After a tangle with some bigger boats in the mass start I got away from the other moths and close to the leading skiffs until we turned at the moth windward mark. From there on it got lonely, I had a big lead on Grant until he started to just foil. He gained a bit then I engaged the wand and did one work, with hopes of flying, but in reality sailing low with high drag from the wand and down flap. He gained enough to cross once. Then on the downwing leg I reverted to low drag and sailed square, while Grant reached off trying to fly. I gained heaps and in the end he gave up and joined the others and went home. I did too after a couple of legs as there was no point drifting around by myself.
OK I know my boat goes well in the light but it would be nice to have someone to race against, they might even learn how to do it as well if they spent some time practicing. It is disturbing to me that the new generation of moth sailors do not want to go sailing unless they can foil. Two or three did not bother to rig and several others did not even show at the club.
They will miss a lot of sailing at the ends of the season, and as seen at easter will have poor results at significant regattas if the weather turns light.
I commented that the 5kts winds used to be really competitive in prefoiling days, there were a lot of fast boats nd it was close at the top.
It would be bad for the class to only sail when there was enough wind to foil. I like the moth to be an all weather boat like it always was.
Maybe the designers need to look at more design allowance for light winds and not solely for foiling. Mostly we need to maintain an attitude that we race as soon as the committee can set a course, just like all other dinghy classes.
No comments:
Post a Comment