It's been a while!
Life has been keeping me well occupied lately, so I've only had a brief spin in Shredder at Queen Mary since the Port Talbot regatta. This has mostly been down to a lack of water in the reservoir, which is now sorted so sailing can resume.
In the meantime I've been keeping busy with a bit of mountain biking with a few trips over to the Forest of Dean and some local action in the Mendips. I think cycling is probably the perfect companion for sailing; it's something you can actually do when there is no wind, unlike my other random hobbies like windsurfing and radio yachting! I did however make the mistake of going riding with Doug Pybus. It seems Doug is a bit of a demon on a bike. I couldn't keep up and ended up hitting a tree with very little damage to myself, thankfully! Mr Payne took some of Doug's advice on cycling last year and ended up with a fixie and hilarity ensued. So perhaps the message should be "don't listen to him"!
My early midlife crisis has taken me down to Gosport for a radio multihull open meeting. Everyone takes the piss out of me for this, as it's supposed to be a bit of an old man's sport, but I find it quite intriguing. Trying to get a boat to behave at its best upwind and down with no outside input other than helm and sail control is quite an interesting design challenge. This combined with my limited multihull experience (that's my old mans department!) means I've got my work cut out.
The other aspect I love is being able to watch a race unfold in front of you. When you are actually sailing in a boat it can be quite hard to place yourself on the track against others with regards to shifts and track position. This all plays out for you with models and you can instantly see the effect of line bias, shifts, puffs. I'll be back down there with my tri this Saturday for part two of the club championship. Day one was a tight fought affair and I narrowly missed out on the top spot after turning up late and missing a race - hopefully I can sneak ahead this time around!
So, winter is fast approaching and usually some of the best sailing is to be had. I'm looking forward to getting back out on the water to test a few things and get back into the swing of things for my Garda campaign!
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Port Talbot regatta
Richie Westbury and I joined DJ over at Port Talbot for the Tata Steel regatta on Saturday. We were blessed with 25+ degrees sunshine and 8-10 knots of breeze and had a all round ace time.
Richie now has his Bladerider pretty well pimped now with an Aardvark rudder and new high modulus daggerboard vertical and the results have been pretty impressive with the boat now foiling high and level and I was actually pleasantly surprised with it after a brief boat swap towards the end of the day. I think a new Ninja might have found it's way onto his christmas list though!
We did a couple of short course races with lots of laps and a good chance to sort out my awful tacking from Paignton. Finally getting my mojo back and nailing most of them. Hit some pretty good speeds over the course of the day putting in a 24.5 knot best in one of the bigger puffs.
Nick Dallimore took a load of photos which he's kindly letting me put up here... I never get over seeing my old boats sailing around. Must crack on with my new paintjob...
Richie now has his Bladerider pretty well pimped now with an Aardvark rudder and new high modulus daggerboard vertical and the results have been pretty impressive with the boat now foiling high and level and I was actually pleasantly surprised with it after a brief boat swap towards the end of the day. I think a new Ninja might have found it's way onto his christmas list though!
We did a couple of short course races with lots of laps and a good chance to sort out my awful tacking from Paignton. Finally getting my mojo back and nailing most of them. Hit some pretty good speeds over the course of the day putting in a 24.5 knot best in one of the bigger puffs.
Nick Dallimore took a load of photos which he's kindly letting me put up here... I never get over seeing my old boats sailing around. Must crack on with my new paintjob...
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Post Paignton
Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. The run up to Paignton was pretty manic getting Shredder vaguely sailable and after catching up with work a potential house move is interfering with the important task of Moth blogging.
Paignton was a success for me as far as I'm concerned! I managed to get the setup pretty much bang on for the first sail and in a marginal first race came in second. The breeze picked up a bit for the rest of the weekend and I proved incapable of tacking but started getting back on it by the final race to grab third overall from Andrew Friend who is really starting to get rapid in the Dazzle Moth.
I was especially pleased with the light airs stuff on Saturday as I was running a variant of the Skinny Ninja foils with 10% (hell, it worked for Rohan so why not eh?) off the span of both foils. I was still foiling about as early as Chris who has a bit of weight on me, but still earlier than the other boats I was around. There maybe a bit of potential for more to come off yet in my pursuit of that elusive 30 knots although I don't want to end up with a one trick pony thats only any good in 10 knots plus!
Paignton was probably the nicest weekends sailing I've had this year with good breezes and good competition. More of that please!
The Bristol crew are starting to get active again. Badger has a new high modulus daggerboard vertical in his Bladerider after an unfortunate incident with a faulty spare foil and a lack of manufacturer to send it back to! Darren had a prodder malfunction on his Prowler while Leo is threatening to get the saw out on Wasabi the Pimp Ninja. Hopefully Tom will be joining us again this winter too with potential for DJ and Richie Westbury to be sailing at Cheddar too - should be great to get some momentum going...
Stay tuned!
Friday, 23 September 2011
The Stealth Moth - Boatyard camo
I couldn't let Andrews Dazzle camo Moth go sailing without a fellow stealthy vessel and taking my inspiration from a lack of time I present the Stealth Moth/Boatyard camo. Basically I've primed it and polished it with the intention of abusing the boat for a few months before it receives it's silly paintscheme!
I've just finished roping the boat up this afternoon and she's now ready for the high seas of the English Riviera - that makes it two opens this year where I've launched a boat for the first time! Hopefully something I won't be doing again for quite a while...
I've just finished roping the boat up this afternoon and she's now ready for the high seas of the English Riviera - that makes it two opens this year where I've launched a boat for the first time! Hopefully something I won't be doing again for quite a while...
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
All quiet on the Weston front
Life in Weston Super Mare has been pretty quiet lately. I sold my boat to DJ Edwards straight after Travemunde and have been getting my new one together slowly. This means no sailing (not full size anyway). It also means I will have a boat all through winter and will keep this one through to Garda, which means an uninterrupted run-up to a big event - something I've never managed before because I thought I knew better!
The new boat is mostly tweaks, with a few things taken onboard from Mr Rashley and a couple of things I've been meaning to do for a while. Hopefully I will be back on the water by Torbay albeit with a non-standard set of foils initially while the foil moulds go back to my good friends at Fathomtree in Nottingham in for a couple of tweaks while I'm on a well earned holiday!
Anyway. Enjoy this piece of vanity - should keep my sponsors happy! Thanks Anya!
The new boat is mostly tweaks, with a few things taken onboard from Mr Rashley and a couple of things I've been meaning to do for a while. Hopefully I will be back on the water by Torbay albeit with a non-standard set of foils initially while the foil moulds go back to my good friends at Fathomtree in Nottingham in for a couple of tweaks while I'm on a well earned holiday!
Anyway. Enjoy this piece of vanity - should keep my sponsors happy! Thanks Anya!
Monday, 8 August 2011
Random Travemunde pictures
Just a load of random non sailing pictures from the road trip... Anya has uploaded tons of sailing pictures on Picasa already...
Saturday, 30 July 2011
Days 4 and 5
After a nice delay parked up near Dortmund with a flat tire, Mr Pybus is now at the wheel of the Aardvark Tour Bus which is allowing me to muse over the last couple of days.
Thursday saw a frustrating day on the water. We launched out after lunch foiling all the way to the line only to find that once there the wind wasn't too happy to play ball. We loitered around for a while, tried to get a race in which was abandoned (with Ninjas in 1,2,3...) after a lap and then headed back in. We then headed back out again a short while later as we were informed that there was ten knots at the start boat. Unfortunately this wasn't strictly true and we sat around even longer with a start abandoned mid sequence and another race abandoned after one beat... The race officer wisely called it off at that point and the dash for cash took place next to the shore, the only place where there was actually a bit of wind! The big cheese Philip Kasermann won the big cheque for 1k euros and looked even happier than usual!
Friday saw the breeze on and we cracked on with two quick races, both won by Special Agent Barton on his chainsawed m2. I had a much better time of things with the boat doing what it was supposed to and despite being over the line and taking a dip on the finish mark thanks to Mr Paton I managed a ninth and after a bit more practice got 7th in the last one.
We had a good cheesey prizegiving on the other side of the river for the top ten, including podiums and stirring national music that wasn't actually the national anthem. The Mothie organisers had then laid on another massive free meal and 700 odd bottles of beer were still to polish off before a big night on the town for those that weren't hitting the road.
As an event I don't think this could have been done any better. The socials were excellent, our hosts friendly and welcoming, the local festival atmosphere was amazing and the race officer did a great job with what he was dealt. Everyone being in one place, camping together and having (free) breakfast together meant for plenty of chat and a good time in general. Anyone looking to take on organising a Moth event has just had the bar raised (HISC crew, I'm looking at you...).
On a personal note I'd like to congratulate Rashers for a job well done. I feel like I've let myself down a little and had a bit of bad luck go against me with races canned while im doing well. Suffice to say I might actually go and sail in waves for a few days before the next big event so I'm not so rusty!
Bring on Garda 2012...
Thursday saw a frustrating day on the water. We launched out after lunch foiling all the way to the line only to find that once there the wind wasn't too happy to play ball. We loitered around for a while, tried to get a race in which was abandoned (with Ninjas in 1,2,3...) after a lap and then headed back in. We then headed back out again a short while later as we were informed that there was ten knots at the start boat. Unfortunately this wasn't strictly true and we sat around even longer with a start abandoned mid sequence and another race abandoned after one beat... The race officer wisely called it off at that point and the dash for cash took place next to the shore, the only place where there was actually a bit of wind! The big cheese Philip Kasermann won the big cheque for 1k euros and looked even happier than usual!
Friday saw the breeze on and we cracked on with two quick races, both won by Special Agent Barton on his chainsawed m2. I had a much better time of things with the boat doing what it was supposed to and despite being over the line and taking a dip on the finish mark thanks to Mr Paton I managed a ninth and after a bit more practice got 7th in the last one.
We had a good cheesey prizegiving on the other side of the river for the top ten, including podiums and stirring national music that wasn't actually the national anthem. The Mothie organisers had then laid on another massive free meal and 700 odd bottles of beer were still to polish off before a big night on the town for those that weren't hitting the road.
As an event I don't think this could have been done any better. The socials were excellent, our hosts friendly and welcoming, the local festival atmosphere was amazing and the race officer did a great job with what he was dealt. Everyone being in one place, camping together and having (free) breakfast together meant for plenty of chat and a good time in general. Anyone looking to take on organising a Moth event has just had the bar raised (HISC crew, I'm looking at you...).
On a personal note I'd like to congratulate Rashers for a job well done. I feel like I've let myself down a little and had a bit of bad luck go against me with races canned while im doing well. Suffice to say I might actually go and sail in waves for a few days before the next big event so I'm not so rusty!
Bring on Garda 2012...
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Day three. Yesterday didn't happen!
We've just got off the water after a day of beautifull sunshine and light sea breezes where we managed to get another 3 races in.
I was going to gloss over yesterday altogether but in brief: Jason broke a shroud while leading the first race. He managed to get a rib ride in and back out for the final race of the 4 but that effectively puts him out of contention. Chris won all the races putting on a convincing display in the confused seas. I had a bit of a nightmare day with several random control issues.
First. The rocker arm at the bow managed to screw its bolt up tight over the course of the first race resulting in a locked wand and many pitchpoles with me heading to shore for the second race to sort it out. After launching back out I found a sandbar 100 yards offshore which I ran into with thankfully no damage.
Second, in a dose of high amusement for me, my wand retaining string decided it was going to start hooking itself around the wand paddle resulting in a couple of mega pitchpoles (one right in front of the start boat, no doubt on Youtube already..).
I generally didn't have enough gearing either so was struggling for control. I made it round for the next two with a long list of things to do overnight...
Team GB had a bit of a Barbeque which was organised by Katie, Richard Westburys far better half which went down very well with everyone.
Today saw a return to the lighter winds with a light sea breeze and Chris would have won all three had the clew of his 10c not fallen off mid gibe in the final race. He lowrode across the line in second with Ben taking the win after I fluffed my final gibe letting him through. I ended the day with 2,2,3 and climbed to 5th even after yesterdays mishaps just behind Ben Paton, Matt Renker and Markus Steeg, all some 40 points adrift of Rashers!
We're now enjoying a fantastic FREE bbq in the hangar courtesy of the sponsors and sort of enjoying Ben and Josh's attempts at dj'ing although "danger zone" was just played so may have redeemed themselves...
I was going to gloss over yesterday altogether but in brief: Jason broke a shroud while leading the first race. He managed to get a rib ride in and back out for the final race of the 4 but that effectively puts him out of contention. Chris won all the races putting on a convincing display in the confused seas. I had a bit of a nightmare day with several random control issues.
First. The rocker arm at the bow managed to screw its bolt up tight over the course of the first race resulting in a locked wand and many pitchpoles with me heading to shore for the second race to sort it out. After launching back out I found a sandbar 100 yards offshore which I ran into with thankfully no damage.
Second, in a dose of high amusement for me, my wand retaining string decided it was going to start hooking itself around the wand paddle resulting in a couple of mega pitchpoles (one right in front of the start boat, no doubt on Youtube already..).
I generally didn't have enough gearing either so was struggling for control. I made it round for the next two with a long list of things to do overnight...
Team GB had a bit of a Barbeque which was organised by Katie, Richard Westburys far better half which went down very well with everyone.
Today saw a return to the lighter winds with a light sea breeze and Chris would have won all three had the clew of his 10c not fallen off mid gibe in the final race. He lowrode across the line in second with Ben taking the win after I fluffed my final gibe letting him through. I ended the day with 2,2,3 and climbed to 5th even after yesterdays mishaps just behind Ben Paton, Matt Renker and Markus Steeg, all some 40 points adrift of Rashers!
We're now enjoying a fantastic FREE bbq in the hangar courtesy of the sponsors and sort of enjoying Ben and Josh's attempts at dj'ing although "danger zone" was just played so may have redeemed themselves...
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Day one. One race.
We had both an eventfull and eventless day!
We launched into a nice foiling breeze and got away nicely. I had a hundred yard lead on Jason before the wind went squiffy and Chris went past both of us. We lowrided down the last run only to have the race abandoned a hundred yards from the finish... After sitting around for a while we were sent back in to wait - I'd just decided to order a pizza when the race officer decided we were going back out!
Actual race one took place in marginal conditions and the Ninja's really shone taking the top 4 places with Chris just edging out Jason on the line and me a few seconds later after throwing my chance undercooking my final layline.
We then sat around a bit more, one start was abandoned in the sequence and another general recalled. We probably should have gone straight into another sequence then as the breeze was pretty good but we hung around a bit longer and then headed back in.
Last nights entertainment was on the barque (tall ship) Passat where we had a free hot buffet laid on with a couple of the other fleets and more free drinks before Ben and Josh led the charge onto the other side of the river to the beach club. I got a bit over excited when we finally found the donuts I'd been smelling from on the water.
Thankfully for a few sore heads there isn't much wind this morning so we're held onshore and the dash for cash has been put back even later in the week!
Not to worry, we're having a good time and a lof of people are making the most with some serious boatwork...
We launched into a nice foiling breeze and got away nicely. I had a hundred yard lead on Jason before the wind went squiffy and Chris went past both of us. We lowrided down the last run only to have the race abandoned a hundred yards from the finish... After sitting around for a while we were sent back in to wait - I'd just decided to order a pizza when the race officer decided we were going back out!
Actual race one took place in marginal conditions and the Ninja's really shone taking the top 4 places with Chris just edging out Jason on the line and me a few seconds later after throwing my chance undercooking my final layline.
We then sat around a bit more, one start was abandoned in the sequence and another general recalled. We probably should have gone straight into another sequence then as the breeze was pretty good but we hung around a bit longer and then headed back in.
Last nights entertainment was on the barque (tall ship) Passat where we had a free hot buffet laid on with a couple of the other fleets and more free drinks before Ben and Josh led the charge onto the other side of the river to the beach club. I got a bit over excited when we finally found the donuts I'd been smelling from on the water.
Thankfully for a few sore heads there isn't much wind this morning so we're held onshore and the dash for cash has been put back even later in the week!
Not to worry, we're having a good time and a lof of people are making the most with some serious boatwork...
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Blowing old boots
Well, so far not much to report sailing wise...
The dash for cash was scheduled in for yesterday but unfortunately the wind wasn't playing ball with 15 knots gusting up to 30 at times. Rashers and Jason went out for a quick blast in the morning but with racing set to take place in the river off the quay it was even more gusty. We're now set to race the dash on Tuesday after racing. With the marquee's so close to the shoreline it will be a pretty good spectacle and a good showcase for the Moth...
This left team GB with the task of getting rather drunk as the forecast was for more wind again for the practice race and not much chance for sailing. Ben was leading the charge and when I left near midnight was mumbling something about girls dancing on poles outside the sailors beach tent. Apparently Pete Bartons dance floor skills involve pretending to be a hermit crab and then waving his arms around. Jif, Doug and James found their way onto a tall ship in an attempt to climb the rigging but were left making shapes in the spotlights and shouting down the funnels. Lochy and wingman Lambert weren't seen until well into the following morning.
This place is a pretty excellent event so far with a massive festival atmosphere, loads of places to eat and our German hosts have made a lot of effort to make sure we're well attended to with free breakfast and plenty of evening entertainment and prizes courtesy of Nordea, FSE and CTM.
Todays practice races have been called off with more big breeze. Tomorrows looking much better and the sun is even forecast to make an appearance to hopefully by the time the racing kicks off it'll be all good and Bens hangover will have gone and Jason R's need to hang out in the changing room (warmest place he's found) will have passed.
I'm off to find some donuts. The cake here is excellent but the tea leaves a bit to be desired, luckily I've found a box of earl grey in the supermarket...
The dash for cash was scheduled in for yesterday but unfortunately the wind wasn't playing ball with 15 knots gusting up to 30 at times. Rashers and Jason went out for a quick blast in the morning but with racing set to take place in the river off the quay it was even more gusty. We're now set to race the dash on Tuesday after racing. With the marquee's so close to the shoreline it will be a pretty good spectacle and a good showcase for the Moth...
This left team GB with the task of getting rather drunk as the forecast was for more wind again for the practice race and not much chance for sailing. Ben was leading the charge and when I left near midnight was mumbling something about girls dancing on poles outside the sailors beach tent. Apparently Pete Bartons dance floor skills involve pretending to be a hermit crab and then waving his arms around. Jif, Doug and James found their way onto a tall ship in an attempt to climb the rigging but were left making shapes in the spotlights and shouting down the funnels. Lochy and wingman Lambert weren't seen until well into the following morning.
This place is a pretty excellent event so far with a massive festival atmosphere, loads of places to eat and our German hosts have made a lot of effort to make sure we're well attended to with free breakfast and plenty of evening entertainment and prizes courtesy of Nordea, FSE and CTM.
Todays practice races have been called off with more big breeze. Tomorrows looking much better and the sun is even forecast to make an appearance to hopefully by the time the racing kicks off it'll be all good and Bens hangover will have gone and Jason R's need to hang out in the changing room (warmest place he's found) will have passed.
I'm off to find some donuts. The cake here is excellent but the tea leaves a bit to be desired, luckily I've found a box of earl grey in the supermarket...
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