Little Blue Pill Required

So after a serious brain fade when packing up the boat one day I broke the existing wand supplied with the boat, and made a replacement for the lower, telescoping section (a length of 5.5mm dia carbon tube did the trick nicely). This was an easier fix than I first thought, but perhaps wasn't executed ideally...

The replaced tube decided that it didn't enjoy life as a moth wand on Monday and as such, now requires a little assistance to remain, umm, for want of a better term, erect.

The cause is most likely the fact that this wand was made with an ability to extend beyond the length of the original wand Luka had on the boat. A mistake that caused more than enough crashes as the overlength wand drove the main foil to lift too hard and spectacular fly out / nosedive crashes were the result, usually after a fairly intense roller-coaster ride with the boat bouncing up and down due to a crazy overlength wand.

All this caused a lot of change in the bending moment (from +ve to -ve every time the bungy pulls the wand forward) on the wand where the outer tube meets the smaller tube, and the end result of this is usually a nasty failure. Especially in carbon, which doesn't yield, it just fails. Spectacularly!

So until this happened I was having a nice training sail working out the dial and how to read the water for lulls and shifts. I spent a bit of time working on the entry into a tack and had a couple of times where i was still on the foils as i reached head to wind, so a promising development there too (slowing down to 10 knots boatspeed helped here). Maybe, just maybe, foiling tacks and gybes could be accomplished before Belmont. We'll see!

So anyway, here's the busted wand, new one with paddle and revised spring mount on the way in the next couple of days.

The Doctor Arrives

The famous "Freo Doctor" finally showed up today for one of the first times this season, and made for some interesting sailing for a "L" plate moth sailor.

After spending a little time trying to get the feel of the boat in waves and a fairly serious bit of wind (www.seabreeze.com.au shows 18 - 22 kts about the time I decided to pack it in) compared to what I have been practicing in, the sailing gods started to give me some signals that it was time to take a pass on anymore sailing.

These included:

• A frustrating cut on my thumb from the trailing edge of my main foil (2nd time now, you'd think i'd learn). Tramps are now red polka dot in places
• Managing to skewer my tiller extension between the foot of the main and boom, and then through the sail. That took some thinking to untangle capsized (vang off was the trick...)
• Nicely developed waves, a first for me and the wand and foil settings were not ready to deal with this!
• An ability to keep missing the toestraps when I need them most. They are being tightened before tomorrows sailing...

So its a public holiday here tomorrow, try to go for a sail in the morning and get back on the slow road forward.

Yet another Moth sailing blog...

With the Moth Worlds (www.mothworlds.org/belmont) announced for Belmont in January 2011 and friends wedding to attend the week after, what more of an excuse did I need to buy a Moth and get involved in some of the most exciting racing going on the planet.

Step 1 was to find a boat, a process which was quickly completed when Luka Damic decided to offload his  just over a year old Prowler Zero (www.fastacraft.com) with a bunch of his special modifications (dial and wand primarily). It was the type of boat I needed, new enough to not be soft banged up or with broken parts, but not at the premium price of a brand new boat (plus it had some nice CST high mod wingbars and a skinny single piece mast)

Collecting "Gobbles" from the Transport Depot

Now renamed "Gobbles" Moth AUS 3573 is my first foray into boat ownership, skiff sailing, foiling and sailing damn fast. Well that was the plan.

Out of the Box

Step 2 was supposed to be Rig Boat, go for a quick sail, get on up on foils and enjoy. But Moths teach you one thing, and thats humility and patience. What I though would take a few days took weeks of learning how the boat works, how I need to move and the unique motions of a boat that is most stable at over 10 knots half a metre above the water, or on its side.

One of the First times out

Over the last 6 months I have progressed from "swimming" the boat around to being able to foil in a straight line with some nice speed (16kts + at times). The corners elude me at the moment but thats the next project. Foiling Gybes first, the tacks will come with more time!

I am based at south of Perth Yacht Club in WA, and out fleet has slowly grown over the recent months, with up to 7 known boats ready to sail now or in the near future, and 5 possibly attending the worlds. Hopefully a resurgence of the Moth fleet at the home of foiling is well underway!