Solid Sail Society

I'm still not a fully paid up member of this exclusive club. I've been thinking about it for a while but it is not that straightforward. Building a wing itself seems pretty easy but the rule interpretations around it and the fact that the measurers themselves can't agree on even the basics without resorting to throwing one design insults means I'm just not ready to jump yet.
The recently published rule interpretations surrounding the adoption of wings lends more to my feeling that it's a square peg, round hole argument. The rules as they stand obviously aren't worded or built to cope with wings which has left the whole thing open for some pretty wild assumptions and it's going to be interesting to see what appears in Belmont and how it goes down with those attending.

As it stands, regardless of whether the mast is a mast and the bit on the back is a sail the only reason the whole system works is because it behaves as two sails and that simple fact puts me on the side that they probably shouldn't be allowed at all!

There are those who say that we are a development class and we should allow it but the flaw in that argument is that we have banned multihulls, sailboards and have limits on things for very good reasons. Whether a wing rig is something the class wants remains to be seen but I am very hopeful that decisions aren't made in Belmont without consulting the rest of us. Those that can afford to get there in the first place have a very different perspective on things...

Rant over - I'm off to Hayling to help out with the class coaching this weekend. The reservoir is filling back up and will hopefully be mothable in a couple of weeks time. in the mean time I've made another toy that only needs 8 inches of water to go sailing!

Tide Ride shenanigins

Hayling laid on its finest conditions for a weekend of riding the tide. With the demise of Holt last year the event was lacking the usual push and turnout was down by all classes and the 800s and Mustos got canned at the last minute due to a lack on entries.

So 17 boats took to the harbour for a load of short sharp racing, enough to blow the cobwebs away and sort out rusty boat handling. I had my new Hyde back up after a small luff round mod to flatten off the bottom 1/2 of the sail which resulted in some more upwind pace and I spent Saturday battling it out with Mike L and Si. I felt I was generally as fast upwind but quicker down while my racing was littered with the usual mistakes and dropped maneuvers, the sort of thing that not going sailing much does to you!

Saturday night saw a few mothies chilling out at the sailing club with Ben Paton feeding Pete Barton many rums, tequilas and anything else he could find and the look on Pete's face in the morning said it all!

Sunday got pretty hectic with a lot of chop and traffic crossing the course. We were running the gibing slalom course which was highly entertaining although I spent quite a while going down the mine and managed at least one lap of one race failing to land a single gibe - I managed one near flawless race in the lead but one more fluffed gibe let Mike through! It's pretty scary the distance that one mistake can cost you!

Quite a bit of random damage over the weekend, with two tillers sat on, one mainsail under the jetty, one downed rig and one rudder attached to one of the marks - would have been interesting to see how a solid sail would have coped with the many stacks and HISC sand!

Chris Bashall took load of photos which are on his website here.

So with winter ahead and still no water at the sailing club there's not going to be a lot of sailing for the near future at least which leaves me pondering wings and things...

I'm over here with the wing!

I'm stuck in a circular loop on this one. I've been thinking about it and have got some preliminary ideas on how I'd do it. Just making a wing isn't the problem. Making one without ruining my Mothing is the difficult bit and I agree with Andrew's thoughts on this (see the M2 forum).

I want to go down the club, put my boat together and go sailing. I can do this in 15 minutes. I don't need help to make sure I get the rig up without damaging it. I dont need safe storage in the boat park for said rig as my mast is in 2 pieces under my cover along with my sail and boom. I don't have to worry about getting sand in the moving parts. I don't need a box trailer or van to take it to events as the boat goes on the roof.

The moth has a good track record of not managing development and letting things happen. The single biggest problem with that attitude this time around is that we have so much more to lose than before. Foils transformed the class - it's still ascending now and I can't see wings improving things rather destroying what's been built. The non circuit Mothies I have spoken to believe it's a step too far and it would stop them from joining in. That is a bad thing.
I personally think that a couple of year hold on using hard sails in competition would be the way forward as it would allow things to develop on the side and give the Moth the chance to grow and re-evaluate when more facts are present.


A seperate note:
Are they legal as it stands? A mainsail has to be held by it's luff to a mast as best as I can tell from the ISAF equipment rules which a separated split flap would go against.
My former class had a fairly simple restriction on the sail - it needed to be able to be rolled/folded without damage.

Port Talbot pics

Nick Dallimore (Mothy Claire's dad) was out taking some pics on Sunday...

Bristol Moth Port Talbot invasion

Leo, Simon and I decided we needed another sailing fix, so we braved the Ryder Cup traffic (there was none!) and the rather dubious forecast (it turned out lovely) to head over to Port Talbot and get some sailing in with DJ.

We were greeted by a nice 10-15 knots and a very welcoming Corus SC. After fueling up on a bit of tea and cake we hit the water for a good three hour session. I've got a couple of silly toys on the boat which I wanted to get my head around before heading down to the Tide Ride and thankfully they were both working pretty much as I'd expected. I've also got my 2b Hyde back from Tom so was good to be on the water figuring everything out and trying to get my setup truly sorted.

DJ and I did the middle race of the club regatta, giving a chance to show the locals what the Moth can do and on a short windward leeward course I was lapping the Musto skiff on every other round! While I'm definitely not as polished as I was this time last year I feel I'm getting back into the swing of things before the Moth Winter Champs series kicks off next weekend down at Hayling... Only 8 Moths pre-entered at the moment - GET ON IT!!!

Bristol Moth Foiltown invasion

 

Theres been very little in the way of sailing at Axebridge since July now. Bristol water have a problem with one of their other reservoirs and have been using up all our lake! This looks set to continue for the next 4 weeks or so leaving us with very little else to do but go travelling when we can.

Last Sunday had us canning a planned trip to Port Talbot to sail with DJ due to a poor forecast but instead decamping to Weymouth. Foiltown did not disappoint giving us blue skies and 15 ish knots. Joining Foiltown resident Alex Adams were myself, Martin, Darren and Simon and we all got on the water around lunchtime for a good three hour session.

Martin was running a shiny new '10 North letting me play with his old X8 sail as I'd lent my Hyde to Tom Offer for a week in Rock (Tom still hasn't got his replacement sail after the Choppy incident in Switzerland). It was good to get on the water after only one sail myself since Silvaplana and while I struggled to get under the boom with the X8 sail up the boat felt really good. We did a load of windward/leeward, dodging the zone squaddies and generally having a very nice time!

Tom meanwhile has been living it up in Rock with Ninja Tuna, apparently getting out most evenings and playing around with his setups. Based on his progress this year I expect him to give me a good spanking next time we meet on the water!

We're reconvening at Port Talbot with DJ this Sunday if the wind gods play nice. Should be good to get out and play with some new toys I have on the boat and try to remind myself how to tack and gibe!

TIDE RIDE SOON!!!

Silvaplana

I've now had a couple of weeks to mull over the trip to Switzerland and I was hoping hindsight might make it feel a bit rosier but unfortunately I still hate the place!

The sailing itself was actually not too bad and although I struggled to figure the place out it was a nice bit of water to go for a plod around. Unfortunately that was marred by too many boats in too small a space, combined with some lunatic course ideas. The Swiss interpretation of the grand-prix finishing system left much to be desired with many people not getting proper finishes or positions. The split gate at the bottom was too close together and one single Moth on its side in the middle pretty much closed the thing out which, led to quite a few wipeouts and one very scary incident that resulted in one of the first protests I can remember at a Moth event - a Rule 69 no less. It also shouldn't take 8 marks to set a windward/leeward!

The event looked great to pretty much everyone that wasn't there and they did an excellent job in getting the publicity out and to a high standard. I believe the event suffered from a lack of attention elsewhere. Where were the socials? One trip up a mountain for an overpriced school dinner barely qualifies and the event tent was pretty much wholely wasted serving overpriced bowls of pasta and little else. Bearing in mind there was little else to do within a 10 mile radius it should have been the hub of the whole thing...

The money. I knew this place was going to be expensive but we were stung for absolutely everything. 5chf for a jug of tap water, 5 chf to have your pizza cut so you can share it, £50 to have a boat measured, £30 to have a sail measured, road tax on your car, road tax on your trailer, £20+ for a pizza? Seriously? Steak was out of the question, much to Rod's disappointment!

I came away from the whole thing feeling shortchanged (figuratively and literally). I started the week well but made a poor equipment call and lost a race (went to change sails only to have the previously slow race committee turn us around very quickly). I lost another 2 races following a monster wipeout where I damaged the gantry attachment. This left me counting a DNS in my final score, which put me in the low teens rather than top dozen. I also had a pretty successful mental meltdown on the final day despite having tons of pace and put in two shockers, making mistakes left and right, and wasn't helped by being put in on the start by Rob Gough - one of the few times I was actually anywhere near the line!

I've obviously got a lot to work on, but the boat doesn't seem to be one of them. I can't get off a start line to save my life (I haven't sailed in a fleet that big since the early 90s!), my boat handling is all over the place and tactics non-existent. What was good was that when I was near the front I could stay there, providing I didn't do anything stupid!

In the rest of camp Ninja, Jason Belben finished in 10th and definitely showed pace around the course. Ben Paton proved himself to be one to watch in the future, almost breaking into the top ten on the last day after only 4 months in the boat. He rides high and fast and isn't afraid to take risks. The boy is quick!

I'm pretty confident that the best sailors won in Switzerland, rather than the best boats, and Team Ninja are going to step up next season - next stop Travemunde!

Silvaplana pictures

Action man Paton - one to watch I think...

Brief appearance of the Ellway mk2

Special Agent Barton - weeks most improved

Mr Pybus in Lola

Turtle in action

Doug proud of his latest sponsor

A rare smile on my face!

4 Ninjas in the icy water

Phil's branding is a bit subtle...

Whereas James' will sell many tractors...

Martin peaked too soon! Fastest BR on the lake though...

Katherine sporting the mini rig

Where do you spend your time?

Si's blog post about the May/Beer wing (kudos to Adam and Kev) has got me thinking. How do you decide where to focus your time on a campaign? Those of us without coaches or squaddie experience tend to have more of a point and shoot focus on sailing. Get in boat, go race.

But a Moth is more of a challenge than that. Do you focus on design and hope to get the leap on people with pure boatspeed. This is a tricky one as you have to be happy that you know the state of the art and know you can do better. I suspect as more and more people become adept at handling Moths that more focus will come onto this but the gains will be smaller and smaller.

Do you focus on handling - being able to nail one more tack and gibe than the next man has got to help

Tactics?

Who knows. I know I spend most of mine in the workshop working on other things!

Anyway, Martin and myself braved the weedy lake that is currently Cheddar for a quick sail yesterday. I was out for a blast checking new foil setups (vastly improved on the Nationals!) and testing out my new standard Hyde which I am very pleased with. Martin has a trial Skinny Ninja rudder on the back of his Bladerider which appears to be doing the business. Will be interesting to see how he gets on with it.

Training at Stokes Bay this weekend before the long drive out to Switzerland. Should be getting out there on Monday evening and hoping for a nice few days of mountain biking, bimbling and the occasional sail with Martin and Rodders. Anyone else out there early?

Weymouth Road trip

Tom Offer and myself packed up the boats early this morning for a quick trip down to Foiltown (Not sure why we still call it that - Nostalgia maybe?) to get some weed free sailing in.

Turned out to be a cracking day for it and joining Me and Tom were Doug Pybus, Alex Adams and Helen Rollinson and later on in the day Adam May and Katherine Knight were spotted out as well although they launched from the Academy while we were all hiding on the beach at Castle Cove. The wind gods treated us well with a 15+ knot Westerly giving us all a chance to stretch out sea legs and blow the cobwebs away.
Alex also obliged with a bit of a measuring session as I've got my new Hyde, plus the Ellway sail to get sorted so I'm not panicking and running around Silvaplana. Speaking of which - 8 days till loadup!

Really looking forward to it. 80 boats... I think this is probably this years real world championships - a sign if any that 2 worlds within 8 months of each other were too many and hopefully a mistake the class wont make again.