Take the Long Way Home

An awesome days sailing was over early when my vang snapped in a bear away. Bugger! Tried to re rig it using the 2mm ride height adjuster line, the yellow line in the pic, but by then the cams had all popped off (Yes Dan I can hear you laughing now, its was the 13b!:)) and without a working vang, I couldn't get them back on and stayed on. Usually even if they have come off I can get them on in the water, but not without a vang! After a 20 min fight I gave up and sailed slowly back to ABYC. Still managed to foil part of the way with a very rickety rig! Up till then Nat and I were having a ball, Long Beach turning it on yet again, with solid 15s and dead flat water under the break water.

The vang line had snapped about 1/3 way down the cascade, so spent today cutting off all the Chinese Dynema and replacing it. Also gave me the chance to think through adding a purchase to the vang.

The trailer has arrived, good news! Although very over engineered, and over designed by Moi and built by Bear Trailer Sports in LA, it has come out great. Need to get one small adjustment made to the boat supports, but really pleased! Makes going Mothing ten times easier!

Training for the Gorge going well, we should be finalizing shipping for the SoCal boats this week. Want to get the vang sorted, plus the Raptor on the Nano 4 and Chris is sending me a nice set of North Spectra Hikers, so teh boat will be sweet! Roll on the event.

Physical, Physical, I wanna get Physical

THAT was a full on day.

My hands hurt, my shoulders feel like they've been wrenched out of their sockets, I tore the ass out of my skiff suit, broke the main sheet bridle, Nat lost his wand paddle and went through another rudder. Yup SoCal Moth training at it's best!

We had about 15s, I'm guessing, but unusually from the South so plenty of swell and chop which was great practice for the Gorge. We did umpteen upwind down winds about a mile a leg, and basically sailed till we couldn't hike anymore, and had accumulated the above list of damage. The on water photography continued, not bad from a Moth doing 18s!

What did we learn:

• Continued to play with the settings on the 13b. Not too much foot tension, and use the d haul to play between pointing mode (not on full) and over powered mode ( on full). Had plenty of height and speed. Vang on hard except in softer conditions.
• Keep practicing sailing with one hand, mess up a change of setting and the boat with you is gooone!
• Nat's Raptor looks good, fast up wind, but down wind in medium air I could sail through him, well once! Seems to have more speed, though both up wind and down in bigger pressure. But if we were both concentrating and hiking hard, no really difference in speed.
• He who sails the most..... wins.
• Finally, a crazy work week, and a bottle of wine / cigar the night before, doesn't make for a fit fast Mothista, almost threw up on the first long windward leg :).

Choices, choice there are always choices.........

There's Raptors Waiting in the Long Grass

The new Raptors have arrived in Long Beach! First shot you can see Nat's sail rigged, other three shots you can see my sail laid out over my trusty 13b. So what do we see Mothistas?

Although Nats sail is not loaded, it clearly sets up well on the stiff McConnachy mast. Smooth skin, flat up top, power where you'd want it.

Compared to the 13b, and yes only laid out on the floor, the plan shape is narrower, more area up top, quite a bit actually, higher clew (much easier gybing or go like Bora with a massive amount of rake!), and slightly lower luff curve. I can see why it really suits the Nano 4.

I'm planning to continue training with the 13b, stick the sail numbers on the Raptor, and then do a bit of testing with the Raptor before Gorge Madness. We're in the middle of a major product launch so don't have much time to burn of testing and finding set ups, so will need to be careful in my selection. I've got a nice set up going at the moment, and plenty of speed.