The below post detailing my first two lap race at the worlds summed up my best day of sailing at the worlds regatta. The following day, which was day 1 of the finals was a repeat of day 2. In race 1 of the day I managed to get within 100m of the finish line when I saw the blue flag come down meaning I was more than 20 minutes behind the leader and still on my first lap.
The wind was blowing hard, I had lost a contact lens and I was knackered after the previous 3 days of sailing. I swallowed my pride again and sailed in and packed up for the day. 3 more DNF's to add to the collection!
The lay day was used to good effect, chilling out and staying away from the yacht club. I think the majority of the fleet followed the same tactic with only a few people going for a sail.
For those of us in silver fleet we returned to the club on Day 5 to rig up and spend the afternoon on standby under postponement onshore. Gold went out for a sail in what were reportedly epic conditions, and to say I was happy to watch was an understatement. If silver fleet had been racing I would have gone out and tried, but my results would have been similar to day 4 I expect.
Gold had one race at 1300, and a second at 1630, which I enjoyed from the comfort of the club balcony along with other members of Silver fleet. It was great to watch the best mothies in the world charging around the top mark and fly off downwind. I had my Wife's camera with me with a long lens, and tried out the camera's rapid fire mode and took some 1200 photo's. Just need to sort them out and pick the best few to post on here later!
Day 6 started with a 1000 first race, with 5 races planned for the silver fleet. I managed to fight my way through 3 races, not getting a decent start in any of them, and failed badly in the tacking department on the beats.
We were second start for race 2 so I enjoyed watching the Gold fleet head off. Bora's port tack start was impressive to say the least. He didn't cross the fleet but wanted the right bad enough that he was prepared to duck sterns to get it. I worked out why once our race had started with a sizable right shift turning our run very one sided after an immediate gybe at the top mark.
So after 3 races in heavy winds, I was exhausted, had lost yet another contact lens (this time in my "good" eye so vision was pretty blurry) and I faced the last day dilemma of any travelling sailor. Head in early and get a head start on the packing, or beat myself up for no further gain on the scoreboard... The end result was that I headed in and got to work on packing up the boat. Glad I did, because my rear transverse wingbar was damaged from the U-bolt and probably a few 100kg wingbar bounces from failure.
So what did I get from the worlds experience? I finished 96th, tied on points with my nemesis for the 10 days of racing, Greg Wise. Even at the back end we had our "race within a race" which made the event that much more enjoyable.
I learnt where I am deficient in my moth sailing, some things I would never have found out sailing by myself on the river at home. I also realised that the jump from back end to mid fleet isn't that big, it just takes some dedication to training and improved fitness. I plan to work on this over the next 12 months.
Next up for me is the WA moth state titles, which we are hopeful we can get over 10 boats to. A finish in the top 5 would be a reasonable target for that event, especially given at last years states I couldn't even make it to the startline having only had the boat a week or so.
To wrap up the worlds experience, I am glad I made the effort. Many thanks to the organisers sponsors and my fellow competitors for their advice and competitive spirit and my wife for her support during the event. I hope that after the arrival of our little one I'll be able to make it to another moth worlds in the future.
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