Born in the USA

Been an awesome year so far. These 2 images are about 12 months apart, and in between has been some awesome regattas plus my first Worlds. The only thing that remains the same is the rash vest! Learnt a ton, had a great time, made a ton of new friends. Changed my sail number form a GBR to USA. Last regatta for 2010 is a Pre Worlds training event at ABYC in a few weeks. The next leap forward will be made right there as Bora and George will be racing with their new wing rigs.... Cant wait and cant wait to see what 2011 brings for the Class....

Awesome to be part of the revolution.......

Wings Across America

This is the dawning of a new age. Bora launched Wing No 2 built by the Skiffworks in 8 days and possibly being offered as a kit a little further down the track. Its modelled here by Anthony. Both this one and the one Adam built look simply gorgeous and they seem to suit a moth so well. The blogshpere is full of "are they legal", "should they be allowed", but I still think the real issue is "are they faster"? And here I don't mean in a straight line but in a real world sailing event. Transporting them around will also have to be solved, but at least the "trailermahal" I built in the earlier part of the year may well come in handy!

So what else is going on? Not much Moth sailing since the Anarchy love fest. New job, to much work plus family commitments over last month means been to busy. Plan to go next weekend if any of you SoCal Mothistas are up for it.

Last event of the season coming up. It will be 12th thru 14th in Coronado, a combined regatta / packing the container for the Worlds event! Hey and guess what it is most likely the first competitive outing for a wing! Be there!

Sweet Child O' Mine

Been ignoring the blog recently. New job is taking up the time as well as Presidential duties in getting shipping organized for the Worlds. Pieced this together over weekend, amazing how tramps change colour!

Wish Id gone to HPOD now

Also Thierry Martinez is hot footing it to Detroit. Wonder wing to be launched??

Over and out from Long beach

I am an Anarchist

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Fun weekend of racing in Coronado at the annual Sailing Anarchy love fest. All were there inc Ed and Clean, although I've never seen any one look so hung over as Clean this morning. Nat and Eric were doing pretty well but paled in comparison to Clean.

Great breeze on Friday then died away as the days rolled on. Some weird Santa Ana vs the sea breeze battle. But that said we got 9 races in, although Adam remind us this morning, yesterday we had 6 hours on the water for 90 mins racing. No wonder we all looked a little fried yesterday afternoon, and rehydrating with the Rumbos ..... well all a bit epic really. I seem to recall somewhere in there we adjudicated a protest as a committee for the Flying Tigers.

Anyway, Adam made it look easy with a string of 1sts, I managed to prevent a total whitewash with a win yesterday and a string of seconds. Nat and Eric rounding it out. I'm now with much more rake and feeling happier, boast going great, just need to keep pointing it in the right direction. Seasons going to roll to a close soon, but its been an epic year....

Over and out from SoCal

Letter to the US Class

Dearest Mothistas!

As I'm sure you've read, I have taken on the role of Class President for the US, continuing the great tradition (well 2) of having a Brit (Welsh really) in the firing line. Firstly I really want to thank Nigel for all the hard work he has put into the Class, helping us build membership with active boats, and leading us through a very successful World championship. Clearly, a large pair of shoes to fill, and thanks Nige for staying on in the Treasurer Secretary role. Kudos brother!

First a little about me for those I've not met. I started sailing Mirror dinghies as a kid, growing up through 470s and University team racing. Career family and our son Christian put sailing on hold for far too many years before a posting to Sydney rekindled the flame. After a quick flirtation with sailing big boats off shore, I saw my first foiling Moth and the die were cast. I had to have one. June 2008 the Black Pearl arrived (X8) and I took those first faltering steps toward foiling we all know so well. Hands up all of you who remember to the detail where and when you first foiled. Yup, thoughts so! 2 years on, I've got Deus ex Machina, my Mach 2, and I'm loving every minute of it!

I've got a huge amount of respect for this class and particularly the people in it. With people like Bora Gulari and Charlie Mckee we have world class sailors right here in our back yard and that allows us to progress quickly to the highest level of Moth Sailing. We have something very special. So I thought why not take this on? Its time to give something back.

Looking forward I think we have 3 critical tasks facing us, which we must work on together:
1. We must find ways of achieving critical mass to encourage and support new Mothists of all levels and ability to join us
2. Given the size of the country and the current demographics of our fleet (hardworking, family supporting individuals, significant number of pros with other commitments), we must develop a racing schedule that is fun, competitive and encourages as many members as possible to participate
3. The final, and probably the most controversial task for my fellow Brits / Aussies and Europeans, is building a frame work (regattas, training, sponsorship, shipping etc) that allows us to have the best shot of regaining the World Champion title for America in 2011 and again in the near future

The boats continue to develop fast and expect to see more than just Adam with a wing rig. Will these remain legal? Who knows, but remember the controversy when Rohan arrived in France in 2003 with a set of hydro-foils. We haven't looked back since, and such is life in the most exciting development class out there.

Finally, we're on the card to hold the 2013 Worlds in the US building on the awesome success that was The Gorge 2009. Where, when, who… all jump to my mind.

One of the items we are making a fast start on is an upgrade to our web site along with links to social media. This should help us communicate and discuss ideas in a much better way, so watch out for that development in the coming weeks.

In the end, its our class, we own it and drive it. To help us succeed, I really want to get and need your input. Are the questions right, what are your views, how do we work together toward them? Let me know what you think and well go from there.....

Looking forward to see you all out on the track in the not too distant future.

No Line on the Horizon

Had fun at our local Labor Day regatta, ABYC putting on a top notch event. Leaving the dock on Saturday was just flat out weird. We had breeze, probably 10-12, but still had the marine layer (fog to my Blighty chums). Normally its cleared out by the building heat and breeze. But today was really different. Once out of the channel it was full on foiling, upwind at 15s. Yes, I disappeared straight into the fog bank at speed. Couldn't see anything except water about 20 m in front and that was it. Sailed out for 5 mins, then tacked over toward sailing area, and had another 5 mins before I started to pick out oil island and other boats. Strangest wildest and scariest 10 mins in the Moth.... ever! Thought I was going to start to navigate with the Velocitek!

Fun day out. used Simon's settings from his blog, front hole on foil (I'm usually in the middle hole, no comments please) and the wand wound to top of settings (my usual ). I've got the gantry wound out 1 and may go to 2. Really nice set up, for some reason seemed really stable platform through the gybes. Had good speed vs the I14s, so collected some more nice set up numbers. Ah numbers, numbers its all a numbers game!

Role on the ISAF regatta end of the month

Learning to Fly

Good training at Long Beach yesterday. Light pressure and yes you guessed it chop / swell / powerboat wash. So with 8 - 10 knots and just foiling it was great to be able to work on foiling tacks and gybes. Tried to get some speed work done with the A cats but with the inconsistent breeze it wasn't possible to hang on to them up wind, watching them rapidly disappear over the horizon just didn't help!

So what did I learn (no laughing here!).

Tacks:

• need to steer slowly into turn but rapidly increase rate of turn to get bow through wind and powered up on new tack.
• Body has to move pretty fast at last stages to keep up.
• Dump the extension on new tack, let "Shocky the auto pilot" deal with it whilst you concentrate on trim

Gybe:

• Seemed tougher to find a good medium in the chop but think the name of the game is rate of turn just fast enough to allow you to flack the battens over and get the power back on fast as you're burning off speed quickly just post gybe onto new board

Only other new news in the Moth Sphere is that I've been asked to take on the US Class President for my sins, continuing the great tradition ( well 2) of having a Brit in the firing line for the US class. Nige has done an incredible job for the class, helping us to growth, and guiding us through a World Championship, so I've got some pretty big shoes to fill. I would like to publicly thank him for all he has done, awesome dude, awesome sailor.

I think the key questions we need to face as a Class in the US are:

1. Given the size of the country how do we get to critical mass to encourage new people of all levels and ability to join us?
2. Given the size of the country and the current demographics of our fleet (significant number of pros with other commitments" how do we come up with a racing schedule that is fun competitive and encourages the above?
3. Final, and probably the most controversial for my fellow Brits / Aussies / and Europeans, what infrastructure (regattas, training, sponsorship, shipping etc) do we need to set up to ensure we have the best possible chance of a US World Champion in Belmont 2011, Garda 2012 and US 2013?

(Next we will be tackling world peace)

Answers on a post card please..........