Month: February 2010

Got out for a brief sail today and was joined by Martin and Robin Wood who was over from Wales for a bit of company. There wasn’t much wind but I managed the first race pretty well, despite lowriding for most of the first lap. The wind started dying off over lunch so we all headed in. Martin however decided not to de-rig and went back out an hour later in a nice 10-15 knot breeze – Typical!
Martin has a new North V8 and CST mast to mess around with which are a huge leap on from the X8 rig he’s been using up till now. He’s looking pretty tidy now and is close to nailing some foiling tacks but still has a huge ventilation problem in the cold water. Robin has a new Ninja rudder fitted to the back of his X8 which seems to have cured it – He’s now foiling much higher with no sign of the dreaded vent and the smaller rudder T doesn’t seem to have affected his take off which was my main concern with the experiment. Will be interesting to see how he gets on with it in a bit more breeze.

Ninja Tuna is now back home for a bit of a tidy up before going to the dinghy show next weekend so no sailing for me then – come by the Moth stand and say hi as I will be there both days…

PS – Good luck to everyone out in Dubai – I shall be watching enviously yet again and if anyone suggests a worlds within 6 months of the next one at the AGM, please shoot them.

So the latest rumour flying around is that Rob Greenhalgh has picked up a Mach 2 and has yet another AC designer working on foil designs and shiny ally moulds… Make of that what you will – interesting to see people coming in and throwing money around. I’m sure fresh minds looking at the boats will produce some new ideas and will be good to see what they come up with…

We had 4 Moths on the water on Sunday at Cheddar enjoying some sunshine and a very flakey north westerly with just enough to foil in the gusts.

I was out in Ninja Tuna, helping Tom Lambert launch his new Ninja “Very Orange”. Tom will be sailing up at Draycote where there is a little bit of a fleet beginning to form. Leo was out in the Pimp Ninja, having done some hacksaw mods to the rudder which appear to have improved the flying characteristics somewhat! Martin was also out in his Bladerider practising some manuevers.

To be honest, there’s not really much to blog about, but it was nice to get out and about with some fellow Mothies! Alan’s new Ninja is nearly done and should be hitting the water in just over a week and with the dinghy show on the horizon it is starting to feel like the season is coming…

Some video from the Steve Nicholson race by Shockwave40

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0o_pc7UYaA]

This weekend saw an small fleet of Moths up at the Tiger Trophy at Rutland. Unfortunately the weather forecast was dire which meant that only myself, James Phare and newcomer Gareth Davies made the racing.

Saturday’s racing got off to a slow start with the racing delayed while waiting for the mist to clear (which it didn’t!). It was pretty marginal allowing foiling at times and keeping to the handicap of 700 was going to be damn near impossible. I had a pretty rotten start with a 800 tacking onto port at the pin end and parking in front of me leading to a capsize avoiding him. I managed to recover foiling downwind and up a bit of the beats and finished close to the leading boats but needing a lot of time on them to do any good. Similar story in the second race with lots of lowriding but some fun downhill rides dodging the masses of boats all parked on the run.

Unfortunately for me, for the second weekend on the trot the race team didn’t seem to count all my laps, placing me behind Gareth overall, despite nearly lapping him in both. James had a disagreement with the black flag and was dsq’d from the second one!
With even less wind on the Sunday for the pursuit race we all decided to call it a day and get packed up. Eventual winner was a Merlin – hardly surprising given the top 20 was made up almost entirely of Merlins and Phantoms…

Hardly a classic weekend for the Moths but was still good to raise the profile a bit with all the youth squad teams who seem to inhabit Rutland…

Full results are HERE and some photos have been posted here

So there is finally a bit of a hint about this mystery new builder in the UK mentioned in a previous Mothcast.
Word is that Simon Maguire (builder of the M4 foiler from a few years back) has a Moth design on the go. Rumours of a tie in with Ovington abound and I wouldn’t be surprised with at least one former Mothie working there. They are aiming to have a boat together in March apparently so would reckon on seeing one at the London Dinghy show.
It will be interesting to see what isolated development can bring to the table and whether they manage to persuade any top jockeys into a boat. If the last year has taught me anything, you can have the best boat in the world but it doesn’t mean anything unless you get the results to prove it….
The other entertaining rumour heard at the weekend was that the new small rudder Amac was using in Australia came about after a small collision with a rock! No idea if there is much truth in that but stranger things have happened!