St George Moths 1/11/08

First heat of the Club Championship.

We had 9 boats rigged for a moderate southerly but it seems we are a slack lot and only 5 made the start line on time. A couple of others started late but with the wind a bit gusty and coolish there were a few excuses to pull out and only three of us made the full distance. Dave won as usual, with Steve chasing and me a way back.

But for the first few marks I seemed to be hanging in there, still keeping Dave in sight and rounding ahead of Steve, but then a port tack downwind showed up some major rudder ventilation problems and 3 swims later they were gone.

Last week at sunshine I was having occasional ventilation at speed, so during the week I had glued on a 2mm glass rod and re faired the leading edge for a sharper entry. It worked OK upwind and downwind on Std but there must be some assymetry there somewhere and as soon as I built speed on port, the rudder vertical would let go and the boat gybe.

Subsequent downwinds were sailed as slow as I could to keep the boat flying but not ventilating, unusual way to be racing.

Today I am making an accurate sanding template to clean up the leading edge, something I should have done last week I suppose but we learn the hard way. I hope to compete the adjustments and do some trials mid week so I klnow its right before next week's race.

ZHIK regatta at Sunshine

A great weekend at Sunshine, South Lake Macquarie. Lovely warm weather and a nice 12-15kt wind both days.

This was a mixed class yardstick regatta for single handed dinghies. The moths were in div 3 with Hayden's IC sailing three laps, while divs 1 and 2 included Spirals, Sabres, Contenders, Impulses and OKs and they all sailed 2 laps. Latest VYC posted yardsticks were used with the lap count included in the calculation.

The slow boats started first so it got pretty crowded at the first top mark. Then once past we sailed by ourselves for a lap and then caught them again on our third lap. At least it kept the fleet in the same wind as much as possible and sailing over a similar time span, things that matter in yardstick calculations. But the wind was so consistant it probably did not matter much.

We had 11 moths from St George, Balmoral plus Ben from Woollahra and Rod Ray down from Qld. The other classes were well represented by champions and top sailors. Total fleet was about 55.

In perfect foiling conditions the Moths went very well. Dave Lister was fastest and was I think first to finish in 3 races (having a gear failure in the 4th), meaning he passed all the other classes twice. In the last race he lapped Hayden Virture sailing the fastest IC in the country. Hayden commented that even sailing his older slower boat last year at McCrae against top ACats he had never been lapped before.

When Saturday's results were posted it was obvious that this fleet of moths were sailing a lot faster than the VYC rating. Moths filled the top 8 places by big margins. The other discrepancy was that the three Bladeriders were given the lower rating of 79 instead of the foiler moth rating of 83. This shuffled Rod and Alister down the list a little and it seems illogical to split the class this way.

Regardless the top guys were sailing about 10 minutes faster than the rating in a race well shorter than an hour. (Sorry I do not have the numbers in front of me). Dave beat me by 10 minutes and I beat all the other classes on VYC.

The VYC yardsticks are developed from mixed class racing results around Aust. There is very little of this racing in NSW, especially in summer, so I suspect that the ratings come from the days when Rohan was sailing in Melbourne club and regatta races. The 83 Moth rating would be how fast he was going when he had his last Prowler, and the 79 BR rating would be from when he began racing and promoting BR.

It looks like in these conditions a number more like 70-72 would be appropriate.

Back to the racing: Rod was closest to Dave with Ben and, in the races he sailed, Luka on his brand new Prowler not far back. There was some good racing in the bunch with places changing due to bad tacks or gybes. There is not much variation in actual boat speed.

I had some good bouts with Lea and Alister and ended up 5th overall.

Well done SLMASC.

Just an update

Lots happening in the mothoshere, Bladerider's bid for the Olympics, new Mach2 announced and as well as all the politics I have been sailing.

I have posted previously and elswhere that I disagree with an Olympic Moth. I see too much money and energy being diverted from the present development direction of the class into ISAF and class politics and then into selection, full time sailors, funding and such all with serious potential to disrupt or even redirect the tremendous steps forward and growth in both amateur and professional interest in moth.
I can not see the bid being sucessful anyway against the Finn and Laser lobbyists, but damage could be done anyway, just over a shorter period than if a Moth is selected.

The Mach 2 got a mention prevously and there has been quite a frenzy, Simon's Blog, press releases and lots of computer graphics. Nothing substantial yet, but I guess that if they do actually ever build anything, two of the worlds bess Mothies behind it will at least make it perform well.

Rohan is not pleased though, and bagged the builders of the early Bladeriders (now signed up to Mach2) for building crap boats. He admitted that he masked the fact three years ago that the boat was below expectation and won the Aust Nationals with it. Good sailors often make bad boats look good. The first title to BR. Maybe AMAC and Simon will do the same with the first batch of Mach2 in January even if they are below expectations? Development time is fast running out with no Mach2s sailing yet.

Enough moth politics.

I have been sailing.

Had a weekend away on the IC but back on the Tiger this week. The repaired Prowler foil is great, a big step up in speed compared with my old main foil. Still not completely finished and painted but solid and fast by my standards. Had a good race with Lea yesterday until he snuck away on the second downwind. We are both looking forward to the return of Clive, Grant and Chris from excursions and the improvement of Andrew now he has bought Scott's second broken foil. (Repairs to be completed yet.) There should be a close bunch in the mid fleet all with either Prowlers or Ilett foils under Hungry Tigers.

We all still have about 10 minutes to improve to get near Dave though. But he is being helpful and some improvements are coming hopefully. Luka gets his new prowler this week and should at least be closer to Dave than the older boats are. Steve can get up the front too.

St George now has 7 Prowlers, 2 Tigers, 2 Gilmore Alphas and and 3 scows. Not a bad Moth fleet when everyone comes to play.

Progress on Karma is slow, Removal of the flairs and freeboard (which included all the damaged bits) lost 7kg. The hull and two deck panels which will be recylcled weigh only 5kg. I could not build these as light as Thorpey so not point replacing them. I have filled in the old big fincase holes and built a new tube (foam sandwich) to take the unstayed mast, there is a new tiny fincase to build and a supporting bulkhead, then some hardpoints for wing and gantry mounts. It should still end up very light.
But there's more to come. Time and money permitting.
To Be Continued.

A good weekend.

Saturday at St George was a nice relief. After some dispute with the club managment we settled our differences and an initial 12 moth sailors registered with the club to sail the season. Another 3 or 4 were unable to make the day but will be there in the next few weeks. Some of the admin people who have had gripes about mothies were absent and we had a good chat with the club president and the new race officer who are with us in building the class.
After that we went sailing in a gusty NW and big run out tide. Dave Lister is still decidedly fastest, at least until Luka gets his new prowler. Meanwhile Luka is our finisher/recorder.
A short course w/l and 5 laps. I am not sure anyone did the whole lot as there was a bit of stopping and adjusting settings. It did not matter as the pointscore starts next week.

Sunday I went to Woollahra for the around the Harbour marathon. Only one other moth turned up, Marty, so I am not sure what has happenned to their building Moth fleet? Marty and I are second division moths so we were not going to stay with the 49ers and 18, but we beat everything else and had a great sail in a 10-15kt NE and beautiful sunshine.

These two days sailing were very rewarding. For maybe the first time in 4 years the control system was working properly and I felt comfortable driving the boat fast without concern about launching and crashing. So the winter work on the system and all the help from the other mothies has been well worth it. This is why islolated mothies have so much difficulty getting the system sorted for reliable height control, and why those boffins working on more complex boats are up against the wall and may never get it going well. The Moth network is invaluable.

Another week in the shed coming up. Last week I helped laminate some new foils for Mark Wolney's new Gilmore boat. His materials, my slow mold but in his budget. Now they are done I am back to my toys. I have bought the damaged Ilett foil from Scott and repair is underay. I hope to have it under the Tiger next weekend and look forward to a boost in performance.

Meanwhile I have started work on the damaged Hungry Tiger hull which was once Steve Donovan's Karma Package Deal. I have removed the flairs and 100mm of freeboard including the damaged sections plus the big fin case and have left a hull shell, foredeck and aft deck panel, all beautifully built by Thorpey and weighing only 5kg. I will add one or two kg in fincase, wing mounts and assembly but its still going to be a very light hull. Progress will be slow until I sell the Canoe to fund the carbon tubes. This will become the 2009 version of the continuing Chainsaw, minimum moth experiment. 20kg target? ambitious! No photos of this project to date.

On anther story all together St George skiff sailor Bruce Gaunt has been experimenting for a few years on a 16ft long moth like monster. 12 sqM sail on a big rotating mast, 3m wide wings and all very light. Now he has foils for it, and it has flown, by all accounts with some success. While I voice opinion against big boat foiling experiments around the world, Bruce has succeeded due to his concentration on weight saving and because he is in the circle of knowledge in the St George Moth foiling fleet. He has the systems working.
I am still not sure why he did it, must have cost heaps more than if he had just built it as a moth. It will be interesting when he lines up against the moths, will it be any faster?

New Season underway

A beautiful day to start the new season. 28 deg C and a good northerly.
There were 8 foiling moths out testing at St George. Plus two more owners there to assess and prepare their boats. No race yet but a good show of enthusiasm.

No serious problems from anyone. A couple of broken wands and I had some issues withmy new pushrod system which will fix OK during the week.

A good day all round

New moths, a boom?

The two year Bladerider boom has had anamazing impact on the Moth class. Suddenly people arre seeing moths as a growth industry with profits to be made?
Simon Payne has anounced a new production moth in association with AMAC and McConnaghy.
This must mean AMAC has disposed of his Bladerider interests and must also have something to do with why Bladerider has left McConnachy's.
Although Bladerider has made about 200 boats its not really clear to me that they are yet profitable. Its because of all the expensive Australians in Melbourne and flitting around the world, who must be soaking up a lot of the revenue. Add to that the first year when they seemed to need to replace about half the output due to failures. And now they are moving factories and starting up new product lines which must all be costing a motza. And I wonder if they will still be buying KA sails from AMAC?
And now the Mach 2 (Payne/AMAC) moth is going to start the whole process off again, more tooling, more development and associated failures and rework, more money invested and hopefully a whole lot of new moth buyers.
Meanwhile John Ilett has moved his hull production offshore and will concentrate his small workshop on foil production and boat assembly.
And Velociraptor in UK are promising some improvements after the WC exposure to potential customers.
I just hope that the total production capacity does not exceed the market volume.
In the past 5 years two other successful moth builder have decided their business time is better spent on other classes. Both Thorpey and Full Force decided that the continuous development of the moth was not worth chasing. The both had some serious money invested in molds which now sit idle, not goood for business.
While more builders and more boats is great for the class, there must be a finite limit to the number of people who have the $20K to spend on a toy which many will not even be able to sail first go.
Businesses going broke and upsetting customers would be very bad for the class, so I hope no one gets burnt.

Coming out of hibernation

The winter refit is complete:
New rudder and foil: With removable horizontal:

New hinge and gap closure on main foil:
All with new gloss two pack finish, flash!

New wand and pushrod system :

Also in the yard is Andrew's remodelling of 9332 with new gantry and foils:

Racing starts in a week or two.

4 moth clubs in Sydney now with Woollahra joining St George, Balmoral and Northbridge/Seaforth, all with viable fleets