of the caps heading to the bottom mark in 3rd place.
3d zero
The 3D Zero is taking shape. (see below). Probably at a similar rate to my new boat. It’s already been primed and the foils are the last time consuming thing left. I’m hopeful it will be ready for the 4th October (long weekend).
Also, season Starts at St George tomorrow. Rego’s are from 10-30 am.
High speed sail
In case you are struggling to fill your 8 hour work day with Moth blogs here is one more to help the cause….
This one is by new St George Mothie and CST Composites Production Manager Chris Dixon. He just reecently bought Grant’s green Hungry Tiger and has sailed 18′s, 14′s and Vee Jays in the past…
Modelling the the Fastacraft Zero
So in absence of a Moth, I’ve been computer modeling more moth bits on the weekend… Who would have thought that having an Industrial Design background can help you with your sailing?
I am currently modeling the the Fastacraft Zero that will be used in the new Fastafraft website developed by Oneos. Still a long way to go, with wings, foils, mast boom etc to be done… It should look good once finished.
Work in progress
Just got the below photo from John…. I think it looks great! especially with nice small CST Composites wing bars.
The painting will probably happen next week in brightest red I could find and as used on Mazda3 MPS range. Can’t wait to get it!
Photo: John Ilett
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