The 28.8 Knot club

I don't think there is a 30 knot club in the UK yet, so I have here my highest bid. I also appear to have my rash vest on backwards.

Has anyone been faster over here? I know Rodders/Rashley and Offer have all put in 27 knots recently at least and Martin "Badger" Fear was the fastest in the UK for most of last year with a 26.9.

Anyway, Martin, Darren and I braved the ferocious land that is a crazy northerly at Axbridge today. With gusts coming out of the gorge like bullets it was a wild ride. It was actually surprisingly difficult to get any decent speed runs in as the gusts were so short that you tended to sail out the other side of them...

I went out about half an hour before Martin and had a couple of big runs, blowing away my previous 24.5 best with a 27.3 with the wand bouncing off the hull like a machine gun! I came in just as Martin was rigged up and he encouraged me back out and with gusts coming down on top of gusts I got pretty lucky and saw the GPS go over 28 briefly. It wasn't till I'd got back on land that I saw it had topped out at 28.8, with a 10 second run of 27.5. Martin also went faster than ever today, hitting 27.5 in his trusty pimped Bladerider - he also had far and away the best wipeout I've seen this year and I wouldn't be surprised if he'd beaten his own boats top speed on exit...

If I'm honest, there wasn't really much actual sailing to be done today - it was barely possible to get back upwind half the time as the change in windspeed and direction tended to have you underwater at a moments notice!

Still, looking forward to Poole this weekend and seeing if I can take some of this speed onto the racecourse...

Are you serious?

Seems the latest craze with Mothies is blogging less. Even Phil Oligario is doing it!

I think it's a bit of a shame that in order to be competitive people seem to be spending less time online sharing their experiences - sure, most of the time it's just people like me spouting off about nothing in particular but there are always little gems hidden away in amongst the general sailing posts.
I think it's a sign of the newer people in the class bringing in a level of professionalism and not wanting to give their game away or share their secret tweaks. Probably also a sign of the pulls of modern life meaning there is so much to pack into a day.

So, to be serious about your Mothing you shouldn't be online spouting nonsense when you could be sailing, doing some boat work or going running or whatever fitness craze has taken hold since the new year!

I'm currently sitting in the sailing club watching some vicious gusts flying down the lake. Yesterday was blown off with 35 knot gusts and today looks a bit like more of the same. Normally I'd go windsurfing but my van is in the garage being sorted out and apparently you can't fit a free ride board in an mx5 or citroen c1! We did find that you can fit two mountain bikes in the c1 though but I won't let Em and myself's off road adventures get in the way of my blogging....

Summer time and the sailing's easy.

Darren, Alan, Martin and I made it down to BCYC yesterday for the first proper sea breeze session of the year. The hot weather lately has been warming things up nicely and by midday there was a nice 8-10 knot breeze that increased slightly over the afternoon. This gave Martin and I a good couple of hours in, practicing our tacking and gibing and doing speed runs. Martin is going very nicely now and we're slowly pinning down the areas that need inprovement.

I've been quite surprised with my own progress after doing next to no sailing for over 6 months. The foiling tacks are still there and I'm just not quite as smooth as I was. The new boat is going really nicely and I'm looking forward to getting to a couple of events now to really see how things shape up! My fitness doesn't seem too bad either, having taken up running a couple of months ago to make sure I was vaguely fit before the season started rather than being vaguely fit by the time it finishes...

I've got my nice swivel-jammer based Pro-start mount working now, with a couple of tacking lines running off the mainsheet bridle bringing it up to windward every time. I've never really sailed with visible boatspeed before, just recording my tracks for viewing later but it is quite interesting getting into a groove and seeing how the boat behaves.

Emma was on camera duty, enjoying the sunshine.

Wednesday sailing

Well despite the greyness and sudden re-emergence of winter I journeyed out to Axbridge for a nice quiet sail this afternoon.

The wind was all over the place and coming and going quite frequently. This made for plenty of string twiddling trying to get the most from the rig. I feel I'm finally starting to get the foils and gearing how I like it and this is allowing me to start getting into the rhythm of tacking and gibing again and even pulled off a few no touch tacks.

I've been tinkering with a mount for my Prostart as it's impossible to read from hiking if it's mounted facing aft at the mast. After hacking up a mainsheet swivel jammer and building a mounting plate around it I just need to figure out how to tack it now. Bungee onto the kicker didn't work unless the boom was well off the centreline. Thinking either toestraps or mainsheet bridle next...

I'm off down to Weymouth on Friday afternoon for a bit of sailing with some other moths before the coaching kicks off on Saturday.

MSL - Main Sail Limbo

Sailed for the first time with a MSL 10C on my boat today and discovered I can barely get under the boom! Going to have to put a second clew eye in I think and lose a bit of area off the foot. You don't get the niceties that you get with the Hydes like leech or luff telltales although my cams didn't fall off so that was a good start!

Had a beautiful sail down at Axbridge this afternoon - the first wednesday of the year and with 10-12 knots it was good to try and get back into the routine of Moth sailing, trying to remember how to tack and gibe and start to get my setup dialed. The boat and new foils are behaving themselves and I managed to crack out a 23 knot run in one of the bigger puffs which could have been no more than 15 knots.

Darren and Martin were both down a little later but unfortunately the wind was shutting off by this time, leaving me as race officer to run a race with next to no wind by the finish...

We're having a bit of a Bristol Moth Fest on Sunday with most of the club boats likely to be out + DJ visiting us from Port Talbot - should be fun!

Fast as lightning.

I would love to say that I am describing my new boat. While it does indeed feel very fast it's also early days.

Instead I am describing quite how quickly I left the lake earlier today after the sudden onset of thunder and lightning alarmingly close to the lake at Cheddar...
There wasn't much wind for my sail and when the breeze kicked in I thought I was in for a nice ride, until a bolt of lightning made me nervous and we all evacuated the lake pretty rapidly. One of the sailors was telling me afterwards how he didn't mind too much as he had a carbon mast. He wasn't sure if I was joking when I told him that carbon was an excellent conductor!

No other mothies about. Martin was off for sneaky practice in Wales with DJ, Tom is off down in Rock with his boat, Darren was 200 sailing while Leo has a fractured rib! I'm hoping we can get our act back together and all get out again soon...

QMSC inlands

Just had a great weekend at Queen Mary for the inlands. While the turnout was down, the fun was up and some great racing was had with new Ninja rider Chris Rashley taking three wins on the Saturday and after looking for and failing to find my foiling wings I then took the only race on Sunday.

Chris, Ben Paton and Tom Offer had some cracking racing on the Saturday with plenty of place changing and some close finishes in 10-15 knots. I meanwhile was busy with trying to remember how to sail having amassed about 5 hours on the water since October. I missed the first race with a minor pushrod problem, I also had far too much rake meaning whenever I fluffed a tack (often!) the boat would stick head to wind and stay there until I dumped the kicker altogether and reversed off... Regardless, I was very pleased with the boats performance given it was it's first day on the water and by the end of the races I was motoring and rapidly making up for my mistakes.

Saturday night saw the QM Ninja death squad lead us off into Staines for a fantastic curry buffet and as much rum, Jaegermeister and whiskey as Tom could handle!

Sunday looked breathless, but come race time a patchy 5-8 knot breeze floated in meaning we could fit in one race before the sun came out and the breeze evaporated. I was pleased to find the new foils were up the the usual Ninja light air abilities, taking the race by over 5 minutes from Ben, Tom, then Chris.

I'm very pleased with the new boat and will go over it a bit in a future post. A few batten changes have improved the mk2 Ellway sail and improved it in a bit more breeze and it's still excellent in the lighter airs. The new foils feel good and I'm looking forward to getting some hours in and seeing what they can do.

I'm also pleased to see Chris, Ben and Tom all sailing well, having put in a lot of time on the water over the winter and Chris winning his first Moth open.

Meanwhile, somewhere on the south coast, the Wailing Islanders (W.I. For short) couldn't pluck up enough enthusiasm to leave their sandy playpen and drive an hour up the road...

Blokart for sale - NOW SOLD

Realise this isn't Moth related but it is windsport related!

I'm selling my classic Blokart which is one of the early ones with a pretty tired 3M sail and a new 4M and all the bits that go with...

Looking for £900ish - email mike 'at' aardvarkracing.co.uk

Dinghy Show

For the first time in lord knows how long I've watched the dinghy show from the sidelines! I love going, for the same reason I love the silly winter events. Meet buddies from other classes, see shiny toys and ancient hulks of timber with tons of varnish and loads of string that doesn't make 'em any faster!

Well done to Phil for getting a concours nomination but ultimately losing out to the Aardvark built E6 Cherub! I still haven't seen it since it's been finished but everyone who has says it's a work of art...

I was busy in the workshop on my boat. I've finally got all my new pieces of moulding sorted out including the new deck mould for the 2011 Ninja now done. As this was coming off my boat it means I can now crack on and finish the paintwork and get back on the water. Hopefully by next weekend I can be sailing my new boat on my new foils.
I haven't decided what to do about sails just yet so will be sailing on my v2 crazymain from last summer. I still think this sail is amazing downhill but a bit unwieldy upwind. I'm hoping some batten mods I've got up my sleeve will correct this and I guess we'll find out at the inlands in a couple of weeks time...

Better hope that I've been able to develop myself past of the lack of sailing I've done lately!

If in doubt, get out!

If you know you are going to crash - make sure you can leave the boat easily! It's a lot easier on the boat stopping itself than it is for it to stop your 80 kilo self too!

Some excellent crashing going on here and it shows just how windy it was in Belmont at times - 3 years ago at Weymouth people weren't even considering launching in some of those breezes...