I am back to my moth sailing again after a pleasant but not greatly successful Canoe regatta and a short break from sailing altogether.

Saturday was the club's round the bay race for Australia Day. 10 foilers and a really nice sunny day with a moderate 10kt easterly, normally just enough for me to foil with advantage but lack of time in, and on maintenance of, the boat certainly showed and I struggled into last place.

I had re attached the main foil to the fin last week and done a nice new paint job, but I got the pushrod length wrong and to start with was not getting enough UP flap, and that leads to frequent launches and crashes. One of these must have pulled the pushrod out of the flap connection because after a while I was struggling to fly at all, except by moving my weight way aft in the strongest puffs, which usualy got it going. A quick rush forward while trying to hike got it level and I could sometimes keep it going for a few hundred metres.

I got upwind in front of one boat but once we turned Clive foiled past me and away as I sailed way too high trying to take off with no flap control. At least a bit more wind came through and I managed a few semicontrolled rides to get home, managing to split one wing tranpoline on the way.

So a big list of things to do to the boat this week and a planned early trip to the club next Saturday to set everything up properly and catch up with some other maintenance. Then a lot of practice tomake up for lost time.

There is a continuing debate on Sailing Anarchy with the Phoil Phanatic Doug Lord about foils, wands, and flying. I recently posted this list of things we did in camp Stevo while trying to make moths foil:

"Here is a list of at least some of the experimental foil setups Andrew and I tried up to about 2005:
* Bow rudder and foil plus main foil, no wand,
* Manual incidence control of bow foil.
* Bow and stern ruders with centreboard, foils on bow and board.
* Bow and stern rudders with foils and no centreboard at all.
* Foils on CB and rudder, no flap no wand,
* Foils on CB and rudder, trailing edge wand on both,main foil with dihedral to induce righting moment with leeway.
* Manual adjustment of main foil incidence,
* High rate manual rudder flap adj, via tiller ext for reaction to waves.

We were the only people in the Sydney Moth scene trying anything at this time. There was not a lot of sucess from these experiments and only a few ideas are worth saving for the future.

We then went to the Melb Moth 2005 WC and saw how well the Ilett system worked, talked to John who was very generous and helpfull, and came home and started doing it his way.

With the exception of Andrew's tilt rudder system adopted by the Bladerider all of our subsequent work on moths has been in learning how to make the foils as strong and as light as the professionals.

We have tried and will develop some more ideas to try WRT to general moth layout but for now we are content to make only subtle development changes to the foil system. "

The new main foil has been sailed with sucess. It seems to take off earlier than the old one and it weigh about half as much. It floats nicely, certainly in the ball park with the factory jobs.

The race was 3/4 drift with the last lap getting enough wind to fly. I was with Dave when the wind came in and seemed to get out of the water as easilly as he did. But he has heaps more speed and sailed away to win. Then Grant caught me too.

Some rig develoment to do when I get back from the Canoe WC, but I am looking forward to trying to get the moth up to speed. It should be a lot easier than it used to be with 10 boats and a lot more knowledge amongst the sailors who are all willing to share.

This is the new foil with the No-Gap hinge. It seems to make a difference.

Now it has proven to work I can paint it nice and shiney.

The Moth fleet at St George continues to grow. There have been new boats in each of the last three weeks and there are a couple more coming before Christmas. We will start 2008 with 10 quality foilers plus a few low riders and even some scows.

I have some catching up to do. While I have been sailing the Canoe in preparation for the IC worlds, the younsters have been practicing hard.

I have almost completed thenew main foil and might give it a try next Saturday. Its club Champsionship, high tide and hopefully a good foiling breeze.

I need to spend some serious time on my moth sailing, some equipment updates and tuning. There is really no reason the old Tiger can not be as good as the newer boats.

The smooth foils were an improvement but the young guys who sail every week are now well ahead. I will get more serious about some moth practice once the Canoe Worlds are over.

Some progress at last. I have molded a new main foil and centreboard. Different technique to last time and considerablly lighter, at 2kg. Will have to see if it is as strong as earlier versions.

Meanwhile had a sail of tiger last week and determined my sailboard mast was not stiff enough. I had some more bits of tube so have made up a stiffer one for next time.

On the good side the new AMAC 10% style mods to the wand and flap linkage has made the boat much more easy to sail. No crashes, no launching and easier take offs. The boat feels safer now to drive it hard without fear of launching at high speed. The old foils are home this week for a spay job, smooth is fast.

Andrew and I had a sail of Tiger the weekend before last. Marginal conditions but we figured recent trimming of foil and wand angles need further adjustment. Foil is back at home this week for some minor padding so we can maintain the necessary angle of attack.

Off on Holidays soon, so the workshop will get a clean out ready for some foil making. Need to start out getting our verticals down to weight and up to stiffness. Then some experiments with different ideas for horizontals. Have invested in some much needed vacuum gear.

All in preparation for the 2008 Chainsaw replacement: