Two Faces

All in all its been a pretty good few days on the Moth, if you can can excuse the body damage. 23 knots to stop and your body doesn't stop till it hits the shrouds. One black eye, two cuts and a bent shroud pin from my troubles. For an 11ft boat with only 8m2 of sail they sure can bite very hard if you get it wrong. Long Beach has been classic over the last few weeks, turning out a 20 - 25 knots on Sunday and a 15 - 18 on Tuesday. Big chop driving harder and harder, no compromise on the gybes and tacks and you do get to wipe out........ often....! Add on to that testing my new ride height adjuster and wand / flap gain doodah and it makes for an interesting session. As it was pretty much on the limit Sunday couldn't get too much input on changing the ratio, but upwind felt like winding off ratio brought the bottom end speed up and smoothed out the ride. Down wind was faaaast but needed to be real careful on the gybes as the boat is much less forgiving especially with our notorious LB chop. It sure feels like there is a ton of boat speed possible but developing this slowly.

One of the best coaching points I heard was from Chris Rast who helped me with.....

"Set it up to go fast even if it's very difficult to sail. Then learn to sail it!"

Much more to go and really looking forward to the flatter waters of South Bay Diego this weekend

Over and out

Rehab

After several attempts earlier in the year to get my new Sailing Bits ride height and gearing adjuster working properly, I have now had yet another go. Well, OK , the first two attempts don't count as I hadn't really thought it through, but no sailing over weekend and time to kill allowed me to spend some time fiddling with the boat, current JP ride height adjusters and foil. First thing was stick the foil in and to measure everything so I could accurately recreate my favorite settings, both high and low modes. I then managed to get to the same place with the new RHA but it was jamming on the combing surround of the foil case. Out with the Dremel and ground it down till it all fitted and wand was friction free. Then tons of measurements and adjustments and finally got back to my start point. From there it was really a case of testing out the gearing adjuster. What was really a surprise for me was at max ride height on my old RHA, how little wand movement there really is.

The big test will be this weekend when I go sailing. I'll have the Go Pro and its time to test the new set up in some serious Long Beach chop. Forecast looks good.

Over and out from LB

Transmission

Pretty crappy piece of video of a pretty awesome system. Yes Karl had "Virtual Reality" out again today. It flies high, it flies level, it flies fast, then he got a ticket from the harbor patrol, so games were ended early. It's a much better approach then the previous, its well sorted, seems to have little friction and is definitely a different way to think if a foiling moth. Lets face it with Nathan sailing 300 days a year, its going to take something more to beat him. May be this is it and a resurgence of the DIY Moth. Not sure I'm going to cut the bottom out of the Mach 2 just yet, butI'm just sayin'.

Other than that full on Long Beach day. Wind over tide again with decent standing wave at harbor mouth. But yes had a great day, full control, tons of speed, till I ran out of steam about 2 1/2 hours in. Came back with a smile though!

Crazy Train

My Little Demon

Finally worked it out today...... Building breeze, peaking at 18 - 22, class Long Beach day. Went for it and yes finally remembered how to gybe and even tack. Had a blast, enjoyed it, I'm back! Seems like it was a long summer of frustration, too much work too much travel and not enough sailing, but today made up for being washed up on the beach last weekend when the breeze was on.

I see the new Mach 2.1 is now available. Nice line of upgrades. I'm starting to wonder the phasing of a new boat, before the Garda Worlds or before the Hawaii Worlds? Also interesting to see it now comes in colours. Well that's going to change things! Sky blue anyone?

Over and out from Long Beach

Ghost in the Machine

At last weeks Moth Madness I saw some pretty sweet numbers on the max speedometer (ProStart). Quick investigation of the track down load showed this. So to believe my 33.6 knots average speed I think I have to believe a 43 knots and a 35 knots. I was shifting in some big pressure on relatively flat water, but is too long a stretch for me. So unless any of you techy mindset mothistas out there can interpret this differently I'm calling a "ghost in the machine". I can guarantee that it wasn't from being frustrated and throwing my Pro Start! Shame as it was quite exciting for 24 hours.

Reflecting back on the Gorge, hadn't been in the boat for a while, and when it blows there, that place gets into my head. Lesson is to strap on your big girl panties, harden the f#ck up and send it.

Beyond that it was very interesting how much I had to wind off the ride height going down wind at high speed (28s). When I forgot to wind it back on upwind, I was really riding low. It always amazes me how sensitive the boat is to a half turn on the ride height.

I'm going to get the SoCal Mothistas going again with a couple of training sessions (Long Beach and Coronado) as well as focus on Halloween and Turkey day regattas where we should congregate next.

Over and out from LA.

Back in Black

Wow, 3 months since my last blog!!! I knew I had been busy but there some limits. Work in last quarter was crazy as we bought 2 new Companies in Brazil, so Liz and I decamped to Sao Paulo for most of May and June, only coming back to do the US Nats at Long Beach. Numbers were back up to 12 with Karl guesting in "The Pearl" and new guy JP showing us all how its done in light airs. It was a good regatta, won by Dalton, but the predominently light airs and South Bay chop did many a head in...... Matty were talking about you !!! Still good regatta with about 12 races run.

Were just back form the Gorge, which roared then coughed the fell silent. Friday was awesome at 20+. Howver my sailing really left quite a bit to be desired. Seemed to have moved back a few moths making all the same old mistakes. At least I finihsed every race, didnt come last in all them, and generally did much better than last year. But its a tough place to sail and can really get in your head. However when you get it right its just awesome.

Next regatta coming up. Newport on Aug 21st 22nd

Over and out