Wednesday 26 September 2012

Weymouth Moth open

The first GP event of the new 2012/13 season kicked off over the weekend down at Weymouth. Foiltown put on it's usual mix of conditions for us which resulted in one beautiful days sailing followed by something truly biblical which meant we only got one days sailing in.

Gareth Davies was Mr consistent over the 4 races on the Saturday, always making sure he was there or thereabouts leaving it to the rest of us to try to lose it, which we all succeeded in doing to some degree with failed tacks, missed mark roundings and all sorts of shenanigins. Tom Offer continued his good form with a 1,2,4 to take second. Special Agent Barton took third with a 2,3,3 and I took fourth with a 1,3,5. Overall results here
It was a bit of a shame the turnout was so down, but it's still pretty soon after Garda and a lot of people are between boats so I've got high hopes for the end of season event at HISC in a few weeks time. Helen and the folks at Castle Cove put on a great event for us and I reckon the Nationals here next year will be THE event to be at.

After seeing off Lord Shredder at Garda, my current steed is a 2 year old Ninja which I've been refurbishing and bringing up to current spec when I've had some spare time and is now fitted with a set of prototype Elite foils from a year or so ago which have been heavily modified since - The set up of which was a complete shot in the dark and was actually surprisingly good!

 
While none of the ropes were quite right, the toestraps started long and got progressively longer as the day went on and I ran out of rudder adjustment early on, the "Evil Midnight Bomber" put on a fine show and by the time I'd figured everything out she was going pretty quickly - taking the win in the last race by a good few hundred yards, despite massive cramp from the toestraps meaning my tacking had descended into 'shove the tiller and pray' rather than any meaningful technique! I'm planning on hanging onto the boat until after HISC open but she'll be up for sale soon after to make way for the first of the Rockets.

Speaking of which, I'm posting on the Aardvark Facebook page as I'm going along with Rocket development so if you want to keep up to date with whats happening thats the place to do it.