Wednesday evening sail

Wednesday saw a bit of Fat Bottomed Girl testing, as my foiler is in the workshop for some mods. The light breeze made the conditions perfect to scope out the girl's PY. After I completely fluffed the start and went behind everyone, she pulled through the fleet fine and wasn't anywhere near as sticky as expected. I think in thoses conditions she will be around RS300 speed, which for a fat boat is pretty darn good!

I'm hoping for a bit more wind next week to give her a bit more of a shakedown...

Tom Whicher was also around after the sailing for a bit of a chat as he is working up in Bristol at the moment at Wet 'N' Windy. Hopefully he will be bringing his boat along for a few weeks taking the mothy club up to 7 boats!

Wednesday evening sail

The usual Wednesday evening sail was a bit short lived this week with a couple of control rod problems which neither 5 minute epoxy or superglue were really up to fixing.
Seems my supposedly indestructible choice of glue for this job will only last about 2 months as both ends failed within 2 sails of each other! Now off to find some nice Titanium rod from somewhere and put threads on the end instead!
Gavin was the only other mothie out and about, but it seems like September could start seeing 4 or 5 of us sailing at the same time which will be fun.

Poole week shenanigins

Rod Harris invited the mothies down to his local haunt of Poole Harbour to have a go at a few races of Poole week. Unfortunately the launching proved to take so long that only Si Payne and Adam May made the start, with Rod and Myself a few minutes behind.

Only Rod really had a clue where he was going so he was the only finisher after plenty of bombing around looking for marks, sailing through Seacat wake (very weird, do it at least once...) and foiling though moorings and Xboats. James Roche missed the start by long enough to not even figure out where the windward mark was and Gary Ireson (Mr Zhik UK) missed out on launching altogether!

The next day saw too little wind to interest the remaining mothies in racing, so we had a bit of a pootle and swapped boats a few times in the only just foiling wind.

Was great fun and a good way to fill the post nationals fixtures gap... More of this please UK mothies!

Wednesday 15th August

This Wednesday evening saw another nice breeze (and still plenty of water in Axebridge!!). A good chance to mess around with cameras attached to the boat and get some general practice in again.

I finally had the breeze stay around long enough to do a race as well, and although I managed a couple of dips on the first lap (gybing into a roundup for a mark was a bit tricky!) I still finished a full leg and a bit ahead of the RS400's and formula board. Not sure if I took it on handicap but we shall wait and see.
It has been noted that my foils are very loud, being heard from halfway across the lake in the race box. Must get that sorted for some stealth foiling...

I attached my digital camera to the prodder for a bit before the race, and while its not really high enough to see much with the angle lens it has on it, its still quite fun! I'm going to try it on the hounds next...

Gybe School

I've just finished throwing together a video of all the gybing action from the Weymouth Nationals...



Enjoy!

Moth Worlds 2008

The dates for the 2008 Moth worlds have been finalised. 5th to the 11th of July, Weymouth and Portland will be the place to be...

Wednesday 8th August

Bright sunshine and 10-15 knots at Cheddar this evening. Great practicing conditions, and a great chance to send one of my old 12 sailing buddies out in the Silver Samurai to see what its all about. Tim Laws had a Big Issue 2 from me a couple of years ago before moving to France and started sailing Europes. He has however, seen the light and is eyeing up the Moth secondhand list. He posted a pretty impressive 18.4 knots on his first sail in a foiler, although his sail was interspersed with many capsizes trying to go around corners. Pretty standard stuff though.
He was pretty surprised to find that the foiling was as easy as it was though, requiring very little input to keep it up. Testament to all the control work I've had to do lately!

When Gibes go wrong - windward heel on the way in...



When gibes go right - still a bit dodgy on the way out, but its not bad!



Arseing for the camera



My afternoon was mostly involving gybe practice and occasional speed runs in the gusts. Managed a new personal best of 21 knots, I'm also getting to grips with a full centre main system on the boat (I've had a transom bridle/boom sheeting up to now). As long as I remember to put the tiller round the back its all good!

Few random video clips to follow on youtube...