Doug Culnane's Blog

Keep your wits about you!

2012-01-16T23:29:00.004+01:00

Some cyclists in London are starting a campaign for safer roads. They are frustrated by their Mayor, Boris Johnson, who thinks that one just needs “to keep your wits about you” to be able to use the road system safely by bike.

Here is some info about some new initiatives that are happening in New York:

And here is a comparison of New York and London cycling that I think you will agree is very safe so long as you keep your wits about you.

Vienna hosts Velo-city 2013.

2012-01-11T18:12:00.006+01:00

Vienna will host Velo City the premier international cycling planning conference. I presume this is so that delegates can study first hand how crap road design can be.

Here we are 500 meters form home this morning:

Note that the lights turn green for pedestrians cars and cycles at the same time. So right turning cars have to cross the pedestrian crossing while looking over their shoulder for bikes going straight coming down the bike lane. This is really hard in a car an so it does not happen and bikes get right hooked all the time.

Here we are after another 500m. Here cars travel from a 50kmph 3 lane one way road and have the same issue if they want to turn right but this time with a tram too.

If humans are to be allowed to drive cars then you can not expect them to get this right all the time so the cyclist or pedestrian is going to have to yield to the turning car. Some times car drivers do slow down (but not very often) and they do look properly but this of course only results in a horn from behind meaning that their attention is taken away from the important task that they are trying to do to the wanker behind them that needs to get to the next queue of traffic so they can wait there 2 seconds longer.

IMHO there is so much wrong in the human factor engineering of Vienna's roads. I do not have super computers to model traffic flow and light sequences or accurate traffic volume data and CAD drawings of roads so I do not pretend to be an expert. My skill set is more a Cycling version of Clarkson rant, so this will probably be the first in a series of posts as I download my anger to the Internet. I would love to offer constructive dialog about how cycling infrastructure could be improved but others do this much better than me.

The Batmobile

2012-01-10T22:48:00.004+01:00

Work in the Bat Cave (thanks for the re-branding guys) is progressing but very very slowly. I need to get the main room re-pointed and then build a wall, a workbench, fit lights and sockets and build some stairs before I concentrate on building a shell to go around this trike.

It is a KMX Venom with a back rack and some home made wheel covers. I have been riding this around a bit (~200km) and it is a lot of fun. It has more rolling resistance than a bike but less aerodynamic drag so it works out to be about the same speed as fast normal bike. I can average about 30 kmph for about 5km and have a top speed of about 40kmph on the flat. This is my benchmark to beat once I have built the shell. There is a really good bike speed calculator here that shows how fast velomobiles should be.

The aim to to make something comparable to the Sinner Mango velomobile. It is a bit of a silly project but it is also very interesting technically. I am doing it the easy way using the trike as a bike and making a shell to go around it so it means that I have a working bike (which I know little about) and can not go too far wrong (I hope). However the proper developed velomobiles have suspension, structural body, central steering stick etc... but this project should cost under half the costs of a new one, and we will see how it turns out.

The plan is to use some pink house insulation foam to shape up a male plug. I will then put a layer of glass on it for a bit of surface stiffness and then filler and paint. I can then vacuum some carbon and foam sandwich laminate on to the plug. I will then cut the carbon shell in half with a knife and should be able to pop off the two halves off. I hope this method will work well and mean I do not have to mess around making proper female molds which is very expensive and time consuming. Maybe I can reuse the male mold again but I suspect this is realistically a one off project. Any advice and tricks from you composite gurus out there is very welcome.

Man Cave

2011-12-19T20:50:00.002+01:00

It is cold, dark and wet but this is my cave.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

I still have lots of work to do re-pointing the brickwork but this will end up as a workshop. Once it is finished the first project will be the easy rider velomobile...

Rebirth

2011-12-04T19:34:00.003+01:00

Today I said goodbye to the workshop that gave birth to Lord Flashheart. I really felt a bit sad to dismantle the construction I had made which was her whom. But it is time to move on and open a new chapter. I now have a Man Cave. Located directly under my flat is a cellar which I will make into a workshop. The advantage of the cellar is that it is under my flat so it does not take 40 minutes to drive there. It also creates lost of opportunity for people to make Austria Cellar jokes, however I plan to give birth to new toys rather than father a family with my family down there.

This year was crap in terms of Moth sailing. I sailed 3 times and had enough wind to fly once. The good news is that Lord Flashheart needs very little work done this year. This is good news because I have loads of work to do re-pointing and fixing up the cellar. I have decided to buy her a new sail for the worlds next year so that she can compete with the boats 5 years younger than her, and so that I can rig her up with out messing around for half an hour trying to get the mast in the shredded sail head. I am looking forward to next season where I plan to sail lots with the 4 other Moths at Yacht Club Weiden and enjoy my holiday in Campione which is where I became a born again Moth sailor in 2005.

Too much time on YouTube.

2011-05-28T16:57:00.006+01:00

I bought a new bike at the end of last summer and since then I have been cycling everywhere. I am faster, fitter, cheaper and have more fun than even on the excellent Vienna public transport (where I met my fiancée). Bicycles are certainly a much superior method of transport in the center of towns than the dominant car. This maybe explains why you get so much aggression and frustration vented at you by car drivers who constantly try to kill you. The cycle lane design means you can then pass that aggression on by venting it at pedestrians who I presume walk nervously along until they get to the safety of their car.

Being a bit of a geek and spending far too much time on youtube I have come across Velomobiles. These aerodynamic recumbent bikes are just so cool. Fit an electric motor and you have a far more sustainable motorized transport vehicle without the need to go to war in order to secure access to the last remaining oil reserves.

It is interesting to read that the racing bikes of today are very much the same as the bikes of the 1930s. Materials have changed but the basic design has not. One of the reasons for this is due to recumbent bikes getting banned as soon as they started to break records. An aerodynamic shell on a recumbent bike makes the thing a real efficient fast machine that can easily keep up with town traffic speeds. It is a shame that the sport of cycling did not embrace recumbent bikes but instead protected the status quo and self interests effectively killing all development of this concept. Luckily there are guys with beards out there so the development has continued but not at the same level of cars. However the focus of development in the car industry at the moment seems to be to make them bigger and bigger so that in a crash the other guy is dead.

So what is my point and what does this have to do with Moths? Well we (the IMCA) will decide on the banning of solid wing sails soon. Do we want to help the world investigate efficient transport systems or protect our existing investment?

I am trying to decide if I should build a new Moth, Wing sail or Velomobile next winter. However I will probably just spend in on youtube.

Winter is over.

2011-04-18T18:10:00.005+01:00

The projects for the winter are done so it is time to change into summer mode, and play.

1) New deck at the Pad.

2) Make Yacht Culb Weiden Start boat water tight.

3) Repaint and renovate Flashheart.

One thing that I failed to do was get my height adjuster working because of a supplier issue. So now I need a reverse thread and normal thread screw that I can use to attach my ball joint thing and bottle screw. Anyone got any ideas where I can get this?

Looking forward to going sailing again because I have not been sailing since the European champs in Switzerland!

In the mean time I am desperately trying to get fit for the impending Touch Rugby World Championships. My beep scores tests have gone from 12 -> 8.4 -> 5 !!! This is not good at all... and our fist game is against the joint favorite Australia. So I am also trying to prepare myself mentally for the humiliation to come.

Sweet

2011-03-13T21:24:00.001+01:00

Here is a trick for those that do not know it. Paint your deck with any old paint and sprinkle sugar on it.

When the paint is dry wash off the sugar and what's left is a lightweight, cheap and extremely non-slip (abrasive would be a better word) paint job. It may take skin off but you will not slip on it.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7

Workshop Notes.

2011-02-27T17:03:00.013+01:00

So I used my expensive (3 euro a pair) foam rollers, for chemical paints (Ones for water based paints dissolve and disintegrate in turpentine based paints I discovered...). Now In understand Manfred's comments about bubbles from foam rollers. These can be removed by very lightly re-rolling after the paint has settled a bit. So the paint job is not great but it will do and it is starting to warm up here so time to get Flashheart finished.

The roller technique is going to stay in my book of Moth tricks because it saves so much time and paint compared to spraying. Which although leads to potentially better results I feel is is just not worth it. So a chemical paint foam roller is my 2nd favorite tool at the moment. Number 1 is the thermos flask full of tea.

I got some "Spalt Abdeckband" tape and it looks like if it stays attached to the foil it could really be a drag reducer. I will wet flat my flap then stick it on so that next layer of paint on the horizontal will but up to the tape leading edge. If this works well it could really be a good tip to reduce drag on 2007/2008 Fastacraft main foils. However if it is does not stay attached it could be another frustrating waste of effort.

Talking of frustrating waste of effort I thought I had done a great job on the repair of an Assassin main foil. However I managed to break it with my bare hands which is my scientific measure for if it is strong enough to sail with. The original problem and reason it broke again is de-lamination inside the T joint. I think that to repair this I would need to make a Bladerider type fitting so that the T can not de-lamination so easily. This can wait for next winter (I hope).

2 more paint jobs, wet flat foils, fix trolley cradle and rig a height adjuster so that I am ready to sail. However I still have the Yacht Club Weiden Start boat to silicon back together before the season starts as I removed all it's fittings, windows and woodwork and still have to attach them back on. I am doing this to pay off my entry fee into the sailing club. I do not fully understand how charging a lot of money to enter a sailing club helps promote sailing but I do not have a problem with being an active member of a sailing club and helping out with the club's work load. It should only take me 1 or 2 days to get the Start boat water proof and ready for the first race so that I avoid being keel hauled by the Commodore.

This time of year is always a tense one. The job list for the winter needs to be under control so that you can look forward to the spring with time and energy and not be spending warm sunny days in the workshop. With Touch Rugby World Cup training commitments this is starting to get a bit stressful but then it always does at this time of year.

Moth sailing is too expensive without sponsors.

2011-02-22T22:35:00.001+01:00

Hairy Bum

2011-02-13T19:54:00.005+01:00

I am slowly getting through the list of jobs for the new moth session. Nothing dramatic but tidying up stuff.

Opinion about the best way to paint a boat is divided. There are those that say spray painting is the way to go and there is me. Spray painting is lots of mess and waste and I can not be bothered so I thought I would just use a roller to get close enough to a good finish so long as you do not get to close. I have learned my lesson (the hard way) that rollers for water based paints dissolve in chemical paints so I bought the slightly more expensive ones. Now i am not saying that my workshop is a dust free environment but I am really disappointed that half the hair from the roller stuck to the roller and the other half did not.

So maybe it time to spend even more money on roller quality or give in and spray paint.

I have ordered some of this: Spalt Abdeckband and I hope it will give me that missing 3 knots of boat speed off the line. It better do it cost 30 Euros.

Trainspotting

2011-01-17T18:10:00.004+01:00

I love Moths and I am a bit of a Moth trainspotter. That with my database geekyness has resulted in a Statistics Page of the Boat data in the IMCA Database:

http://www.moth-sailing.org/imca/faces/Stats.jsp

The first thing to notice is that this data is not a complete set of data of all Moths built since 1928. Does such a record exist? I know that year books contain some lists but I do not think there is a complete record.

I hope the Boats For Sale feature (see my last post) will feed more data into this but so far zero response. Maybe it does not work or no one is interested? Anyway I want to get this data and use it because it gives a nice picture of the class and the trends within it.

If you want to reuse this data there is a dump of it here: http://www.moth-sailing.org/imca/faces/boats.xml This can be used to sex up gear tables for events.

If you are a member you can log in to the IMCA site and add your boat into the database (if it is not there already). The problem with this is I do not know who is a member and who not as my centralized membership management features have at best failed miserably.

Am I the only trainspotter out there or are there others that are interested in this project? If so do you have data and time?

Content Havesting.

2011-01-14T15:03:00.005+01:00

I have been meaning to finish this off for a while but there is now a new feature on the IMCA site that allows you to "Sell a Boat".

You have to login to the site. Then in the IMCA toolbar you can click "Sell a Boat". You search (by name, number and sail number) and select your boat to sell. If it is really not there please add it to the database. You can not add new designs or builders at the moment so send me an email if yours is missing. You can edit the boat data and enter advertisement text. The Contact details come from your Contact data which you can also edit with the toolbar link "Edit your contact details".

Boat for Sale can be found here: http://www.moth-sailing.org/imca/faces/BoatsForSale.jsp and on the National pages filtered to Boats in that country. Adverts run for 2 months then expire. To reactivate open and "Save" them and they will be active for another 2 months. Your adverts and their status is listed on your Home page.

The reason for doing the above is to use the Boat Data from Boats for Sale to feed the Boats database on the IMCA site. It is hoped this harvested data can then be used to provide data for gear tables at events, track boats and produce statistics. You can Search the boat database with the now open to logged in users "Boats Search." toolbar feature. Also the harvested contact data can be searched and viewed by Members and National Committee members.

As I blogged earlier I want to increase the content on the Side without having to do too much work and this initiative I hope will be a step in that direction.

Please continue to use the Moth Market and test out this feature as well. Feedback and bug reports are very welcome.

Ticks in all the important points boxes

2011-01-08T19:47:00.003+01:00

I am really really really impressed with this video and how it ticks all the important points boxes of the wing issues.

I have nothing to add. I totally agree with everyone in this video. Unfortunately that leaves the wing issue unclear in my mind.

Great work guys.

Back in the workshop.

2011-01-06T22:35:00.002+01:00

All the moth news from the worlds has got me all keen to get Flashheart ready for next season. So I have spent some hours in my workshop.

The picture above is the making of a trophy for an Austrian Moth event. It is a bit of an experiment so I am not sure how it will turn out but that can be said for everything that goes on in my workshop.

It is great that the Moth sailors take time to blog and tweet at the Worlds because when I go to an event I find it very hard to turn on a computer in my holidays. So thanks guys.

Bullshit is the best fertiliser.

2010-12-30T20:17:00.006+01:00

I am fed up with the blatant stupidity and manipulative "journalism" on the SA (Stupid Americans) website. So after wasting too much time on trying to repair negative and destructive initiatives from out site the Moth class I decided to put effort into trying to build something positive from within it.

I have tidied up the IMCA website a bit. I hope it looks a bit better and the forum should now work better (I hope). You should be able to "edit your profile" and upload your avatar which has not worked since moving to Nige's server because I forgot to reconfigure it.

Stepping back from the site it strikes me that it is totally content-less. There may well be lots of content, but due to the dynamic nature of the Moth class and all the blogs and RSS feeds I have concentrated on the mothbook aspects so far. This is mainly because it is interesting but there is some great projects out there that are lost. If we just consider my Ego the diamond foil project, Flashheart and my Moth Paper are all now off line. I worry about the other Moth papers that are of more value. I think we need to preserve and make available this content. I have old Moth year books and news letters going back to 1987 and also a brand new one from the German IMCA which is really great. One of the most statistically requested pages on the Moth website is for the Home Build page which is a shame because half it links do not work anymore. There is interest out there for good technical content but I feel somehow it is not getting delivered. Somehow physical information in paper yearbooks is worth so much more than the transient dynamic information and I think we should deal with this issue.

How can we do this? I say we because I mean you as well as me. A Moth Wiki seems to be the best idea and we have one but Bruce's initiative nearly got turned off recently due to lack of activity. Do I build a Wiki into the IMCA site to replace/incorporate the Moth Wiki or does that (like the IMCA forum) dilute the information more and add to the problem rather than solving it?

My personal view.

2010-12-21T18:19:00.003+01:00

The views here are my personal views only. They are based on the experiences I have as a Moth sailor that has never seen a wing sail other than on the Internet. Therefore I do not pretend to know the right answer to the wing issues but I do pretend to understand the issues a bit. Therefore I am not trying to influence the debate (too much) but I hope the following will add to it and give food for thought. I think that if the AGM is to be productive a lot of pre-thought needs to go into the issue of where next. The current questionnaire relates to the future of the Moth class only. Therefore this post has nothing to do with the rules as they now stand.

The questionnaire for National Presidents to complete is available on the IMCA website. Each Nation get votes related to number of members allocated as per the IMCA constitution. So your President has to collect views on your behalf so that you are represented. However I did set up a doodle to get a quick unqualified response to the issues and so far most seam to agree that wings are here to stay. So what form should those wings take?

As I see it there are 3 routes. Ban then, restrict them or allow unrestricted development. Banning seams unpopular and I do not think it will happen. So do we restrict them how much and why?

Traditionally the Moth is a one sail one hull one man boat. There are a few rules that try to preserve this but these now seam redundant. Phil Stephenson and some others are in favor of going to a box rule to allow windsurfers kite surfers and catamarans to compete against us as it is clear that we would beat them most of the time if they are restricted to 8sqm sail. Having a box rule is easy to control and measure and allows all sorts of innovation. Going to a box rule means all current equipment is potentially obsolete so the box rule strategy would have to be a gradual one if it is to maintain popular support. This would be my personal preferred strategy, but so that there is not a too disruptive sudden change what are the parameters that relate to wing sails that will kill the soft sails overnight (if they are not already dead).

Extra area.
Wings get more areas but that is a current rule clean up problem it does not really relate to future. What I think is important is that we measure all sail area and restrict it to a fixed number and 8 is a nice one. Current soft sails have a 8.2 meter limit at the moment due to an obsolete historical rule so maybe 8.2 is the right total or we need to clean up the rules and grandfather current equipment.

High aspect ratio.
If you build a high aspect ratio rig then there will be a definite efficiency advantage. However if will make the rigs longer and potentially harder to transport. It will also make the design closely related the build quality. Therefore the better build spec = stronger = taller = faster = more expensive. This I feel will result in a cash for speed race that home builders will find very hard to compete with. OK this is my self interest coming out here but the rigs we have seen so far look practical-ish and robust but I am but sure that will be the case with higher aspect ratios. However to keep the boat in a box the best suggestion I have heard is from Phil that there is a top to bottom limit on the equipment (mast/sail tip to main hydrofoil flap in down position). The luff length may not be that easy to define.

Multiple elements.
The more elements = more complexity = more weight and cost and less reliability. However they will be more dismantleable so I think if this is unrestricted then a happy good design compromise will be found eventually.

Slots / Gaps.
This is a hard one to talk about at this stage and my opinions on the subject are not very popular in some parts. However do we allow wings to take advantage of the slot effect by having gaps between elements? I think that wings will work really well if they are allowed and not so well if they are not. I think for wings to really show their potential and be a sexy as the current rigs then yes we should allow gaps / slots. However this I fell is a step away from the one sail concept but it is definitely a step in the box rule direction. So yes I am for it, but I understand others that are apprehensive about it because it could be the overnight soft rig killer. However I have no data to back this up other than every time I get on a plane it uses flaps, multiple elements and the slot effect to to land at safe slow speeds with wings that are designed to be as small as possible for minimum drag and fuel cost. Therefore I a convinced it is of value. So this is a Yes to slots for me but a hesitant one.

Travel Box.
This is a clever idea and I think a welcome attempt to force the design of the wing rig products to be transportable. However I do not think it is workable and I do not want to have to cut my 4 year old one piece mast in half. Therefore for I think is would lead to more historic redundant rules not less so it is a bad strategy.

So let the debate rage... what do you think?

BTW: after lisstening to the latest Mothcast does anyone know how Joe Turner is getting on with writing the 50 pages of rules he suggests. If he is going to propose that at the AGM then he must be at the first draft stage already. I would be happy to read through then and add comments Joe so please send me your work so far... Catch ;-)

Do the Wing doodle.

2010-12-21T12:51:00.002+01:00

Just for FUN. There is absolutely nothing official about this but if you want to post your answers to the questionnaire for your opinions to be ignored please do the doodle:

http://doodle.com/e2nzrfa43eia6tqf

To get your opinions taken seriously you need to be a member of the IMCA and should contact your president. See your national committee here.

worlds training.

2010-12-15T19:40:00.001+01:00

Touch rugby worlds...

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Danke Anja Du bist mehr als ein Hubschrauber wert.

2010-11-02T22:07:00.006+01:00

also priceless:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT_z_ZuLDwQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0wb2pbxtPs

Android Business Application Mashup.

2010-10-22T12:48:00.002+01:00

Mobile applications are an increasing theme at work where our SAP customers have lots of Data and Logic in there ERP systems that they want to make available to their employees on the road. The new smart phones are a great user experience platform for displaying and doing simple interaction with this data.

I did a quick example application for a service technician that mixes data from the ERP system with the functionality of the phone. This was so much fun and quick to program once I got the hang of the Android platform. My company even did a video of it which has come out great.

I am tempted to do an IMCA application but I can not think of anything that would be useful. Maybe a measurement form, regatta manager, boat info lookup.. however it seams better to do this stuff in a web application which will then run on all devices. I started this with the mobile news and blogs page. The stats say that 7.24% of the visitors are mobile devices but the mobile page only get 1.50% of the views. I would be interested to know what you users think of this? Are you interested in more Mobile initiatives or is the site OK as it is?

Wings rant.

2010-10-07T10:46:00.003+01:00

After my therapeutic rant yesterday on the Mach 2 forum I will try to be a bit more pragmatic and respectful today. I guess that Internet forums are a poor mans shrink.

I think that solid wings are in the spirit of the class that has been around since 1928. They are potentially the next step of the change. A lot of people are tempted to build them and they look awesome. The class has been around since 1928 because it has been open to evolution. The concept of a development boat is far more important to preserve than current commercial interests. Wing sails, like foils, like racks, like carbon, like plywood... are not going to change the world overnight they are all part of an evolution.

What I do not think is in the spirit of the class is the multi element rigs. Does Adam have a 2 sail boat? This is a gray area as each element consists of structural solid bits and soft membrane bits. 2 sleeve luff sails are not OK so why are 2 solid sails. Is Adams rig the same as a wing mast and a soft sail or is it the same as 2 sleeve luff sails? This I think is an interesting issue.

Will solid sails be so much better than soft sails that it is no longer fun to race moths without one? I think it will be more fun to race soft sails because you avoid a lot of hassle. It may reduce numbers if people perversive it as an excuse to exit out of a competition that they are not capable of wining anyway. Look at the current commitment levels of the top sailors, who the hell can I afford to compete at that level (pretty much full time) without making dramatic compromises in their normal life?

The Moth class does not need protection from itself but the concept of choice to innovate is far more fragile. Please think about who is getting hurt if you ban innovation, and who is profiting from status quo. If people want to build solid wings then they should be allowed to choose to do that in the Moth class, where it belongs.

If you like your current boat as it is then go sail it as it is. This is what I plan to do and my huge ego will just have to get over the fact that Bora or Adam have put a lot of hard work in and are potentially faster than me. I was never going to beat them anyway, where you?

Mach 2 do not need to worry about there business model as they have shown that they are capable of producing great quality products that people want. Restricting evolution has nothing to do with the good of the class it has to do with fear of change.

New IMCA Mobile Home Page

2010-10-01T15:31:00.006+01:00

With the growing number of smart phones and mobile devices out there I though it was time to do a version of the IMCA site for mobiles. I have designed a one page view to be an easy fast access to the last 14 days of News and Blogs.

Check it out here:
http://www.moth-sailing.org/imca/faces/mobile.jsp

Here is the URL encoded in a 3D BarCode.

Please let me have your feedback in the comments section below.

I have not been sailing or bloging since the Euros. It is a bit late to do a Euros review now but I had some of the best racing ever. Flat water and a big Moth fleet with good thermal winds made some excellent racing. I was pleased retain my middle of the fleet status as my new boat is now one of the oldest out there. Maybe it is time to think about building another...

Moth sailing is really taking off in Austria. There was a well researched 2 page spread in the big sailing magazine here about the Moths at the Euros. I say it was well researched because the author was not fooled into thinking I was Austrian. I hope that tomorrow the wind Gods will smile on the now 5 moths we have on the lake, and we will get our "fleet" in the air!

Inspired

2010-08-03T21:07:00.004+01:00

Well Adam has done it and the eagle has landed. Please lets not ban this because it is just so very cool. It is exactly the sort of thing I want to get beaten by. I want to build one but not until I have built my new deck (in the garden (next project in the pad...)). Still it gets the old engineering brain working and it also connects me with my previous life. (I used to be part of the Boatyard in Beer when it was called something more unprofessional). The thing just looks so right. So next boat should have a wing mast and tramp that seals the gap and lets you run around behind it. That and the split flat anhedral foil... Maybe I will just blog about it and read others blogs that have actually done it, but you never know what inspiration can do.

After the IT nationals I realised it was about time I learnt to sail. So I was happy to get invited by Walter to to a race at his club. This was a good opportunity to practice not crashing to things like camera boats, capsized boats and basically anything that does not move. However the fleet of Yachts decided to to a long distance race. So Walter and I looked good off the line starting down by the pin to avoid the bumper tubs at the start boat. We cleared out to the first Island and Walter was a bit to fast for my liking. Luckily he hit submarines made of weed twice and then had to raise his foils to get round the shallow bit of the Island. I flew round without hitting anything (probably because it was under the muddy water so I did not know where it was) which left me with a hero's lead heading for the tree island on my own. I say heading, but I was heading for a small bed of reeds with a tree on it on a background reeds and trees. This Island was about 3 kilometres away as the Moth flies so naturally I made a mess of it and became a zero as fast as you can say "were da fukawii"*. Anyway that was it for training the next sail will be at the Euros, which I am really looking forward to.

Looks like the Austrian fleet may grow by 50% after the Euros which is fantastic news. I hope we will be in position to apply for official IMCA status at the Worlds so that next year we have another official National Association. There is certainly growing enthusiasm and I think we are close to critical mass. I am aware that the format of racing is all wrong here and we need to come up with some kind of better structure if we are to do more than look for trees and things to crash into. The Commodore of my Club Helmet is a top bloke and will be race officer at the Euros but to run an official race in Austria you need someone of his qualification. Therefore a light weight format need to evolve for training and fun racing. I and Niki are working on it but I need bigger plastic bottles for buoys than the 1.5 litre ice tee ones that you can not see until you crash into them. Niki thinks we should team up with the Cats which may work better.

Tomahawk has found a new home and it is great to see someone having fun in her again:

I have also become a measurer so that the Austrian team we can turn up to the Euros all fully raced prepared...

When I think back to the IT Nationals I am no longer surprised that we Austrians did not get on the podium as there were 6 of the top 10 world competitors there. This just goes to show how competitive the SEX (Southern Europe granpriX) fleet is. (ITA 9, 6, 11, SUI 3, SUI 9). Maybe Sail numbers and the new rules and flag/name stickers are rubbish.

I am reading a book called The Art of Unix Programming

which is truly inspiring stuff, and makes me want to program something that is worth while. I had a brief flirt with an Android Contact Provider for the IMCA site but decided to not be responsible to corrupting mobile phones an personal data. However 5% of the hits on the IMCA site are now mobile devices, so I think it is time for a mobile version of the site. So please fire your thoughts/ideas/requests/complaints at me, so that I can think about building something useful.

See you up the hill.

it nats

2010-07-29T16:32:00.001+01:00

Great weekend in Garda but it made me realise that my 15 knots of fame are over. I got nowhere near the front of the fleet. I am back in the middle of the middle of the fleet.

There is lots to work on but it is great fun racing in conditions where position change fast, and mistakes are more influential than boat speed.

So the Austrian team is in last minute training mode before the Euros.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.8

Team Austria on the road to the Italian Nationals

2010-07-23T15:13:00.001+01:00

It is Poets Day (Piss Off Early Tomorrow Saturday) and now we are on the road and playing with new phones. Looking forward to a weekend off Moth sailing and looking for a hotel.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.8

Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf says everything is just fine.

2010-06-21T18:39:00.005+01:00

Talking of evil world leaders...

one of these democratically elected evil pieces of shit can find enough money to set up war games where gamers sit at home and machine gun the crap out of wedding parties in lands the other side of the world, but he can not find enough money to provide basic health care for his own tax paying citizens. You get what you deserve in a democracy which means you have to take responsibility for the source and the information that you base your decision on. Otherwise you get blindly dragged into supporting a war by one evil dictator to remove another one, or you end up executing 20 million people because they write blog messages like this one.

I believe in freedom of speech which means that I have to listen to a lot to of stuff that really makes me pissed off. I am totally against censorship on any medium but in the real world the owners of that medium always have vested interests and have to look to the bigger picture. So a decision was made on behalf of IMCA members not to publicize automatic links to a private dispute that was potentially damaging to the positive work of many. I think this is a responsible decision and clearly made with the best interests of the class as a whole in mind. Both parties have been dropped from the blog list and will be welcomed back once they have sorted out their problems. This was not my decision but I recognise that it was made by a higher ranking democratically elected leader who has for many years shown excellent leadership in the interests of IMCA members.

I can live with the above state of play but I personally hope we as a class do not all get totally politically correct and spend all our free time doing things for the benefit of the corporations we represent. Frankly I would rather sail a 3 year old boat that I built than a new one that came with a required code of behaviour. I have no problem with being a corporate whore but I just would like to be able to keep it 9 to 5. So if you have a problem with this information officer

then please complain, because then the IMCA rule of volunteering will be enforced: "He who complains the loudest gets the job", (and at the moment it is our old friend!)

A Result!

2010-05-19T16:03:00.003+01:00

The Italian Moth Open at Champoine was a fantastic 4 day holiday for me and Kati (who was kite surfing). Lord Flashheart performed and I got my best result ever in a Moth Open. I even won a race because I was the only one to go through the gate on lap one. I ended up third overall and am bloody happy about that.

Here are the results. It was a mixed fleet of 17 boats training and racing over 4 days. 15 entered the regatta but Lucas hit a submerged tree on the way to the start and Giovanni had to retire with back problems.

The rest battled out in force 2-4 conditions. Matthias showed nearly untouchable pace and I had a good battle for 2nd with Francesco. He was definitely faster but I went the right way in race 4 and had a great result in race 3 when the wind dropped.

I learned lots and I still have loads to work on. (fitness, concentration, maneuvers, tactics, starts, small mods to my boat, foil finish...) but I am very happy to be racing again and not boat repairing or going significantly slower than everyone. The last time a raced was in Walchensee and that is where things started to finally click in to place.

I was worried that Lord Flashheart would be outdated already but this is totally the wrong attitude for Flashheat.

A presto in paradiso!

2010-05-11T20:16:00.007+01:00

I am trying to think up a good concept for running fun training races. Here is how far I got

Requirements:

FUN
No need to have a race officer or boat, minimum equipment.
1 - 10 boats
Option to sit the odd race out for a rest then jump in.
No fixed start time.
Tactical close racing.
Safe racing.
Lots of short races.
No waiting around (you skip a race if you want a rest).

This mean things can get very confusing so this concept is aimed at setting a set of rules that will not be confusing, and mean lots of fun races can be run without the endless communication coordinating it (or a traditional race officer).

Start
The Gate boat is the last finisher from the race before. They must sail from the green zone behind the leeward mark then upwind on port for at least 20 seconds. Starters cross behind the Gate boat and race to windward mark rounding to port. (Note the Gate clears the fleet and hits the lay line for a good change of getting a good first rounding position. Since they were the last finisher this will hopefully mix stuff up.) The other boats have 2 tacks so there are tactics on the first beat.

Leeward mark is to starboard, means there are 2 gibes brining in tactics again.
At least 2 tacks on the next beat...
At least 2 gibes on the run through the finish.

Once Finished.
You stay in the green zone meaning you sit out a race. Or you go immediately to the yellow zone and wait for the next start. The last boat to finish can start the next race ASAP.

Feedback Please:

What do you think (problems suggestions..) ?
How do I make 2 portable marks ? 2lt Coke bottle and sea anchor..? How?
How far apart should the marks be?

Sailing around a lake looking for wind is not very focused and I learn so much each flight hour I want to focus the learning hence the thoughts above.

What I really need is a training partner (or 10). Niki is still waiting for his Assassin and it will be 1 year at the end of this month since he sold his Bladerider. It really pisses me off to have spent the last year without my wing man. He is on constant high alert and ready to scramble at any moment but supply lines are in bad shape.

The good news is that this weekend I will do the Moth Open at Campione, Garda, Italy. This place is paradise in my view since I did the Euros there in 2005. I am working for the man near Salzburg this week so as soon as I can I am off tomorrow. I should arrive Wed at about 10pm (so hopefully someone will be around to let me into the Sailing Club...). This gives me 4 days where I hope to increase my flight hours from <2 this year so far. So if you are going to Garda "A presto in paradiso!"

Working for the Man means I am spending a few evenings in hotel rooms catching up on Internet Mothing. Just published am iCal event calendar grabber. So each National Association can have a iCal file on the web and the IMCA site will go and get event data from it and update the data every few hours. Gerold Pauler gave me the idea but unfortunately it does not work with the DE iCal File (UTC TimeZone problems..) but it does work for the UK. So hope it will be stable and mean there is more accurate up to date event info in the IMCA site. Let me know if your National IMCA has a Internet calendar with an iCal file or if you spot bugs.

Only 24 hours to contact... ;-)

Apparently Twisted

2010-04-27T19:05:00.005+01:00

Ever since I blogged

"My new control lines allowed me to adjust the sail while sailing! I can now tune the sail to the course and conditions during a race! This development I am sure will catch on as it makes a big big difference."

It has of course caught on and everyone is copying me. Si Paynes post and the chat about it got me thinking about apparent wind. So I thought I would take time to work it out in the hi level professional way that is my trade mark.

ASSUMING (I always start hi level professional analysis with he word assuming because then when everyone tells me I am totally wrong you can say I was not wrong it was my initial assumptions that were inaccurate)...that wind at boom is 6 knots wind ant mast head is 7 knots. Then for 3 conditions of sailing lets assume (there it is again...):

Downwind at 45 degs away from wind traveling ~14 knots.
Upwind at 45 degs to wind traveling ~10 knots.
Take off 90 degs to wind and traveling at 7 Knots.

The red dot is the boat and the 2 lines on one side of the triangle are the apparent wind it sees.

With the use of GPS data and wind sheer measurement data this could get more accurate but I conclude that downwind and at take off you should have a bit of twist in the sail so that it is at it's optimum angle of attack at the top and bottom. Upwind requires less twist and due to pointing we tend to try to eliminate it and use it as a de-powering mechanism. Also you get a lot more wind upwind (longer double lines) than you do downwind. So the sail is operating in totally different conditions therefore adjusting the sail (as I first discovered) is the way to go.

The stuff or Si's Blog makes a sense and fits with my conclusions without the rigorous mathematical analysis of course. However he has developed my ideas further and has an adjustable outhaul!

Code name "Moin Moin."

2010-04-26T18:06:00.012+01:00

My secret network of spies in the Moth Sphere have managed to uncover a new Moth building project going on in North Germany. I would like to tell you more but I would have to kill you afterwards, so here is the information the has been cleared for level orange release.

This is a Project from Jens Krüger who by the quality of the work in the pictures looks like he knows what he is doing.

His website does not reveal much but hopefully there will be a quite a few more Moths being built in Europe this year.

This computer will self destruct in 1 minute.

Foiling R Class

2010-04-15T07:02:00.001+01:00

Billy the Fish

2010-04-12T17:14:00.004+01:00

Far be it for me to make a big fuss over something small but on Sunday I had my second Moth sail of the year and nearly last ever. The internet said force 3 blowing from Weiden down the 16KM long lake to Hungry. The air temp was just about 11 degrees. Not the best conditions but I had a day on my own for with nothing planned other than sailing. So off I went to that lake thinking nervously about the lack of rescue cover and wing man on the way.

When I arrived at the lake it was suitably empty due the the less than spring weather. The wind was very off shore and gusty. Do I pussy out and fear that I will need rescued or do I get out there and double my training for the year?

I went out since the wind was not very strong and I sorted a 4 o'clock safety call. "If I do not call by 4pm I am either dead, drifting to Hungry, or my phone battery is flat." There were people in the sailing school and their rib was on the jetty. Since I helped 2 of their capsized Laser 16s that where in trouble last summer (one badly) I thought they will keep an eye out in return. There where 2 buoys off the school one 50 meters out and another 250. Ok I will sail around there in front of the main beach where everyone could see me if there was anyone.

So I had a frustrating but good learning curve training sail trying to constantly change mode for the wind speed and strength. Not very easy and I was making a mess of it most of the time but it was good training. I was temped to sail off out into the lake for more constant wind but the pussy in me said no. Then as I go a nice gust into the further out buoy BANG, nose in air, very light tiller, Shit where has the rudder gone? CRASH.

Shit I need to act fast not panic and most importantly do not do something stupid. I had spend a lot of time in the car here thinking about what to do if this happened and not really come up with a good answer so I was a bit nervous at this point to say the least.

Quick Appraisal of the situation: 800 Euro rudder in water 30 meters back along the broad reach. Bouy 20 meters in front along same course. Tiller and its extension in hand. Bits of gantry hanging out the back of the boat. Cold water. 250 meter swim to beach upwind.

I decided to grab the forestry of the boat and swim like Fuck for the rudder without dropping the tiler (again). Nearly got it but boat is now gong downwind faster than the ruder which has turned into breaking position. OK swim for rudder and then get back the the boat I hope. Got the bits together and so it was time to lashed up the tiller and rudder to deck of boat with spare rope in life jacket. OK swim to buoy and tie boat to Bouy. Shit. No chance it is now upwind and too far away. I can risk the swim to land leaving the boat but not 100% sure if I would make it with cold water and deceptive "does not look too far to swim" distances. I probably would but leaving the boat felt like one of those tempting stupid things to not do. Shall I wave good bye to potential onlookers and what will they do other than wave back? Do I wait for the worried 4 o'clock phone call system to kick in in an hour and hope that someone would come looking? Do I de rig and try to make a paddleable raft? Taking the mast down also seamed like potentially a stupid action. Could I sail without a rudder in a very gusty upwind course? Would one of the very few boats out come close enough to hear a call for assistance or understand a wave.

I decided to try to sail the boat as I remember trying something like that 20 years ago. It was not easy and did not look possible but with a bit of experimentation (loosening kicker and sitting far back with the windward wing in the water I could kind of sail upwind. After a while I realised it would work and I just needed to concentrate hard and I will be able to self rescue will all my bits. I was Fucking relived I would not spend a night on the lake.

I remember an expression that: "It is not the fittest that survive it is the ones that adapt to changing situations". This makes me feel quite smug until I started to wonder what broke the rudder? Maybe the fish are adapting as they are fed up with getting hit so they get their biggest one to take be out? This is a worrying thought as Billy the Big fish did a lot of damage.

So back to the workshop again.

What have I learnt from this? Well I think it is OK to be a bit of a Pussy. You do need some kind of backup and the best I think is a wing man and someone on shore who expects you to come back. Spare rope is a must and all the toys like radio, flares, GPS, helicopters (standard Moth gear I hear these days).. are nice to haves.

I told my story to Niki and he said "That is nothing you pussy. I have walked for 6 hours in the lake with my broken kite. I got to a beach on the opposite side at midnight." So I have also learnt that Niki is maybe not he best wing man to have, but with Billy about what should I do.

SEXy.

2010-04-06T19:21:00.004+01:00

I got me Moth Mojo back. I had a great sail on Sat the first (and only) of the year. My new control lines allowed me to adjust the sail while sailing! I can now tune the sail to the course and conditions during a race! This development I am sure will catch on as it makes a big big difference. I am sure all the top guys will be doing this next year. (You heard it here first.)

Note to self: Next time a salesman in a Water Skiing Marina says "This rope is really good and my Boss uses it on his boat and he is sailing on the sea!" Do not buy what you know is total shit that is not fit for a washing line out of pity and desperation to get sailing.

I have not done one of these for a while but here is an UNOFFICIAL list of entries for the Euros:

http://www.moth-sailing.org/europeans/2010_ch.xml

Are you going? Send me as much details as you want but a Yes will do and I will add you to the list. I would like to build up a list of who and what is going up the hill. Send me a picture of you sailing your boat too unless it is a black boat in which case I will just post a picture of a bar code. (No putting your name on the sail does not constitute an interesting design feature). I hope Si Propper is going as his pictures are always the best.

I am really looking forward to the Euros and doing some events is the SEX (South Europe grand priX). There is really a lot starting to happen in my hood with Southern Germany, Northern Italy, Croatia and Austria all increasing in Moth activity. It is getting very SEXy.

Pump it up.

2010-02-09T16:46:00.002+01:00

I can not reply to the UK list due to an email change so here goes the blog mojo....

I think banning crew generated propulsion is a good idea but I have no idea how to make it work and possible to police. It just creates a lot of stress and bad feeling on the water. So even if there is a risk that the fittest and most skillful sailor is going to do well I would say go for unlimited pumping.

The arguments against unlimited pumping are:

- The sport of rowing has banned the use or oars because it was hard work and people were getting really tired, cycling is also removing pedals from bikes etc.. So banning athleticism in sailing is a good idea.

- Bouncing and flicking the top of the sail is not cheating as it does not involve pumping the sheet. So the good guys are not cheating where as the clumsy back of the fleet are.

- Pumping is a skillful thing that needs to be practiced. This is also not fair that we should reward sailors that have been practicing.

- ISAF rules for bath tubs work well and classes like the laser never have arguments about illegal body movements. So their rules are going to work great in our boats too.

This really needs to be discussed at the AGM after a light wind day where constant body movements and sheet movements are needed all the time whether you are cheating or not.

If you take a ban on pumping seriously you have to enforce it that means protests. Do we want that? So I think we will end up with the turn a blind eye to all the pumping and we all continue to do it. If anyone is doing it much more than everyone else then it will raise eyebrows at the bar. That is not really a rule that is a gentleman's agreement. I would say it is fairer to let the laws of physics settle the issue.

That being said what would happen in an unlimited pumping environment? I am not sure but the question is can the speed of the boat be increased with a regular pattern of moments? Air rowing if you like. For sure it helps short term which is what all the fuss is about but I think the problem is really the continuous all the way round the course stuff. However you have to wobble about when there is no wind so if someone can control this wobble good on them. When up on the foils is there an advantage to continuous bouncing? I am not sure. Also getting up on the foils first often means going in totally the wrong direction. It would be interesting to sea trial some races with an unlimited pumping rule to find out what it means, or at least work out what exactly we are trying to ban.

Moth Blog Mojo

2010-02-08T21:50:00.002+01:00

I kind of lost my moth Blog Mojo recently. It is not the fact that I have not had anything amusing, insightful and relevant to say because that has not stopped me in the past, I just kind of been in hibernation here. So here is my attempt to get in to summer mode by rambling on about various stuff.

Thanks to Dion and Dirk who joined the IMCA Direct. Sorry guys that you did not get emails from the website (because I forgot to change the email server when I changed to a NigeISP.com hosted server.) However I think I have fixed that problem now. (Please note if this is working you will probably find email in your SPAM folder if you request a password reminder or go through the Direct joining process).

I am the 3rd confirmed paid up direct member of the IMCA and I have a Blog (which is part of the rules: 14.3) so my name is in the menu list of Members Blogs & Sites. So if you are a paid up member of your national IMCA and want your name in the list then get your National committee member to send me a mail confirming this and I will add you to the list.

So what news is there from the Austrian Moth sphere! Well I have designed and built something I am very proud of. It is largely built out of recycled materials and been something I have been planning to do for a while. It is 3.8m by 2.5m and solid. Is it a solid wing sail? NO it is better than that, it is a huge high bed/platform for Max. It is so cool and it is a bit Wallace and Grommit, with its secret trap door etc...

What does it have to do with Moths? Nothing, but it does remind me that design and build is something I have to do each winter in some form or another. However with the lack of local racing last year (1 race) and 3 moths in the workshop at the moment it is hard to really get motivated to try and build new stuff. Testing it against Laser 16's is not really helpful, so each event I go to with other Moths I learn so much basic stuff so that is what I am going to concentrate on. Therefore I have hopefully fixed the adjustable kicker and downhaul so that I can change these during the race not just between races. There are plenty ideas but for me it is important to get the basics right and some kind of routine where I can evaluate changes within it.

We had our first Historic Moth Beer evening at the Pad with all 4 Moth owners that I know of in Austria. Where Niki presented info about his new boat and the CNC milling machine work he has been doing with Clemens. I presented Max's high bed... We looked at the list of events we could do and if we could find a common training time. The conclusion was that with the various commitments in peoples lives it was not going to be easy. However the plan to get lots of sailing in together. With some help from the wind gods it could work. There will be 3 (maybe 4) boats at the Euros from Austria and there are a lots of great events "near" us so it is all developing slowly in the right direction. All we need now is the ice to melt.

Talking of ice I read that maybe Manfred is zooming around our playground now. There is a party at the pad on Friday so if you are passing through then I always like to have an International International Moth VIP at the Pad Parties so Manfred let me know if you are around Vienna on Friday evening.

The reason for the Party (This all links together as if I planed it! Mojo or stream of conciousness? I think is is just me rambling on because I have gone of topic again.) ...is I get my Fiancée back! Kati has been away in Spain for 5 months studying. I had a great Christmas in Galicia but the rain in Spain does not fall mainly on the Plain. It falls all the bloody time. I no longer will accept any racist jokes about England and rain. So I have been living on my own for the first time in my life. I would like to dispel the idea that people living on their own go slowly mad, but I can not, they do. So if I invent some second personality to comment on my own blog it is not me copying NakMarkLark it is probably genuine mental health issues.

I think that is a good point to stop.

New ISP for IMCA

2009-12-10T18:09:00.002+01:00

Big thanks to Nige who now host the IMCA website along with the US, UK and worlds 2009 sites. This saves the IMCa some cash and I have much better technical support form Nige than the old ISP.

This hopefully puts an end to an issue that some of you understood as me censoring your blog posts. Due to an unreliable DNS lookup problem something peoples posts would disappear from the list. This some people took personally which is not true. My blog policy is the more the merrier so long as it is mostly Moth related. If it happens again let me know and I will investigate. At least now I have a chance of fixing the problem it is persists.

So if you are in the Moth class you owe Nige a beer next time you see him. I suggests you get him a bottle or a can so you can shake it very hard before you give it to him because he likes working under pressure.

Harald's new Moth-baby

2009-11-29T23:53:00.004+01:00

I got a message from Harald and some pictures of his home build. Check it out:
"
Hi Doug,

hier paar Photos vom neuen Boot. Boot ist eigentlich fertig, Foils Ruder und Schwert zur hälfte fertig.

Gruss, Harald
"

A new Moth is born.

2009-11-16T21:33:00.002+01:00

Last weekend Niki and I launched his new toy. This is the 2nd New Moth that got the launching treatment at Weiden of a bottle of bubbly. How we have moved on from a shower of baked beans...

So we sailed out into a very foggy empty lake full of extremely cold water. The water was so cold that pain was the only sensation I had on my wet bits. So the priority for me was to keep my wet suit dry and let Niki get his dry suit wet, as he was too hi on new toy fever to feel the cold.

The fog was interesting as you could not see much. I thought very cold water zero visibility and zero rescue cover. I worked out the strategy of if if I get lost I can sail in one direction hopefully till I find a featureless bank of reads and then sail along that for a few kilometres until I reach some kind of civilisation. Good got it covered so long as the wind does not die. Probably a good idea not to loose Niki because then we are both lost and have to also find each other. Good job he is just over... SHIT where did he go...

There was not much wind and the fog was very patchy. At one point it cleared to sunshine and at another point there was consistent foiling wind. However the patch of wind we did find allowed Niki to climb as high as the boat would go and stay there until I was laughing my head off and he got a worrying feeling of no control. This state (apart from my laughing) came to an abrupt end with the inevitable nose dive. That was the only real flying time we had, as by the time Niki had changed the push rod length the wind had reduced to low riding conditions again.

I had a go in the Assasin doing an on the water boat swap without getting wet. Jumped board to board which worked twice. Almost as good as the sail along the jetty and jump out the boat dry dismount at the end of the sail.

It is great to have a production boat that is not just another Hungry Tiger with foils. Build quality and detail is not in the Prowler or Mach 2 league but the price is right and the thing is a racing machine. The boat is solid and has some really nice ideas. There is real clever stuff there that makes sense which I like because it is not just a copy. Things like a gunwale hung trolley, small tramps, the wand and push rod mechanism are simple and look reliable as well as seam to work really well, the rudder looks totally mad with the horizontal being way in front of the strut, flat deck, no freeboard etc...

I helped Niki finish rigging it up expecting half the bits to be missing or not fit but it was painless. Everything was there and fitted. I was not sure about the best way to rig bits and was amazed when Niki pulled out a huge manual. This caught me off my guard and I started reading this until I came to my senses and realised that it not cool to read the manual after messing around with Moths for nearly 20 years. The only problem we had was I pulled the kicker anchor off the boom which is a very easy repair. Maybe I should have read the manual after all.

So Niki is happy and I finally have a regular training partner in a good boat again, which makes me very happy. So let the season begin. Actually that as the end of the season for me. So I can not wait for next year, hopefully it will be a good one.

Interesting.

2009-11-07T01:32:00.001+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdwN6rRU0Xk

In my world(s) es geht anders

2009-11-04T17:44:00.025+01:00

I have been taking Dave Lister's advice and not been blogging much which turns out has made me no faster at all. So I will blog anyway because as Chris notes this game is all about ego and I have a huge one that needs to be feed.

There is a great podcast out where Bruce and Luka chat away about various moth stuff and it is really a great show with lots of good advice and ideas but the love ends there. Just like Dave, here are two more bloodly Ozys that do not understand my world or World(s). So when we talk about one equipment rules do we really understand the monster that these guys are potentially creating.

Do not get me wrong I would love to write a rule that would be clear, no work to implement, have full support from everyone, mean that the undisputed best sailor won, reduced costs dramatically and make me the winner. But I can not quite put it into words. Lets talk about the reallity that this rule needs to adress.

A Moth sailor goes to an event to help support the local fleet and make up numbers but has huge problems with cramp that mean he just wants to go home. It is hot and they want to change the size of thier water bottle for a larger one so that they are not so dehydrated. Is this OK?

A Moth sailor turns up with 5 sets of foils and is only allowed to use one set. On the evening of the penultimate day the forcast is set to change and they are joint level on points with another competitor so they want to swap foils for a last day advantage. However due to the one equipment rule this is not allowed. So they go for a training sail and come back with a broken set of foils and rig. It seams a bit strange but under the rule they can now legitimately change them if the official agrees. The official is a ISAF guy that sees foils broken (with a stange tire tracks that matches the thread on the coaches van)). Under the rule it is clearly broken and so they are allowed to swap, the the official uses their descression to take into account the rumers that these foils were delibratly broken on the other side of the lake and says no. Is this OK?

So far Bruce and Luka think they have it covered. But the following is the kind of world I live in:

A Moth sailor goes out on the water with 4 wands (3 in the tramp pocket) and does some 2 boat testing. Changes wands and does really well at the event with all 4 wands on the boat (but using only one) and gets his Moth Mojo back and shows how good an out of fasion design really is.

A Moth sailor orders a set of foils at one event but gets them 2 weeks before the next (1 year later). They fit them and drive 900km to the event. It turns out that the system is total crap and that big changes need to be made. Are they allowed?

A hobby Moth sailor goes to an event and is having all sort of problems with the main foil. Someone lends them a spare foil with a flap hinge that works better and they start to have fun. Is this OK?

A enthusiastic Moth sailor trys all year to build a local fleet so that they can test their speed and it does not work out. So they go to an event totally unprepared and want to change stuff as they realises the game has moved on and they should get with it if they are to take the lessons back home. Is this OK?

The cunning Moth sailor breaks off the paddel on the end of their wand during a capsize so that the boat behaves totally differently and is more controlable. Is this OK?

I top Moth sailor goes to an event and wants to put in a good performance but can not becuase they spend 4 hours before racing and after sorting out the policeing the one equipment rule. Should they resign from the IMCA Committee and not help out?

A Moth builder has the crazy idea to build boats half the width of all the others. He finishes his boat shortly before the event but has not learnt to sail it. At the event it shows great speed and changes the future of development and the boats forever. Should this guy experiment?

A guy develops hydrofoils but is only fast in certain conditions so swaps between low rider and hydrofoils mode. This swapping allowed them to use the foils on 1 day and show the potential of this development. Should they be forced to stick the tried and tested low riding foils?

A good Moth sailor has development a Moth sail with a sailmaker that is keen to get into the class. The sail is good but the guy has not tested it in all conditions. Should they be allowed to take it out and use it in a couple of races to get it seen?

A Moth sailor has 5 sails that look identical. Each night they take their sail home "to dry it" and swap it for the design that fits best to the forcast for the day ahead. Should event organisers spent volenteer time policing this so it can not hapen?

A Moth sailor develops a Moth based on a windsurfer. The thing is radical and mad as hell. Should they be encourged to bring it to an event so others can see it even if it is not fully developed?

The wand is not moving freely so the pivot mechnisum is exchanged which changes the performace of the boat dramatically. Is this an legitimate equipment change?

A top contender for the title breaks his rigging leaving the beach for the start of the race. His support team help him swap for spare rigging and he makes the start. Is this an unauthorised gear change?

etc.......

As I see it higher levels of effort, money, time, experiance, skill, commitment and luck lead to better results. The winner is the guy that got the best combination for the rule. Changing the rule is not the issue.

I have done 1 race in Austria last year against another Moth. So should I not bother to go to an event organised by the IMCA because I am clearly not prepaired? Should I be "punished with bad results" because my efforts to organise a local fleet have not yet blossumed? Should I be "punished with bad results" because delivery dates of training partner boats have not been taken seriously? Should I be "punished with bad results" becuase when my training partner organised a training event for 20 people we only had 4 boats and ZERO wind? Should I be pubnished with bad results because I can not go to a worlds due to the cost? Should the reining World champion be given a chance to defend his title at a time when he is not becomeing a father? Should we not allow people in the fleet to study navel architecture for 3 years so they have an unfair understanding of the Maths? Should we control time on the water so no one has the unfair advantage of practice? Should we control access to the internet so that people can not waste their training time reading this shit? Should we control the wind so that is always blows from the same direction?

So Bruce and Luka what about Geelong and Bruce's trying to get up to speed? You say in your postcast "not talking about you", but you are because we all sail under the same rules. If some ritch dickhead thinks they can beat me with 3 hulls, 30 sails and 500 foils, 5 coaches, and a full time training program then OK. I will take my one ride and take them on. The winner will be because they were the fastest in an 11ft monohull with less than 8sqm sail. If I loose it will be because yada yada yada... (see Chris's post)...

When someone can write a rule to deal with all the above issues then I will be their biggest supporter. I will not be at the next AGM (which is not fair either) so we will see what happens. In the mean time at least the internet Mothing is back on track, becaue it is Fucking cold here so real sailing is dangerous especially without a wingman. Surely I should get a climate compensation of serveral points. What about 10 points per day below 5 degrees per weekend that I do not have other commitments that prevent me from training?

Back to the Love,

One hull is easy to police and reduces costs dramatically. Foils I am not sure about. Wands, settings, toestrap tension and water bottle contents... is a can of worms that is impossible to police.

I am worried about hard sails. It is possible for someone to produces hundreds of hard sails and be very sucessful. That will make transport costs unbearable for a lot of the fleet. Shall we ban developlent? Then we are as interesting as the LaserCast intro to your show. I personally would love to see a Hard sail turn up at an event but not sure i want to have to deal with owning one.

Good work guys this is going to get fun...

International Moth Training

2009-10-08T21:30:00.001+01:00

The First International Moth Training 3 day weekend was a success despite a string of disasters. The 2 Assassins were not delivered on time as well and Felix's rudder. No one traveled from outside of Austria in the end. So we only had 4 boats. This meant we had one trial boat for those wanting to try to sail a Moth, and 3 boats to do some short course racing/training. However there was no wind all of the 3 days. Niki and Walter got a 15 minute flight on Saturday evening but that was it.

On the positive side all the test sailors got a taste of Moth sailing and low-riding. This is a good grounding for some stronger winds but lots of work without the reward of a flight.

We have devised rules so that if a boat gets a 50m lead they have to do at-least 3 tacks and gibes a leg. If a boat is 50 m behind they have to not round the mark and take a short cut to the middle of the other two. Not sure if this will work but the aim was to keep racing tight and fun. We could not be bothered to try the concept in no wind, so we will have to experiment with this later.

At least the weather was good so it was a nice weekend hanging around talking about Moths and doing the splicing jobs which I have never got round to. However the teasing wind would fill in and look like it may build then die, which kept us on our toes. The atmosphere was good and I think most people had a nice weekend.

Most people did get foiling on the Aqua skipper which provided good entertainment for all.

So I think it will be a while before we do one of these events again but I am sure there will be something similar next year. Now it is a case of waiting for Niki's Assassin to finally arrive and then we will start some hardcore training until the cold overcomes our enthusiasm, (or the the lake ice's over).

Big thanks to Yacht Club Weiden for hosting this event and for this members for helping run the non existent racing.

One man race.

2009-10-01T20:33:00.004+01:00

Harald is in a one man build race. He has the deck on after 9 days!.

It looks light.

and well built. He has gone for a flat panel build

He plans to be finished this year and I look forward to sailing against the boat next spring.

Martin has his flat panel home build up for sail so he too is maybe building again....

Tomorrow starts our 3 day Moth Training weekend. Unfortunately I have to work but I will get there late afternoon if possible. The wind looks like it may cooperate with a perfect force 2, so push your thumbs.

I cant wait to get flying around in Austria with a fleet of Moths. So far we have only had a fleet of 2 but this time 6 boats is a real fleet. I hope this will be the start of things to come more regularly. Still no sign of the Assassins unfortunately, but we will make the most of what we have.

Redefine Average

2009-09-14T14:41:00.003+01:00

I only know what I see on the Internet so I may have misunderstood Rohans announcement the wrong way.. However it is sad that he no longer wishes to be involved with the Moth class. Rohan has done a lot for the development of sailing Moths and for the IMCA. It is hard at the best of times to mix business with pleasure and it looks like it proved too hard for Rohan. Good luck Rohan and I hope to see you back in a Moth having fun again some day soon.

His departure puts Bladerider, and the Moth Class in a vulnerable position and kills off any attempt to make a business model of "Moth for the masses". If Moth sailors only buy the same boat that the World Champion won in then there will only be one builder at a time and the boats will be very very expensive.

Buying the boat that won is not the same thing as buying the boat that is going to win next time. I suspect that if the average sailor spent less money on gear and more on sailing time they would do much better. However this idea obviously does not sell boats and that leads to a lot of pressure that can not be fun.

So are we going to see a new one design Bladerider or peoples foiler? Will the IMCA have to compete with this new class? Will the Moth have a reduced number of builders and be more and more expensive and elitist? Or will there be even more builders, events, choice and number of average sailors?

Who knows what the future will bring but Moth sailor spending will shape it.

My cooperate strategy is clear:

1. Sail, sail, sail and have fun sailing.
2. Try to build a local team so fleet racing happens more than once a year.
3. Do not play the who spends wins one desgin game.
4. Build a new boat if it is fun to do so.

First Austrian Moth Event

2009-09-08T18:00:00.003+01:00

It really great to have Niki pushing me. He is waiting for his Assasin to arrive and sorting out training for when it does. So the first Austrian Moth Event will happen on the 2nd to 4th of October.

It will be a fun weekend at the lake and we will do a mix of Try a Moth, fun flying, short course racing training, small regatta and Partys. So there should be something for everyone. So far as far as I know we have 6 Moths and about twice as many sailors. There will always be at least one demo boat available, so everyone should get a go.

We will also set up some short windward leeward courses for playing chase the leader. The rules will be something like the leader has to tack and gybe at least 3 times per leg and the last boat can take a short cut so that racing is always close.

We have support from Yacht Club Weiden so we will have on the water rescue and Start boats. Some good sailors from Weiden have kindly volunteered to help run the racing too.

It is a three day event so the wind should cooperate at some point at least. In October it is very unlikely that there is no wind but there could be lots of wind. I will probably have some windsurfing gear that can be used there if it blows all weekend.

There will also be plenty beer if you still are not convinced.

If you want to come then let me or Niki know and we will try to sort you out with accommodation etc... More info here.

So hope to see you there,

Doug

Certainly NOT as cool as 40 year old Operating System Design.

2009-08-21T21:24:00.005+01:00

Unix is 40 years old and it is still the coolest thing in the computer industry (If you are still using Windows then it is time to learn about 40 year old Operating System design that has become the basis for all proper modern systems). I think that at the moment Apache is the best software manufacturer but Google are becoming a close 2nd. I have been playing with Google Maps and it looks like it is working OK. It was a lot of fun to do, so please have a play.

Events
Worlds
Euros
British
Austrian
...

The search criteria is all events that started less than a year ago and all Worlds and Euros. I do not have a complete set of data but I have a good starting point.

You can reuse this on National sites or your blog or TwitFaceSpaceBo.com...

So what about a map of the moth fleet. If a number of people are prepared to log in and enter where they sail I can make a map of active members. You will have to be a member to get on the map because that is the easiest way to stop SPAM, and clean out old data. I am not sure if that is a good idea, so what do you think and what do you want mapped?

Nearly Cool

2009-08-20T23:22:00.005+01:00

I played with Google maps to get a dynamic map of Moth events, and it worked great from Austria for a while, but after I deployed it to the UK based (I think) server it becomes a virus.... I even did the old change your nationality trick so I could try to re-register as British with the help of a ssh tunnel:

ssh imcaadmin@www.moth-sailing.org -L 8087:maps.google.com:80

but it is 1am and I am too drunk and stupid to work out the parameters for the isVirus(); method.

So instead of Bloging about a cool new feature that will make the Mothsphere virtually better I am Bloging about my geo queries getting HTTP 404:

Which means it does not work.

Train spotting

2009-08-18T08:57:00.001+01:00

I have updated data from scott and other sources for the Euros:
http://www.moth-sailing.org/europeans/2009_dk.xml
and Worlds:
http://www.moth-sailing.org/worlds/2009_us.xml

Anyone have any corrections additions or CopyRight free pictures of of each boat?

All you blacks look alike.

2009-08-13T15:09:00.003+01:00

I am having a great time following the Worlds on the web it is really first class Internet Mothing going on. Well done all the people that have contributed to this.

So from the minutes of the AGM it looks like the boats are going to have more and more bloody stickers. Why oh why do we have to turn our great looking boats into a something tacky that looks like it just came out of a teenagers bedroom. Next we will be making the sails bigger so we can get more bloody stickers on them.

So if you want to make the boats look different do not make them all black. My boat does not look like any other Moth. It is about time someone says it and that is going to be me: stickers are not cool they are tacky and look crap. Fair enough to support sponsors that support our events or your campaign but lets not get too carried away.

I would prefer Moth sailing to evolve to be more races with shorter courses. This makes it more interesting and the boat handling challenge is more interesting than the sit on and ride boat speed (where who spends wins) challenge. I also think that you have to pimp your ride and that will help identify you. We already have big numbers of the sails for this purpose. Anyway I am a long way from the top ten so it does not really affect me. I do however try to collect data on boats and having the ISAF Number as the sail number is great for this.

It sounds like poor Joe is on a downer representing the death of the home build. Well Joe you can still build a competitive home build. Adam, Me, Dave, Martin, Kathrine .... have done it. Yes it is damn hard and it is a lot easer if you buy the foils (although that can be a challenge in itself). However as Martin Zäh said to me 10 days ago "You have to build your own Moth, because, well, you just do". We will probably do a new home build race maybe for the Garda Worlds :-)

If you do not have the resources to win you will not. The required resources are going up and up, so it is likely that there will always be a better sailor or someone with more cash and time. You can only compete with yourself and the Moth is a great challenge to do that. It can be a real emotional roller coaster at times but that is part of the game. This is not new it is just harder these days. Learning is fun for me and there is some much to learn about these boats.

I set my personal target to finish all the races at the Euros after 3 years of finishing half of them. I did it and this put me in the middle of the fleet. Maybe not sailing mag front cover stuff but I know how hard it is to do so I am proud of that. So Joe get the carbon out and get round the course, you are after all the leading home build, and have beaten everyone that did not make it to the start line.

With all this internet Mothing I am dead keen to get out there are sail. There is 2 days of racing this weekend at Weiden. I will probably be the only Moth racing in a handicap fleet but none the less I am in race mode.

Walchensee

2009-08-03T16:17:00.002+01:00

The 1000km round trip was worth it. I had a great weekend at Walchensee.

I finally found some upwind speed by adding more purchase to the downhaul. I got in to 2nd position a few times, the lead on occasion and nearly caught Sven in the last race. A bit of Moth racing and I have learned lots and really had fantastic fun on the water. This was the first time I can actually say I was racing rather than sailing. It was a lot of fun and there is lots to learn. I am very proud to have finished a 4th in the fleet of 12 boats.

Thanks to Daniel and Segelculub Walchensee for an excellent weekend.

More here.

News and rants.

2009-07-29T20:14:00.003+01:00

Boat is loaded on the car and parked outside the brothel (I live in a house with a fitted brothel). Next weekend I am off to Germany to Walchensee for a Moth regatta. I think 10 plus boats will be there and I am really looking forward to it.

Last weekend we went to Heidelburg in Germany for a The Touch Rugby Mainland Cup. Both the Mens and Mix team amazingly managed to beet Germany. This is like Scotland beating England at football apart for the "We hate the Fucking Cunts" songs. We got are arses kicked by other teams but we really steeped it up a level and Austria is really becoming established as a F.I.T. country which is great and a credit to the hard work of my team mates.

Tomorrow the Cougars have 2 games to play in the Austrian Touch League and the chance to become the top team in the league so fingers crossed and a BBQ afterwards to look forward to.

This post has been far to positive for me so lets bring some negative angry stuff in. I am getting Fucked by banks and so after a mate put up with my complaining he sent me a link to a video. Now this is a bit old news in internet terms but shit it is good. I do not subscribe to all the ideas here or all of the agenda but a lot of it has a lot of value and it will make you think which is I believe a good thing. Zeitgeist provides a explanation for the basis of religious stories, a convincing conspiracy theory on 911, and shows that bankers are Wankers. I checked out the chat on the Net for the debunking of this and I found lots of Christians stupid Fucks ridiculing a Film they pretend not to have seen. I found some maybe reasonable engineering explanations for some of 911 claims, but nothing proving that governments did not act on intelligence to prevent the attack. I found nothing about greedy Wankers that made any sense. Make your own mind up and there is a part two as well if you want more.

Oh that feels better I have my inner equilibrium of negativity restored, I am at peace. Back to Moth stuff.

Si Propper has been sent to the naughty chair which is a shame as I really enjoyed his Editorial style. If we all turn into PR agents for our sponsors then Internet Mothing will be hollow. However it is also great to see fresh blood and energy coming in to push forward development. I hope one day I will also be sent to the naughty chair where I can sulk and rant and rave while everyone ignores me. Wait a moment I am already there this is it, it is my Blog, cool.

Finally the 3 years of Navel Architecture Degree, 2 years boat building, 1 year working with Phil Morrison and 1 year working at the Royal Institution of Navel Architects and 1 year working at the Institute of Marine Engineers has paid off. I got recognition for Moth design input. The prison uniform boat cover is on par with the cat flat in making the world a better place. The truth is I have not done more that talk about it in the bar, but is sounds good.

The final stages of the Moth World Bloging Championships are coming to a close and there is lots of Internet Mothing activity as contenders try to get last minute advantages so I should carefully post clever well thought out stuff but I do not have the time at the moment so you get a brain dump rant that apparently need a spell check.

So fingers crossed for wind south of Munich this weekend and I will see if I can do better than my last attempt to do better that the last attempt to to better than coming last and not finishing a race when I did not even make it to the regatta. Does that make any sense?

Doug

RE: moth bloggers cool wall.

2009-07-14T16:47:00.001+01:00

Fiveth!

Unfunded persinnel attack on my here and smelling.

Feck u proper.

Set your alarm clocks

2009-07-07T13:14:00.005+01:00

There will be a 2 part Moth feature on Austria's FM4 Radio Morning show Thursday. (09-07-2009 6am - 10am CET)

You can check out the live stream here: http://fm4.orf.at/

Also check out the NikiCam:

Middle Doug

2009-07-01T17:27:00.005+01:00

I am back from the Euros and slowly getting through the back log of Internet Mothing...

Euros was a great event and I finished 21st of 42. Which puts me in the top half of the fleet or the middle depending how you want to look at it. I knew I would come in the middle I some how always do. The real competition was on to be Top Doug with 3 Doug's at the event. I of course came in the middle.

I had a great week and archived my target of finishing all the races which was no mean feet with major arm cramps in legs 2 and 3. However the sailing was awesome. Flashheart was great and the biggest repair had to do was on the trolley. I had some good racing and amazing burns to the finish line with Soren and Peter.

I learnt lots and have lots to work on. My biggest problem is going upwind in strong winds. My best asset is my consistent and good starting. Both of these seam to be a direct result of my talent for being able to sail upwind very slowly.

It was really a fun event and I am glad I went. It was great to meet up with old and new friends. 15 hours drive there and 17 back (with Lord Flasheart and Blackadder funnily enough) were well worth it.

For all of you that are desperate to see me on TV here is another link that seams to work outside Austria: here.

That is end of a very egotistical self centered Blog Post. That is what happens when you become a middle of the fleet superstar the success just goes to your head. WOOF WOOOOOOF.

Pilgrimage.

2009-06-22T20:11:00.002+01:00

I have a weeks holiday and the ipod is loaded with ROCK. The car will get loaded with stuff at some bloody early hour tomorrow and I am off on the road trip to ROCK my way to school. After I have dropped Max off at school I will be able to turn the car stereo down a bit and continue on to Denmark. ETA is middle of Tuesday night.

Laptop stays in Vienna so I am now going off line for some real sailing. All complaints about lack of updates on the IMCA website will be written to /dev/null.

On TV

2009-06-15T20:31:00.002+01:00

I have a theory that there are more people on TV than watching it these days but actually it is really fun to be on TV. The show is called Hi Society and is targeted as "light entertainment" rather than "technical sailing documentary" but they did not a bad job of presenting the Moth.

So you can watch it here. We are on 15 mins in to the show.

Tomahawk for Sale

2009-06-15T14:51:00.008+01:00

Now that I have Flashheart and too many Moth bits I finally want to sell Tomahawk. I built her with Adam May in 1994 as a Aussie Axeman low rider. She was the basis for the Diamond Foil project and competed in the Euros as a lowrider in 2005. I converted her to a hydrofoil strap on boat in 2006 for the Denmark worlds. She sailed in the 2007 Worlds at Garda.

She will never win the worlds but she is a fully functioning hydro foil boat that can be used to learn the basics of hydro foiling. She can not be compared to modern boats and the price reflects this.

She is located at Weiden on lake Neuziedlersee and can be taken for a test sail. I am not interested in shipping her far as it is not worth it. Ideally she will be sold on Neuzeidler see as the extra boat in our fleet there would be worth dropping the price for...

Name: Tomahawk
Design: Aussie Axeman
Year Built: 1994
Builder: Doug Culnane

ICF Plaque No.: 2934
Sail Number(s): GBR 4019, AUT 4019

Foils: Full Force
Mast. Angel
Sail: Truflow

Hull is glass and kevlar foam sandwich. Wing bars are a mix of carbon windsurfing masts and laser masts. Carbon mast and boom. Carbon gantry and foils.

Price: 4000 Euros or near offer.
If you have questions please call me Doug on +43 650 285 6263 or mail me doug at culnane dot net

The price of fame and foutune

2009-06-13T10:31:00.002+01:00

Luckily the wind eased a bit and so we had perfect conditions to show off in the Moths. Good strong winds but we could remain in control (mostly). So Niki and I did some showing off and blasting around for the camera boat. Not sure if there is any usable video because the rocking boat meant that the camera man was not able to keep the camera still enough.

Anyway it was great fun and my boat is so much better now I can really drive hard downwind and I am no longer scared. I did not nose dive once it was easy. So if your boat does the submarine catapult thing then less lift on the rudder is the answer and you owe me a beer.

The wind then kicked back in and the idea was to do some filming from the jetty. On the bast down wind to the jetty my bottom rudder fitting let go. So I was out there with no rudder... After sail swimming a bit of the way back the Weiden Yacht Club RIB came back (thankfully without the camera crew) and did an awesome driving job recovering my boat.

The damage is not too serious but at 17:00 in the afternoon a 6 hour drive and 11am start with at least 2 stages of laminating to get the boat repaired it was not going to be easy so I had to pull the plug on the Ammersee regatta. This is really a shame as there was a great forecast for today.

I am really pissed off that my 4 days final preparation for the Euro s turned in to 1 hour showing off for the cameras, but Moth sailing is like that sometimes. However I am really happy with the boat but not happy that I have done one days racing since the last worlds.

So check out High Society on Monday at about 19:50 (I think) http://atv.at/ as that is when we should get scheduled.

15 mins of pain

2009-06-12T10:38:00.003+01:00

Yesterday there was no wind so I did not get sailing. Today it is blowing dogs of chains and the TV cameras are coming. So instead of 15 mns of fame, it will be 15 mins of pain.

So I am off to shit myself on national television!

The life of an international sportsman(?)...

2009-06-08T14:29:00.010+01:00

The last two weekends I have been playing touch. We did a tournament in Berlin and have been coached by some Scottish coaches that we flew in to Vienna to train us.

The Berlin tournament was really fun. I played for Prague and Vienna. Prague were made up of guys from Prague and some form Vienna. The Vienna players helped both teams get into the finals for 3rd and 4th. So we mixed up the teams for the final and agreed we would again share the 3rd spot before we played, and then just had a fun game without even counting the score.

We did not have the competitive ambition of the winners but the relaxed play for fun team mix up was really great and revitalized my enthusiasm for touch. If we want to win then we have to field our best players in one team and not let them play other games so they have energy for finals. However in my line of work it is important to have fun and I was not the only one that felt like they had won coming 3rd.

We then did a day and a half of tourism in Berlin. I learned lots about German and Berlin's History both of which are really fascinating and I was totally ignorant about. I can really recommend the Fat Tire bike tour of Berlin and the German History Museum. Really an intense and fascinating story that is well worth doing at least once.

In just under 20 years on from the falling of the Iron Curtain you can drive from Vienna to Berlin through Czechoslovakia without even a passport. After the History of Berlin this is a really cool thing, (apart for it is bloody long drive).

This week I switch back to Mothing. Thursday is a National holiday and I will train and practice some crowd pleasing cunning stunts. Then on Friday afternoon Niki and I will get filmed for a Austrian TV show. The plan is to full off a mix of cool moves and spectacular crashes in front of the camera, without taking myself, my boat or any expensive TV cameras out of action. After the filming I will drive to Ammersee in southern Germany for the Moth regatta there this weekend.

I hope the Ammersee regatta will give me 2 days of racing practice before the Euros and it will be the last opportunity I have to sail before I drive to Denmark for the Euros. Niki is probably not coming this year so I will have total control of the car keys and I have learned again (the hard way) to learn the bloody course. So I hope to finish my first race in Germany and not come last! I also hope to have enough fitness and energy so I do not fall asleep in the bar afterwards like last year. Basically it will be hard not to do better.

I have just got to wet flat the paint drips off the foils and I think I am sorted. This years Euros/Worlds preparation has raised my bar considerably from previous years. A stunning 3 days racing (hopefully) and more than 1 hour flying time in a boat that I know works! This year my Euros targets are to not have to count any DNFs in my score, get some real racing in, and come in the middle of the fleet AGAIN...

So hope to see some of you at Ammersee and even more a the Euros.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

2009-05-26T11:43:00.003+01:00

The Good

Had a great Fenster Wochenende ("Window Weekend" four day weekend with one day off work and bank holiday Thursday. Kati and I went hiking and biking in the mountains that mark the start of the Alps. Austria is really a beautiful country and so green with rich forests and lots of wildlife. Then we went to Niki and Julia's wedding which was set in an old castle and the weather was so good we had dinner and the party outside. It was a really nice event and party with a really nice bunch of people.

The Bad

Part of the rich wildlife are these little bastards. I got 5 of the nasty disease carrying sods eating their way into me. I like lots of wildlife but the world would be better without some of it.

The Ugly

Austria tends to have the Sound of Music stereotype of beautiful mountains and Nazis. This stereotype is unfortunately accurate. Now I believe in freedom of speech. Which means I believe I have the right to say what I like and that other people have the right to say stuff I dislike. Therefore as Austria gears up for the Euro elections I must not get upset about placards claiming that the Austria needs to ethnically cleans all the foreigners out or it is endanger of evolving into a modern society. (Not an Austrian one made up of Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Swiss, Italians,...). However what is not OK is blatantly Nazi propaganda being main stream politics.

Maybe I am turning into a grumpy old man but the increasing reality of stupidocracy really pisses me off.

14 - 16 year olds shoot at concentration camp survivors. here

Memorial to Nazi euthanasia victims vandalised. here

School kids shout racist Nazi insults while visiting Auschwitz here.

etc... etc....

If you put up lots of posters blaming minority groups and EU Mafia for problems you get 30% of the vote! If you come up with long term funded integration strategies none cares. The bloody obvious result is ghettos and sound bite politics.

So recently one of these ghettos breaks out into violence over some stupid religious bullshit and some Austrian politicians use it to have a field day taking the hard line with foreigners. If plain clothes policemen beat the shit out of someone because they are black in an underground station in the middle of the day they keep quiet.

Religion is the root of a lot of evil. You should make time to watch this as it funny and makes you think. If people think then maybe the world will be a better place:

Maybe I should start a new political party. I will ethnically cleans out religion and ticks. Not sure how the details are going to work out but that is not important. What is important is the simple slogans.

Austria NOT Tickria

No more EU forced immigration of Ticks.

Austrian Mountains NOT Mountains of Ticks.

Ticks must learn German.

Meteorology NOT Wind Godology.

Maybe not. Maybe I will just have an angry Internet rant and the world will be exactly the same.

Euros Entry list.

2009-05-25T15:13:00.002+01:00

Sign up now for the Euros. Entry has been extended till the 1st of June but you risk having to pay an extra 100 Euro if you are late!

The official list and entry is here: http://www.horsens-sejlklub.dk/default.asp?s=369

My list is here:
http://www.moth-sailing.org/europeans/2009_dk.xml

Send me your picture and I will add it to the list. doug at culnane dot net.

A Result.

2009-05-18T14:59:00.003+01:00

Niki and I managed to start and finish our first Moth race in Austria. Conditions were perfect apart from the massive hangovers from the night before. I was in a better state than Niki due to my party trick of hiding and falling a sleep early... At least this time when I regained continuousness no one had tattooed "I love cock" on me.

We started the race well and got to the windward mark just behind the only F18 cat. I got inside him at the wing mark and was of to the leward mark at top speed with no one in front. I pulled out a massive lead by the lewward mark but soon realised that I had gone round the wrong wing mark. So it was back up to the right wing and to rejoin the race behind the hobbie 16s.

I spent the rest of the race trying to get back up with Niki but could not catch him, before the line. So I finished 3 on the water and 3rd monohull on handicap! Niki won on handicap and was 2nd boat on the water. So it was a good result for us both and a nice last race for Niki to do in his Bladerider.

There was a second race which I competed although most of it was low riding which proved too much for Niki's hang over. I finished first on the water but had to battle hard against some fast yachts. I way really happy with my boat speed but I have a lot to improve on with tacktics of racing in a fleet of stationary boats. The worst thing I did was at the leeward mark where I could not work out how to slow down enough to get in line to go round it with the boats I was lapping. I just reached backwards and forwards waiting for a gap which was not too fast.

All bloody good fun and I really enjoyed it.

On Saturday Niki's Bladerider went to its now home and we finished rigging Tomahawk. She flew but there is some work to do on her control systems. This will keep him busy while he waits for his new Assassin.

Walter also flew his new Bladerider for the first time this weekend. So there are now 4 flying Moths distributed around the north of the lake.

Car is loaded with beer and Moth bits.

2009-05-15T14:00:00.003+01:00

Ok that is it I am off to get my new tramps and take Tomahawk to the lake. I have 2 moths to rig and Niki's Stag do this evening! Then tomorrow it will be the first Moth race in Austria (I hope). So far Niki and I have not managed to start a race but tomorrow we hope to both complete one.

I am always much faster with a hang over than without so my pre-race preparation is planned nicely. Not sure what state Niki will be in but hopefully he will not be tied Naked to a tree in Hungry but you never know...

So we could see 4 moths sailing on the lake this weekend! Niki's BR, Walters new BR, Tomahawk, and Flashheart! Niki has sold his boat and ordered a new one. He will borrow Tomahawk till the new one comes. This is good because it gives me a kick to get her rigged and in a decent sailing state as I hope to get round to selling her at some point.

Here is a nice pic from Alan of me cowering at the back of my tramp 2 weeks ago. It was windy there is an air born surfer in the background.

Found more info on project Whisper.

2009-05-14T16:10:00.002+01:00

Following a link on Rohan's Blog there is more info about the Whisper project.

"...ongoing R&D for Bladerider....hull uses basic materials...over-rotating carbon fibre wing mast..."

http://www.compositecomponents.com.au/sea.shtml

Sounds like Bladerider are investing in R&D. Interestingly at the high performance end of the market at the same time as at the low cost hull materials end...

Alan's Austrian food report.

2009-05-11T11:03:00.001+01:00

http://solitaryleprechaun.blogspot.com/2009/05/after-my-two-flights-on-thursday.html

Weekend is here already.

2009-05-08T17:03:00.005+01:00

It was a big weekend last weekend. Alan Godard visited from Finland, and Guy and Susie from the UK. We had a big beach party at the Pad...

...and went Mothing twice...

Friday is was very windy so I when out until I trashed my tramps and could come in again with a good excuse. Unfortunately Matthias (AUT A-Cat sailor) and Alan did not get a go.

Both Alan and Guy got a fly in the gust of Sunday.

This weekend I have no tramps so it maybe time to visit the workshop and get Tomahawk flight ready, but am not sure. I need a plan and fast because the weekend is here already!

Moth Forum Feedback

2009-05-06T16:15:00.004+01:00

I have been hacking away at the IMCA site, and integrated JForum into it. The user admin is done with the existing site accounts which has made it a bit complex but will mean that people do not need to register etc... The forum has all the cool forum features like the Australian one.

This forum is not aiming to replace Sailing Anarchy or the Australian/Italian/German forums but of course there will be some overlap.

So I am setting up a forum and I want some feedback.

What Forums?
Events: IMCA Events.
Boats: Boat building, science and theory discussion.
General: Other topics and discussion.
Non English language forums. ???

Anonymous Read only. No anonymous posts?
Moderators?

I hope to get a prototype online soon so we can test it, but until then does anyone have any thoughts, which I will try to consider in the implementation?

Internet Moth activity inversely proportional to sailing activity.

2009-04-30T13:20:00.004+01:00

Australia has overtaken the UK in the Internet Mothing league table (on IMCA website at least).

Is this because the AUS season is ending while the GBR season is starting, and that Internet Mothing is inversely proportional to sailing activity?

It also looks like I am not the only Internet Mother in Austria!

Last weekend etc...

2009-04-22T21:29:00.007+01:00

I had a great weekend with little wind but the odd gust where you could fly along at twice the true wind speed on sunny flat water. This meant you could burn up everything on the water like it was standing still. However while I and Niki were drifting around a guy blasts by in his electric motor speed boat. Now this thing was a very beautiful boat and I am sure it is worth more than my flat. The drivers relaxed glance as he passed clearly expressed the obvious conclusion that the Moths where no longer the coolest boats on the lake.

The wind gods do not like me much (mainly because I am an Atheist) but they liked this rich guy even less so in fills the wind and I scramble to the air and am on his tail. I am gaining fast and moving in for I high speed kill. However he turns directly into the wind and I can not. So I loose him and have to peel off. This was a shame because he had not looked round and would have got the shock of his life to see me there. He had blasted passed me about 1 km ago while I was stationary. He must have been doing about 15 knots and thought he was on his own.

One thing about Neuziedler See I can not get used to is how fast the wind can change. When I found myself becalmed and could see a big black cloud at the other end of the 16km long lake I knew it was time to have a coffee and wait. The wind did fill in and I went out. In about 20 mins it had gone from flat calm to Armageddon where I could not tack upwind and was afraid to sheet in downwind. I made it back to the beach a lot more humble and sore than when I left. 30 min later (about how long it takes the hundreds of surfers to scramble out of god knows where rig up small sails and launch) the wind was dropping fast. So out I went again and foiled for 200 meters only to find myself becalmed in a sea of frustrated surfers.

I may not believe in them but the wind gods are having a good laugh.

Niki and I also got some bay watch action in when a Laser 16 tipped over. The couple on board were very cold in the water and had no chance to get the boat up on their own. Still they were in better shape than the yacht that ended up on the bottom of the 1.5m deep lake last year. I did not hang around to help bail the yacht out once I had helped get it upright. They must have managed somehow because it is no longer sitting there.

Turning up at the lake with a Moth is the closest I will ever get to being a rock star. However unfortunately I realize that the boat is the star not me. There is plenty interest in the boats, and it is realistic to think that there will be enough boats here soon to think about forming an Austrian IMCA Association next year. Until then Niki has sorted out a list of Handicap events we will do, and I have added them to the IMCA Calendar. The current (50 year old) official handicap rating for the Moth will mean that in an hour race we should win about about a week. It will be interesting to see if the official rating will be used or a more sensible one. It will also be a close call to see which Moth wins... assuming we can do better than last year and get across the starting line.

So it is all happening on the lake. We just need to start racing...

I got some rope from Adam and have spliced up a set of shrouds, so that Tomahawk can have her metal ones back and I can start to get her rigged too. However I read from Bruce's blog that I have done it all wrong... and I guess I should re-do them since they do hold the mast up and Moths seam to be the only rescue boat cover on the lake!!!... However Bora comments that the what I did was fine.... What to do? Maybe I ask Niki if he wants to test the first set ;-)

No sailing next weekend for me because it is the date of the biggest sporting event of the year: The Vienna Touch Rugby tournament. Hopefully I will get through the day without my legs going into spasms of exhaustion and have to be carried of the field... Luckily I will miss a couple of games midday as I have a Taxi driver shift for Max who is playing in a Hockey tournament. When you become a parent you should not get a cigar from your mates you should get petrol for your car that becomes a Kid Taxi before you know it.

To change subject a bit:

I like this from http://crisisofcredit.com/. It is a good example of explaining something complex and making it simple.

So it turns out the Credit Crisis is not a complex international banking and trade problem it is just a bunch of greedy bastards selling bullshit. (Or is it an inevitable result of Capitalism and blind faith in market forces?) I am glad my tax payments are going to bail these guys out of their mess. The good news is that governments are making policies to help average people not just city fat cats. So enjoy it while it lasts.

I cant wait for the weekend to begin!

2009-04-15T19:04:00.013+01:00

On Easter Sunday Niki and I got out for a play. The wind Gods tormented my soul with zero wind and Niki enjoyed reminding me that he had just had 2 days of great sailing in 10-15 knots in 25 degrees air temp. I may be an cynical old Bastard but rather embarrassingly when it comes to the first flight of the year I behave like a 10 year old kid at Christmas. So when the wind came in: "The teasing was over and Father Christmas does exist after all!" and I panicked to get out there ASAFP.

We drag raced upwind and downwind and I got my foils nearly set up right. (Still flying too low but could not undo cable adjustment lock nut with teeth on water). Now that I can dial off lift on the rudder Flashheart is much easier to sail downwind and I could almost imagine being able to get downwind in 25 knots. It seams that too much rudder lift results in the main foil and rudder fighting each other until the rudder wins and you nose dive. I have done far to much of that so I am sticking to my no lift on rudder is less traumatic theory for psychological comfort at least.

Flashheart is looking good and you can not see the curtains at 15 plus knots. The wand is no longer as close to the middle so for the first time I notice that Port is lower Starboard is higher. Have to do something about that at some point. The paddle has not been hacksawed off yet so that is not too bad.

I would like to be nice about this but after the: "Die Letzte 2 Tag war perfekte Segeln Doug. Du solte dabei sein. Heute kommt keine wind." The gloves are off, so here is a picture of Niki in one of his better gybes, (or maybe it is a tack it is hard to tell...)

I was facking good. Or at least the lack of ruder lift meant that I did not nose dive mid fack. I still have a lot of work to do to get the out of fack bit right but in light winds it was fun. However I tried to do this is a gust of wind and it reminded me that foiling and tacking normally results in a painful disaster, where if you do not capsize and can sail out of it sitting on a different side of the boat it was a good one.

Ok I feel bad now so here is a picture of Niki in control.

Bloodly great day and a great weekend. On Easter Monday the Pirate School navigated their commandeered Laser all the way to the Island with the one tree in the middle of it. I have never been that far out on the Lake in a Moth since Tomahawks wingbar broke. The lake is amasing you can almost not touch the bottom of it now that there is so much water in it.

Out here in Austria when we go Moth sailing we may not have all the very latest go-faster goodies. But now that I have read that all the fast guys sail with them I have ordered a set of foil bags. What we do have now is Sun and Water and wind gods. So I can't wait for the weekend to begin!

(I would embed the song link because it is well worth watching, but I do not want to develop (or steal, depending on how you want to look at it) other Moth sailors ideas (unless it makes my boat go faster)).

Nearly News

2009-04-07T13:24:00.005+01:00

I nearly posted this as IMCA news while catching up on the the IMCA AU news.

http://www.moth.asn.au/moth/2009/04/01/new-towing-rules-for-nsw-roads/

I would have posted it if I have seen it a week earlier, but seeing it a week later nearly caught me off guard.

Frustrating.

2009-04-05T09:17:00.002+01:00

When I got to the workshop at 9am! (on a Saturday!!!) the bloody paint was still wet and the white paint job looks real bad close up. However with more damage to the soft wet paint I got the gear to the lake and rigged up. But there was no wind all day so we did not bother launching. Today is the same deal of sitting around waiting for wind and I can not be bothered, to drive for 2 hours and rig and de-rig for 1.5, for the hope of 20 min flying. So the wind gods win.

So I should have repressed the youthful enthusiasm to get flying and finished of the boat properly. However it is the youthful enthusiasm to get flying that makes this stuff fun, so I do not want to loose that.

Spray them till they drip.

2009-04-03T20:43:00.004+01:00

I managed to get a weekends worth of boatbuilding into a heroic friday after work workshop session. This weekend I can hopefully rig up and go sailing. The paint job has more curtains than Schönbrunn Palace but it is done and I am going sailing so sod it. Or at least I am going to try to get the thing rigged at the lake.

It will be 20 plus degrees tomorrow and a nice light wind so I can get the foils set up and make sure everything works. Niki and I have all weekend and he is going to help me rig up becuase he is ready to go, and a bloody good bloke. So it could be a legendary weekend or a furstrating disater but that is Moth sailing.

So I hope to be able to report how fast curtains are on your foils. Maybe you will all be spraying them till they drip next season.

Foiler Performance Calculations from Alan Smith

2009-04-01T17:16:00.007+01:00

I did NOT create this program and I am not claiming any credit for it. I got this from Alan Smith and rather than just post it I thought it was worth introducing a bit. Therefore I am posting some info copied from his mails in my Blog because it is the quickest way to get it on-line.

"
Bill Beaver’s excellent scientific paper, released publically via the international moth web site has prompted me to offer a foiler performance estimating program that I have developed.

The attached program is in excel and that may limit the range of users. Hopefully anyone with access to excel will not have any problem using it. The drag parameters of the computation have the benefit of Bill B’s work. This validation is of comfort but is not actually that important. The important aspect of the program is that it correctly indicates the sign and the order of magnitude of each partial derivative for many of the variables available to the designer. It provides answers to many of the questions the moth guys keep asking and illustrates that selecting the best geometry is more important than selecting foil sections. It does on the other hand provide the designer a knowledge of foil loadings and cL’s hence enables the selection of foil sections best suited to the aspect of sailing where he wishes to perform ahead of the pack.

The reason for developing the program is my long time interest in foilers; a deep interest in the dynamics of aircraft (40 years of UAV development) and now foilers; I have a number of 3DofF foiler simulation model running; have been watching the moth evolution and amazed at many of the misunderstandings that are out here even among the to guys. As I said in my first email, this program provides a lot of answers!

The program has a brief set of "sailing" instruction on the opening page. It also contains a 60 day self destruct algorithm. I will remove this for any serious users on a one on one basis.

Alam Smith
April 2009
alans at aapt dot net dot au
www.highspeedsailing.com
"

The program can be downloaded here.

In due course I will do a Science | Technical | Boffins |.. Ideas on a postcard please | page on the IMCA site and collect together various papers and programs for the geeks out there.

It is a beautiful world again.

2009-03-27T20:57:00.018+01:00

Back from a great holiday. We had a fantastic time in Dubai mainly thanks to Susie, Chris and Tracy. Dubai is very interesting and hard to explain and understand without going there. Even once you have been there, a lot of it does not make any sense. It is a strange mix of shopping malls, fundamental Arabic attitudes to behaviour, a truly multi cultural society with social divides along cultural lines. It is also a great example of how effective a government can be without the burden of pretend democracy. The rate of development there is amazing, and I would like to understand more about it.

We went to Sri Lanka and went diving which is a strange mix of calming yourself as a way of dealing with the panic you feel. It was great and very strange. Sri Lanka is a very beautiful war zone where any minute you could be dead, but luckily we survived two road trips from the airport to the hotel and back, although the laws of physics and road safety would predict otherewise.

I met up with the Dubai Moth Fleet at the DOSC and I got what I think is my first ever Moth sail in swimming trunks. It was great to visit the site of the worlds that will be run in a years time and to see such a healthy fleet of moths at a club. However after 2 mins in Chris's boat I realized that no sport in 6 months has taken its tole and I need to get fit now.

Back to reality

Fitness training started with a mid week touch session now that it is just about warm enough to play without ice skates. This made me realize just how lazy I have been this winter.

All the plans to sort out loads of Moth gear for next season have turned into a rush to get Flashheat on the water ASAP. I did have all weekend to do this until I fell out of bed and spent a day not moving and thinking that I should also have got the stairs up to the high bed built so I can get rid of the wobbly ladder.

Still at least I got some lipstick on the pig on Sunday.

I guess I had such a busy winter last year that I have been resting on my lorels (or arse) this winter. Time to get back up to racing speed.

This week I went to a lawyer fee fund raiser for a guy who got the shit kicked out of him for being black. He knows who attacked him but unfortunately they are part of an organization that protects their own and see it more as an unfortunate mistake as a case of kick the shit out of who ever you like because it is fun. Anyway that is the Austrian police for you. So if you are a person that would like to keep a child in your cellar and rape them for a number of years then come to Austria because the police have better things to worry about like kicking the shit out of black people in the middle of the day in and underground station. Maybe this guy is making up a story but unfortunately there is no video camera evidence or eye witnesses to prove otherwise. So the police guys are not able to protect themselves against his claims, or come up with a remotely realistic version of events. So with help this guy will take them to court and loose, because apparently no one has ever successfully sued the Austrian police. "One of" I hear you say, but no. This guy teaches at a school where the rich and powerful kids of Austria go, so it has become an issue, like the other black guy that worked for the UN and showed them his UN ID so that they could say it is a fake and continue to kick the shit out of him.

I am a bit depressed at this point.

Then came the great paper from Bill! What a great bit of work that I am still trying to understand. Makes my paper on Moth design look like kindergarten stuff.

The facking vidio from Dave, has got Niki all excited. We got to get out there (on the unusually deep puddle) and try to do that shit.

I get a facebook message for a guy asking about a Moth in the middle of the biggest shopping street in Vienna. He clearly is on drugs but it makes a nice change from the usual SPAM. So he sends me a this picture and Niki went there today. Holy fuck there is a fucking Moth in the fucking middle of Maria fucking hilfe fucking Strasse.

Interest in the Moth here is building and there are boats here I do not even know about. So it looks very realistic that we could really get a fleet (like the fleet I was jealous of in Dubai) going here which is my hope for 2009.

Then Anja posts a video from Grada.

It is a beautiful world again.

Goodbye Snow Hello Sun.

2009-03-04T19:17:00.003+01:00

There has been a fair bit of snow in Austria this year. Here is a picture taken a month ago while snowboarding of a hotelier digging his hotel out of the snow.

Kati and I are off backpacking to Dubai and then Sri Lanka so we are in for a bit of a climate change. I hope to catch up with the Moth fleet in Dubai. Unfortunately I will be a bit late for the Dubai GP but getting to the start line on time was never one of my strengths.

IMCA website is now self funding

2009-02-10T13:51:00.003+01:00

I am please to report that the web banner advertising on the IMCA website www.moth-sailing.org now pays for the hosting of the site. This means the site is no longer a drain on IMCA funds which is great because the IMCA does not really have any funds.

Thanks to the companies who have taken part in this scheme for their support of the IMCA. If there are other Moth related companies out there that would like to advertise then please contact me for details of the scheme.

It is a shame that not more Moth sailors support the IMCA by joining the class association...

Thinking alloud

2009-01-18T18:50:00.004+01:00

Just got back from an afternoon at the workshop. Flashheart now has a Fastacraft main foil and a rudder with an Aardvark vertical and repaired Bladerider horizontal... It all looks like it will work but I put lots of forward rake on the rudder (bit too much as the thing moved before the glue set) so I hope I can get enough lift from it. The gantry bottle screw has gone from one extreme of spending the summer at the very end of it thread trying to lose lift to the other of tightly screwed up in the hope it will generate some lift. Still the forward rake on the rudder looks mad, and should reduce rudder ventilation. It also fits with the Mach 2 trend if the computer graphics of the gantry are to be believed.

The Bladerider horizontal was easier to repair than the Aardvark one although the word on the net is that small rudders are in. The Aardvark rudder was definitely small and was great. I never adjusted my twist tiller (because it did not work and) because I always had too much lift and so it would not adjust any more. However the small rudder seamed a good thing, so it is a shame I have maybe taken a step back.

However the tiller twist adjustment is much better now. It is a Bladerider mechanism (without the bloody great chunk of stainless tube, as I cut most of this away and replaced it with a carbon/glass tube. This saved about 100g). This Bladerider mechanism sits in an Aardvark tiller with and Doug Culnane rudder stock.

Flashheart is starting to look like a jumble of acquired Moth parts which is exactly what she is. However I am moving on to the sanding and painting phase now so hopefully the end result will all look like parts of the same team.

It is hard to sit behind a computer or in a workshop and work out which developments are joking banter and which are real developments. It seams that people are experimenting and there is some strange stuff groining on. Check out Chris's post about the new North Sails (http://usfoilingmoths.blogspot.com/2009/01/arnauds-sail.html). Arnaud is hiking very far forward..? Rohan has indicated that sitting at the back is fast downwind. Small rudder horizontals are being used by a group of Aussies. Warm water is fast (How do I know which side of the beat is warmer?). There was an interesting paper that attributed speed to sharing induced drag equally between the 2 foils. Snoring is fast but cutting of the genitals of your competition is faster. The aerodynamic drag of the wand mechanism is very important to upwind speed. Small bows do not cause a nose dive when they crash down like big buoyant ones do (this I believe because I have the smallest bow in the fleet, so I know. However there is a problem with this which will become notorious. If your foils no longer work and you have to lowride home and home is downwind then you are fucked). So next week at work will be interesting as I hope the hoaxes and the real developments become clearer, or at least there is even more to chat and think about.

I however have 2 boats I want to get sorted and that is enough work for this winter (and maybe a bit too much of spring). Next summer is to be the summer of completing races without alphabet and my target from 2008 to beat is an impressive 4 (out of 13 races). I want to find a good home for Tomahawk, so that we have another sailor and I have less Moth bits. I also want to help any local Moth sailors get in to this amazing game.

Moth sailing is still in its infancy in Austria (like many other countries) and this stuff is very hard to do in isolation. So if there are moth guys out there that do not have a new widget that is guaranteed to win the $1,000,000 prize in the local Moth open, I hope they will chat openly and not subscribe to the secrecy is success vibe. In my line of work it is important to have fun, and at the moment this stuff is fun.

Holy Shit that is fast.

2009-01-10T15:45:00.002+01:00

Niki invited Kati and me to have a go at Ice Sailing, and wow.... If anyone thinks that wind is not a viable energy source they should have a go in one of these.

These DN things and ice surfers just generate their own power like a chain reaction perpetual motion machine that just goes faster and faster..... Unbelievable...

This DN was built 20 years ago by Niki's father and is a very nice toy.

The lake was full of people on various ice sailing toys from kites to DN yachts. It really is a great playground for those that do not go through the ice...

It was a great day out apart from me losing my wallet. This however gives me a new game. I tell people I have lost my wallet then they ask me "where?" and I just stare at them for about 4 seconds until they say "sorry that was a stupid question".

SAP middleware (XI/PI) tool for Java geeks.

2009-01-05T10:43:00.013+01:00

One area that I have been working in recently is SAP middleware (XI/PI). This is basically software that pushes and pulls data between different computers. There is a whole load of GUI tools and monitoring clients for mapping data and monitoring process flow and errors. However quantity does not always mean quality and I personally find it very tedious to click through the ABAP GUI and monitoring runtime web application to get to the actual error which is often hidden, or not even visible. Understanding the user interface is often harder to do than understanding the error. You have to spend a long time defining and maintaining data structures so that the messages can be serialized for the GUI tools. It is a complex environment and maybe I am just too stupid to understand it but I deiced to do something about it.

Basically XI follows the normalized message model. You have communication channels that send and receive data using technical protocols like HTTP, FTP, SOAP, File... and then a Process runtime (a non standard BPEL) engine. This is a nice easy to understand concept and similar to JBI (Java Business Integration). It is possible to do a Java mapping program, which gets a very low level binary stream and returns a low level binary stream. This is great because I understand 0010010011111 stuff. Including libraries and developing in XI is hard, but that is OK I have a cool set of tools for programing in Java on my laptop.

So what do I want?
- A cool test driven development environment.
- Direct access to the data streams for sample data.
- Java Stack traces when and if there is an error.
- To use my laptop and tools not some random computer.
- Something like tcpmon for seeing exactly what is going on.

How shall I do this?
- I need a kind of server running on my laptop that can collect data.
- A java mapping that will post data out of the XI environment.
- An error handler that posts stack traces out of the XI environment.
- Maven, JUnit, XSTL, Eclipse... all my favorite Java development tools ;-)

XI is normally in a very secure environment and the only way to get data out is often with HTTP and a proxy (there is no way can you access the server hard disk). I want the exact 01001001 stream and not have to debug data transformations so I will use Base64 to encode and decode. I can not really include lots of jar libs so I should use low level standard Java rather than Apache's HttpClient etc... I can import a jar into XI, so I want to be able to deliver jars (like JBI tools deliver jbi files).

So I have created a Maven project that builds a jar for import into XI. In the Maven project I have my test sample data, JUnit tested mappings, my debugging webserver, my error handler, and stream posting mapping, and cut down version of the Apache Codec Base64 encoder/decoder.

Time for some code.

Parent Mapping class.


package com.snapconsult.xi.mapping.common;

import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import com.sap.aii.mapping.api.MappingTrace;
import com.sap.aii.mapping.api.StreamTransformation;
import com.sap.aii.mapping.api.StreamTransformationConstants;
import com.sap.aii.mapping.api.StreamTransformationException;
import com.snapconsult.xi.mapping.common.HttpConnectionUsingProxy;

/**
 * XI Mapping super class.
 * 
 * @author Doug Culnane
 */
public abstract class XIMapping implements StreamTransformation {

    /**
     * Map containing XI runtime environment variables.
     */
    private Map param = null;

    /**
     * Method used by XI to set map containing XI runtime environment variables.
     */
    public void setParameter(Map param) {
        this.param = param;
        if (param == null) {
            this.param = new HashMap();
        }
    }
    
    /**
     * Execute the mapping.  Called by XI.
     */
    public void execute(InputStream inputStream, OutputStream outputStream)
            throws StreamTransformationException {

        logStartTransform(param);
        
        try {
            
            doTransFormation(inputStream, outputStream);
            
        } catch (Exception e) {
            logTransformationException(param, e);            
            throw new StreamTransformationException(e.getMessage());
        }
        logEndTransform(param);
    }
    
    
    /**
     * Method to do the real implementation.
     *
     * @param inputStream
     * @param outputStream
     * @throws Exception
     */
    public abstract void doTransFormation(InputStream inputStream, OutputStream outputStream)
        throws Exception;

    
    
    /**
     * Utility method for logging start of transformation.
     * 
     * @param paramMap
     *            Map containing XI runtime environment variables.
     */
    public void logStartTransform(Map paramMap) {
        if (paramMap != null 
                && paramMap.get(StreamTransformationConstants.MAPPING_TRACE) != null) {
            MappingTrace trace = (MappingTrace) paramMap
                    .get(StreamTransformationConstants.MAPPING_TRACE);
            trace.addInfo("Start Transformation of "
                    + StreamTransformationConstants.MESSAGE_ID + ": "
                    + paramMap.get(StreamTransformationConstants.MESSAGE_ID));
        }
    }
    
    /**
     * Utility method for logging successful end of Transformation.
     * 
     * @param paramMap
     *            Map containing XI runtime environment variables.
     */
    public void logEndTransform(Map paramMap) {
        if (paramMap != null
                && paramMap.get(StreamTransformationConstants.MAPPING_TRACE) != null) {
            MappingTrace trace = (MappingTrace) paramMap
                    .get(StreamTransformationConstants.MAPPING_TRACE);
            trace.addInfo("End Transformation of "
                    + StreamTransformationConstants.MESSAGE_ID + ": "
                    + paramMap.get(StreamTransformationConstants.MESSAGE_ID));

        }
    }
    
    /**
     * Utility method for logging errors.
     * 
     * @param paramMap
     *            Map containing XI runtime environment variables.
     * @param e
     *            Exception thrown during transformation.
     */
    public void logTransformationException(Map paramMap, Exception e) {
        if (paramMap != null
                && paramMap.get(StreamTransformationConstants.MAPPING_TRACE) != null) {
            MappingTrace trace = (MappingTrace) paramMap
                    .get(StreamTransformationConstants.MAPPING_TRACE);
            trace.addWarning("Error during Transformation of "
                    + StreamTransformationConstants.MESSAGE_ID + ": "
                    + paramMap.get(StreamTransformationConstants.MESSAGE_ID)
                    + ", " + e.getMessage());
        }
        
        try {
            ConfigurationSingleton conf = ConfigurationSingleton.getInstance();
            
            if (conf.getPostMessages()) {
                
                HttpConnectionUsingProxy con = new HttpConnectionUsingProxy(
                    conf.getConfigValue(ConfigurationSingleton.CONF_PARAM_NAME_LOGGING_WEBSERVER_URL), 
                    conf.getConfigValue(ConfigurationSingleton.CONF_PARAM_NAME_PROXY_HOST), 
                    conf.getConfigValue(ConfigurationSingleton.CONF_PARAM_NAME_PROXY_PORT));
            
                StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer();
                buf.append(e.getMessage()  + "\r\n");
                StackTraceElement[] trace = e.getStackTrace();
                for (int i=0; i < trace.length; i++) {
                    buf.append(trace[i].toString() + "\r\n");
                }
                con.post(buf.toString().getBytes());
            }
        } catch (Exception e1) {
           // so what can you do.
        }
    }
}

The HTTP Post class. Note if you need proxy authentication it is easy to implement just ask google.


package com.snapconsult.xi.mapping.common;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.io.Writer;
import java.net.Socket;
import java.net.URL;

import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;

/**
 * This is a HTTP connection programmed at very low level.
 *
 * @author Doug Culnane
 *
 */
public class HttpConnectionUsingProxy {
        
        private static final String ENCODING = "US-ASCII";
    
        String url;
        String proxyHost;
        int proxyPort;
        
        public HttpConnectionUsingProxy(String url , String proxyHost, String proxyPort){
            this.url = url;
            this.proxyHost = proxyHost;
            
            try {
                this.proxyPort = new Integer(proxyPort).intValue();
            } catch (Exception ex) {
                this.proxyPort = 8080;
            }
        }
        
        public void post(byte[] dataArray) throws Exception{

            Socket socket = null;
            URL server = new URL(url);
            
            server.getPort();
            
            if (proxyHost.equals("")) {
                socket = new Socket(server.getHost(), server.getPort());
            } else {
                socket = new Socket(proxyHost, proxyPort);
            }
            socket.setKeepAlive(true);

            Writer writer = new OutputStreamWriter(
                    socket.getOutputStream(), ENCODING);
            
            String content = new String(Base64.encodeBase64(dataArray, true), "UTF-8");
            
            writer.write("POST " + server.toExternalForm() + " HTTP/1.1\r\n" +
                         "Host: " + server.getHost() + "\r\n" +
                         "Cache-Control: no-cache\r\n" +
                         "Pragma: no-cache\r\n" +
                         "User-Agent: Java\r\n" +
                         "Accept: text/html\r\n" +
                         "Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5\r\n" +
                         "Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate\r\n" +
                         "Accept-Charset: utf-8\r\n" +
                         "Keep-Alive: 300\r\n" +
                         "Proxy-Connection: keep-alive\r\n" +
                         "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n" +
                         "Content-Length: " + (content.length() + 4) + "\r\n" +
                         "\r\n" + content + "\r\n\r\n");   
            writer.flush();
            
            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                         socket.getInputStream(), ENCODING));
            
            
            while (reader.read() != -1);
            
            writer.close();
            reader.close();
            socket.close();
        }

    }

My post stream mapping.


package mapping;

import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;

import com.snapconsult.xi.mapping.common.ConfigurationSingleton;
import com.snapconsult.xi.mapping.common.HttpConnectionUsingProxy;
import com.snapconsult.xi.mapping.common.XIMapping;

/**
 * XI Mapping that posts the stream to the logging webserver.  The mapping then 
 * passes the data on to the output stream unaltered.
 *
 * @author Doug Culnane
 */
public class PostMessageStreamToWebserver extends XIMapping {

    public void doTransFormation(InputStream inputStream,
            OutputStream outputStream) throws Exception {

        // Read bytes to array.
        byte[] dataArray = new byte[inputStream.available()];
        for (int i = 0; i < dataArray.length; i++) {
            dataArray[i] = (byte) inputStream.read();
        }

        ConfigurationSingleton conf = ConfigurationSingleton.getInstance();

        if (conf.getPostMessages()) {
            HttpConnectionUsingProxy con = new HttpConnectionUsingProxy(
                    conf.getConfigValue(ConfigurationSingleton.CONF_PARAM_NAME_LOGGING_WEBSERVER_URL),
                    conf.getConfigValue(ConfigurationSingleton.CONF_PARAM_NAME_PROXY_HOST),
                    conf.getConfigValue(ConfigurationSingleton.CONF_PARAM_NAME_PROXY_PORT));

            con.post(dataArray);
        }
        for (int i = 0; i < dataArray.length; i++) {
            outputStream.write(dataArray[i]);
        }

    }
}

The server.


package com.snapconsult.xi.loggingwebserver;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.PrintStream;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;

import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;

public class Server {

    private static int requestCounter = 0;
    private static int port = 8888;
    private static boolean stopServer = false;
    
    public static final String DATA_FILE_FOLDER = "target/request-data";
    
    /**
     * @param args
     * @throws IOException 
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        
        if (args.length > 0) {
            try {
                port = Integer.valueOf(args[0]).intValue();
            } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
                System.out.println("Error setting port from command " +
                  "line argument: " + nfe.getMessage());
            }
        }
        
        ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket(port);
        
        while (!stopServer) {
            
            requestCounter++;
            Socket socket = serverSocket.accept();
            InputStream is = socket.getInputStream();
            BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
            String line = null;
            
            while (!stopServer && (line = in.readLine()) != null) {
                
                System.out.println(line);
                
                if (line.equals("")){
                    
                    StringBuffer base64Data = new StringBuffer();
                    while (!(line = in.readLine()).equals("") ) {
                        base64Data.append(line);
                    }
                    
                    byte[] data = Base64.decodeBase64(base64Data.toString().getBytes());
                    System.out.println(new String(data));
                    System.out.println();
                    
                    writeFileToDisk(data, requestCounter);
                    
                    break;
                }
            } 
            
            String response = ";-)";
            PrintStream out = new PrintStream(socket.getOutputStream());
            
            out.println("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");
            out.println("Server: Server");
            out.println("Content-Type: text/plain");
            out.println("Content-Length: " + response.length() + "\r\n");
            
            out.println(response);
            out.println();
            out.println();
            out.flush();
            out.close();
        
        }

        
    }

    private static void writeFileToDisk(byte[] data, int requestCounter) {
        
        File outDir = new File(DATA_FILE_FOLDER);
        if(!outDir.exists()) {
            outDir.mkdirs();
        }
        
        File dataFile = null;
        FileOutputStream fos = null;
        try {
            dataFile = new File(DATA_FILE_FOLDER + "/request-" + requestCounter + ".txt");
            fos = new FileOutputStream(dataFile , false);
            fos.write(data);
            fos.close();
            
            System.out.println("Written Data file: " + 
                    dataFile.getAbsolutePath()); 
            System.out.println();
            
        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
            System.out.println("FileNotFoundException: " + 
                    dataFile.getAbsolutePath());
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.out.println(e.getMessage());
            if (fos != null) {
                try {
                    fos.close();
                } catch (IOException e1) {
                    System.out.println(e1.getMessage());
                }
            }
        }
    }

    public static int getRequestCounter() {
        return requestCounter;
    }

    public static void setStopServer(boolean stopServer) {
        Server.stopServer = stopServer;
    }

}

I think that is about all the important bits of code you need to understand and build this or something similar yourself. So if you are a Java hacker you should be able to get this working, however this software is to be used at your own risk, so if it kills your cat or has some other undesired effect on your life it is not my fault. Here is some screen shots to show the results.

This shows the full archive contents. This jar file is built using Maven so I have all the advantages of Maven like source code management, quality reporting, test scope, project site.... However you should be able to use ANT or Eclipse or NetBeans to build a jar.

Here is some config. Note the PostToWebserver mapping sandwiches the real mapping so we get the before and after streams posted.

Here is the server console output running on my laptop. The server saves the 101010 streams to files in the target\request-data\ folder. The console displays the data but due to conole encoding you can not be sure that was is displayed is correct so always use the binary files for test samples.

If I try and do something stupid in a mapping like:

You get a nice stack trace on the server console.

XSLT is cool so I use this a lot for mappings, however I use a Java mapping to load the XSLT file and perform the transformation. This means I can JUnit test the XSLT mapping easily and catch any errors to my debug web server. I never use graphical mappings so I do not have to waste time defining and maintaining data structures. (This may sound stupid but data structures should be defined and documented at source as far as I am concerned. Is it really the end uses job to document and define a technical implementation provided by a supplier?) I use BPEL for process flow control, and the necessary XI Configuration etc...

The result of this methodic is I can do all my programming in my favorite environment and use test driven development for mappings. I can collect sample data from XI for my tests. I immediately see errors when they happen. I know exactly what is going on in XI and can fix it. I have a nice manageable maven project with a project website documenting project details. XI is used for what it does best which is piping messages around and controlling processes. Once the project if finished I can switch off the post with a simple config parameter. If I need to debug the productive environment I can switch it on temporarily on the productive server without affecting anything. This has transformed my work with XI from finding the stupid mistake to fixing the stupid mistake. Unfortunately I make a lot of stupid mistakes so this saves a lot of time.

So I think this is cool and it works great for me. The question is should I evolve this tool from a cool tool that works for me, to a tool that works for others? There is a lot of work to make a "Hello World" bit of code into a mature high quality, flexible tool that works in many environments and in many different ways but I think this could be worth doing.

So if I am the only Java geek that likes binary but hates clicky clicky then this will stay a quirky tool for a quirky programmer. However if you found this and got it working or would like to use this in your XI projects leave a comment. If you would like to contribute to an Open source project to develop this tool then please also leave a comment. If you have any feedback including negative comments please leave them. If you are an XI Programmer with an ABAP background and think this is all wrong and Java geeks should get the hell out of your domain then you are probably right so please also comment.

If you are a Moth sailor and are still reading this rubbish what the hell are you doing? I promise to post something interesting soon as I plan to go ice yachting for the first time tomorrow.

All the best,

Doug

Happy New Year.

2009-01-02T13:43:00.006+01:00

So far my New Year has been great. Kati and I spent the new years eve on the the top of a 12 story building in the middle of Vienna. I took the opportunity to pop the question, and luckily she said yes! The whole of Vienna then lit up with fireworks in celebration of the news.

So last year I bought the Pad, launched the Lord Flashheart, and got the girl. Lord Flash would be proud. Woof Woooof.

Speed Sailing.

2008-12-07T14:50:00.003+01:00

If you have not seen this yet check it out:

The boat's concept is really clever and different. Maybe the idea of removing all the heeling moment rubbish is worth pursuing in the Moth...

You can prove anything with statistics.

2008-12-05T16:44:00.003+01:00

A month ago I integrated Google Analytics into the IMCA site. This was a tip from Bruce and Tom. It gives a nice report of the website usage and hits etc... One thing that it shows is that the UK is wining the internet Mothing race with Australia in second. (one up for the poms at last.)

We get about 300 visits a day form all over the world and most people just check the blog and news lists. So it does not really surprise me. However I am surprised that I am not the only Internet Mother in Austria!

2% of the visitors are from iPhones. At the worlds John Harris complained that the site did not work with his iPhone. I blamed the iPhone for not having an XSLT parser built into the HTML rendering engine. (If anyone complains about my software I can normally confuse then enough so they leave me alone.) However I have changed the way the site is rendered (I no longer use client site xslt...) so this should work now. However if anyone could send me an iPhone so that I can test this properly for a year or two that would be great, and I promise not to microwave it.

If others want to click thought the Google Analytics reports then send me your blogger username/email and I should be able to add you to the list of people that can view the report.

Keeping Whisper quiet.

2008-12-02T16:23:00.002+01:00

"the first the carbon fibre wing mast for the 'whisper' International moth class project"

http://compositecomponents.blogspot.com/2008/12/busy-times.html

Somebody is busy and keeping quiet about it but I have spies everywhere.

3 Boats in 12 sqm.

2008-11-29T18:06:00.002+01:00

We got 3 moths in the workshop today for some small repairs and modifications etc... It is a bit of a squeeze but it work out great.

The plan is to get all 3 in super working order so that next season we can concentrate on sailing and doing regattas. Not messing about with boats and rigging and trailers and covers and plodders and trolleys and wands and foils and ropes and....

Blog worlds update on behalf of Andrew (No Blog) Brown

2008-11-19T15:21:00.001+01:00

Well we have been asked to do an update on the blog worlds...

The new every exciting blog site on the IMCA page has made our lives
easier as judges and by this fact alone Doug is ranking high on the
list...

Luka is doing awesomely and we are just waiting for him to "rark" up
Bora about the AUS nationals then scores will go through the roof!!!
Pity about that music - starting a new job sitting near the IT
department with the music going full on still isn't a good thing - but
it is all in aid of research I suppose.

The recent spat about elitism within the Sydney sailors is a good story
and leading the charge as usual is Scott, Scott is a master of stirring
the pot just the right amount...

Bruce has been doing some amazing things and am loving all the ideas
that Phil has on his site.

Then we have the little man in England Simon, I have a little offended
of late with all the photos and renderings of his Penis and Nose
though....

Chris over there in Dubai is still ranting and raving - very
entertaining especially when he's forgotten to take his medication it
adds to the whole "madness"

The Moth Chronicles by Karl have gone a little quiet lately and only a
ting post of late so looking forward to more effort from this area.

This has left Joe and his History, Geography, political and life lessons
blog - very in depth and lots of it

The scoring right now is very close and in true Hollywood style no
scores will be let out until the final whistle the second to last day of
the Moth Sailing World Champs

Andrew Brown

Shameless plug

2008-11-17T20:26:00.002+01:00

I do not believe in shameless plugs but here is one that is worthy. A mate of mine has set up this site and frankly it is damn good. I gave him some advice which luckily he ignored and the result is impressive. It is a database of days out for animal lovers. So check it out:

http://www.animalvisit.com/

I especially love the map that you can zoom in on. I told him it would be too complicated but as I said luckily he ignored my advice.

Fat boy slim

2008-11-17T19:05:00.003+01:00

Check out my girls:

They are both getting fixed up for next season. One however is a bit heaver than the other. After 15 years of development less is definitely more.

I am very happy that the Flashheart has gone down under and that Nick Flutter will hopefully do the next iteration of the design. This is why I wanted to do a GPL boat so that the design can evolve and bounce around. I hope to build the next iteration of Nicks design one day but for now I just want to get my girls in shape.

Moth Training.

2008-11-07T16:27:00.003+01:00

There was the idea to make a Moth training video DVD but it never happened. Rohan proposed that we should do a Training page on the IMCA site and embed YouTube videos. This I think is a great idea but unfortunately no one has got round to implementing it.

I will post up a Training page on the IMCA site but I need content. So if you have a video or some text that you wish to contribute please send me a mail. Training can be sailing techniques, rigging, launching, repairing, building your own CNC machine, how to down the tiller of doom, how to set up a blog... Content can be YouTube video, pictures and/or text, and without copy right complications.

You do not have to be an ex-world champion to contribute because the training should be for different levels from first low riding experience, to advanced racing and boat tuning. I am not going to set up a predefined table of contents because I will publish whatever I get (within reason), so please contribute what interests you, and I will try to pull it together in to a structure, so short videos on one point will be easier to structure and merge than a 10 min video trying to cover everything.

So lets see what evolves.

Blogs, Press, Sewing machines and bits.

2008-11-04T22:16:00.006+01:00

My people have been inundated with feedback about the new Blog Aggregator, which was 100% positive. I have fixed the network performance issues by making it update every hour so it should mostly be fast. Therefore my people have advised me to go live ASAP which I have done. Although it is hard for me to thank all the people personally for their feedback I will do it: Thanks Alan and Joe.

The Moth site did get 2700 unique users a day during the last worlds so there is a lot of users out there, however with all the rss feeds most of them are probably now computers. Unfortunately the log file is too large to download and analyse at 1.3 GB so I do not know.

I will not be writing about Austrian politics any more. There are well known Austrian comics making light of Haiders death and they have had to cancel their tour due to the threats made against them. As far as I am concerned Haider was a great man on the way home to his family after being in a cool night club when he tragically died in an accident as reported in the press here. He was certainly NOT pissed out his head driving at twice the speed limit when he overtook an car and smashed himself up in the tax payers car he was driving on the way home for a gay night club having been in a fight with his toy boy who happens to be the number too in his political party. This information as reported in the foreign press in incorrect.

I am really disappointed that some people "now" misunderstand that he was maybe gay friendly as he will me remembered as this and not for his responsible well thought through policies to the difficult issues of cultural integration.

One problem with my political misunderstandings is they have little to do with Moths. So for those Haider fans that are still reading I got very disappointed today because I visited a sewing machine shop and showed then bits of an old windsurfing sail and some sample sailmaker thread. The idea was their 600 EURO heavy duty domestic machine would handle this and so I could make covers tramps and foil bags for the 2 moths I own. However the guy there said no way and I am looking at 2000 EURO for a second hand machine if I am lucky. So my plan to kit out 2 boats, cut down an old Moth sail for a storm sail, and make the boom end loss stopper thing this winter are over.

I had a great sail on Saturday as Niki and I enjoyed a force 2 to 4 warm wind. It was beautiful flying around an empty flat lake. However I decided that was the was to end the season and packing up my boat I saw that the rudder, that was broken by the delivery monkeys, has cracked again. This is probably a result of the contact with the ground and the fact that it is had to get the core glued back together again once it is cracked. So I think I have a to stick a new horizontal on the rudder this winter.

Moving into winter mode I spent most of Sunday de rigging 2 boats and storing them in the workshop. I will spend the winter getting then in good working order for next season and then I hope to sell my old boat so we have another sailor here and I can get rid of some of the huge number of Moth bits I seam to have.

Not sure if this is a good idea.

2008-11-03T21:48:00.003+01:00

I have been playing and got a Blog Aggregator sort of working. Please go easy on this page and give me feedback. I am not sure if I will link this in as it is a bit network resource intensive.

Got google maps integrated into a very empty event page. Event detail pages should get more detailed later.

I am tired having spent 1 hour fixing a problem I created for myself.

Note to self: do NOT upgrade libs if you do not need to. Still it is better than the time I got pissed and deleted the whole database by mistake.... woops I was not supposed to tell anyone that.

exit

No faith in democracy only Darwin.

2008-10-17T22:44:00.005+01:00

I has been a bad political month in Austria. The 2 far right parties managed to get a third of the votes (luckily they had so much in-fighting that they spilt a few years ago into two parties or they would be very powerful now). Their Nationalistic Social campaign and message that they would fight for Austria and Austrians was very popular and attracted a lot of voters that were feed up with the the 18 month old failed coalition. Then a week ago Jörg Haider, who has been a key figure in far right Austrian politics for many years, entered the Darwin awards.

Jörg was supposed to be clever and the original National Social leader but I think Hitler beat him to it. He got pissed and drove over twice the speed limit at 3 in the morning on a foggy night which does not really strike me as that clever or even original. Luckily he only killed himself and did not take out anyone else, when he crashed.

The last time I heard Jörg talk it was on the radio and he was explaining that there was a court case in his home town where a male Muslim teacher would not touch a girl because she was dirty. So he made the point that this is not the kind of culture Austria should tolerate, and I totally agree, but it was obviously not tolerated or there would not have been a court case. I assume that if this Muslim had imprisoned the girl in a cellar and repeatedly raped her over a period of decades, like 2 Austrians men that there are court cases about in the last year, then there would be not course for cultural integration concern and fear.

Speaking as an foreigner in this beautiful land it is hard to feel like the root of Austira's problems. I pay my taxes here and the UK paid for the education that Austria profits from. However there are other non Christian (for the record I am a Jedi Knight) foreigners that are having a negative impact on Austria apparently. All I know is this cultural diversity has lead to my favourite food: Kebab Pizza.

It is interesting to watch politics in the US where anyone can be president (but it seams to help if your Dad or husband was once president). It looks like Gorge Bush may go down in history for the biggest positive impact on the environment by sending the world into global recession. The hard fact is that we are a parasite on this planet and doing stuff cost resources. If we want to preserve resources then we need to stop doing stuff. This goes against all our principles of day to day living and the only thing that will slow us down is lack of credit. So maybe Gorge is the ultimate Hippy, and not just some dumb cowboy.

So democracy seems like the worst form of government apart from all the rest. I am angry and frustrated that such stupidity can be tolerated as main stream politics. However there is a greater force that Democracy called Darwinism.

Releasing the IMCA website Editroial Power (only slightly).

2008-10-16T19:03:00.005+01:00

There is a new feature on the IMCA website, that allows Members to submit news links to go on the home page. You must log in and if you are an active member you get a link in the Members tool bar to "Add News". You then enter a country, title and Website URL and hit save. I then get an email and will approve the item to go on line, unless it is really not appropriate.

The idea is to let IMCA members suggest new links so it is not just down to me and my opinion about what is news. However I want to retain some kind of editorial control and so I have introduced an approval step in the process. Maybe I am being uptight but there is so much SPAM on the web that I think it is a good idea to start with atleast.

I still intend to spend every waking moment trawling thought the internet to give you the latest and greatest Moth news highlights, but I also want to try to introduce a bit of power to the people so that the website becomes more than just my personal view of the Moth sphere. This is something I will no doubt later regret.

Coming soon will be the ability to add new Moth events. These then go in the events database and are available in the iCal files and Google Calendar etc... At the moment this works (sort of) but I need to think about who can enter new events, Members or Committee members? Can you edit the event after it has been created? etc...

Also there will be a boats for Sale database integrated in to the site at some point but I need to again think about data management and control... Erwan has set up something at http://mothforsale.free.fr/ so the pressure if off to get this on-line ASAP.

I also want to make the event pages and data management better. This will tie in the people, boats and events with results. It then should be possible to build up personal profiles (and maybe a seeding) for each sailor (and boat) based on their results. Again this is something I will no doubt later regret.

Class War.

2008-10-03T19:32:00.005+01:00

I am as middle class as they get, because I always finish in the middle of the fleet although each time I have done an event I have improved my boat speed dramatically.

I started in the middle class when I was 18 in a Magnum 5 that was twice as wide as everyone else narrow boat. I got beaten by kids my age in new Magnum 9, and Axemans etc... OK they were good sailors but how could I compete with their hardware? (Interestingly 20 years later one of these kids was complaining about a kid who had been bought a brand new boat by daddy.)

I had out growen the Magnum 5 so got a second hand Gentleman Jim and then I begged and borrowed to build my own modern Moth. I used both these boats to come in the middle of the fleet again in the early 90s. The boat I build in 93 I got back into to come in the middle of the fleet in 2005 in a lowrider and then in the middle of the fleet as a foiler 2006. I dramatically improved the set up and reliability to come in the middle of the fleet again in 2007. I built a brand new boat to come in the middle of the fleet again this year. Some people are born winners, some loosers,
I am born to be middle class.

I would love to be World Champion, however as the Moth stakes rise the commitment to win does too. You need Money, new gear, to travel lots, training partners, a coach, spares, shore based boat repair and support crew and you have to spend hours and hours on the water no matter what the weather is. Whether the guys that are putting this level of commitment together are professional or not is hard to say but for sure they are putting in am impressive performance.

All I know is that in my line of work it is important to have fun, and that is why I am in this fleet. To me that means some good racing, building some cool boats and some good mates to play with. It is fun to be part of the Moth fleet and to meet up (in reality and virtually) with
old and new friends. After all the boats are the star of the show not some ego that just won a race (unless I win a race of course).

So since I am bound to come in the middle of the fleet I can only hope that the standard of the fleet continues to improve, so that I can too. I do not think a 2 tier system is good for the racing or atmosphere and how do you split the the professionals from the amateurs, and the rich from the poor, and the young from the old and the fit from the unfit and the people that have done some training from the guys that launched the boat at the event.

The fleet is a group and there is more than one star. Without the crazy prototypes that turn up, the new ideas, the hard working committee members and event organizers, the tiller of doom, saluting the squadron leader and top gun quotes it would not be so much fun. If the only thing we as members can appreciate, is the guy that won, then we are reading too much of our own publicity and should go to an event and have a curry, beer and laugh with the Middle class because that is what it is about for the majority.

I think every Moth sailor has to know what they are wanting to archive in the Moth fleet and set their own realistic personal goals and ambitions. If you are frustrated because you get beaten by some dick that has bought, or got given a new boat that is faster than you then "Harden the Fuck up". In this world money and success are closely linked. Being talented and hard working is not enough, and life aint fair. If you really want to win then you need more commitment, talent and resources than everyone else or you need to make sure you have a smile on your face at the end of the day.

Electronic Foil Control Systems.

2008-09-24T20:31:00.003+01:00

I was one of the teenagers that used to read about Clive Everest and his Ghoul Moths in sailing magazines. I sailed a UK Moth Nationals against him in one of them once when I was 18 and in a Magnum 5. However this was many moons ago. Anyway Clive has got a Electronic Foil Control Systems working. I found out on this on the Sailing Anarchy Dinghy forum.

Why is this worth blogging about? Well I always thought the idea of electronic control systems would be good because you can easily get the acceleration of the system in to the control and not just a proportional control. I think electronics have the potential to really push the control to the next level. They have the ability to know if the boat is going up or down and how fast. The present systems just know how hight it is now. The cost of such systems is potentially high but the complexity of them is nothing compared to the electronics in everyone's car, video, lift, wrist watch, fridge or electronic toothbrush.

I have done fuck all about developing this but Chris Miller produced a nice paper on it and there has been a few forum posts about it.

It is also not legal in the Moth but who cares, as I think this will be the future. You can configure a easy to control system increase righting moment by moving lift down to leeward, have sport or learner modes....

Anyway watch this space... as I think it will be interesting.

Nature 1 - Moth Sailors 0

2008-09-21T10:54:00.002+01:00

Both Niki and I very disappointed with our show down yesterday.

The water level in the lake dropped 20 cm in the last 2 weeks. So that is 16000 * 3000 * 0.2 = nearly 10 million tons of water gone somewhere and no one seams to know where! This meant there was contact with the ground launching, tacking and nosediving.

It did not look that windy with the offshore / cross-shore wind but it was and gusty. It was too windy to tack without capsizing and we were nosediving down wind. It was 10 deg so it was also cold.

So Both Niki and I did not take long to bail out and head for shore. Staying out till something broke or got hurt seamed massachistic. We whimped out and showed that Moths are silly boats to sail. This is the wrong message to send and we should be able to sail round the course and could have had fun doing so. However it was not fun and with the boat hitting the ground regularly it could have been very expensive. If there was 10 knots less wind then it would have been easy with no ground contact, and we could have had a great day racing each other and a fleet of F18 cats.

So that was another year of Moth racing in Austria without starting a single race in Austria (half the races at the worlds and half of them at Ammersee). So next years target is to try and get local racing working. On a positive note the target of less time in the workshop and more on the water is meet this season for the first time since I started Moth sailing again in 2004.

Building a fleet here means building infrastructure too. We have the workshop sorted and nearly got the Moth trailer sorted. We have sorted the training and had a great time doing short races. We have 2 sorted boats that do not break after every sail. The next stage of Moth development in Austira is to get the racing sorted and help a bigger fleet develop.

So maybe that was the end of this season. Now I am starting to focus on the workshop and getting 3 boats in good racing condition for next season. I will then hopefully find a buyer for Tomahawk so that we have 3 boats in the area.

I am not sure if I will do the worlds next year as I think I would rather use my money for travelling locally to do events in Germany, Italy, Croatia, Switzerland and maybe even finish a race in Austria.

The show down.

2008-09-18T21:17:00.002+01:00

I guess I should blog about the Mach 2, Prowler, Raptor, Aardvark and the new Bladerider series and builder but I do not know too much about any of them. However I think that each will offer different stuff to different people and the amount of interest in the Moth class at the moment means there is space for all, so the more the merrier. I wish good luck to them all, but there can be only one winner, if you measure the boat on world championship results. However I did not buy an Opal Astra 1.6 Estate because it won the F1 world championships, so I guess people should choose what is good for them. The only problem is working out what is important to you. However right now I feel really good about my Lord Flashheart.

Been hacking away on the IMCA website. I have imported data on 179 boats which members can now search. I am trying to build a replacement 2nd hand boat market which has died. If I get it right it will feed the database with data on boats and provide a real benefit for membership to the IMCA and its paid up members. So I have data structures to worry about and can build something that will be totally logical to me. However I did this with membership and no one gets it... I will write a HowTo at some point but first I want to help provide an answer to why. I am trying to get Phil to present my chaos in a way that users will get so we will see what is the result is...

I managed to fix my flap by cutting up a shackle pin to make a new barrel and going to 4 shops to get a 2.5 mm thread tap. I had no filler and carbon at home so in the attitude of Gui I used cotton wool and a lolly pop stick. The repair worked great but there is a lolly pop stick stuck to my flap which is not too fast. I tested it 2 weeks ago and it was fine. However I was out alone on an offshore wind that built to much so I bailed out and had to carry my boat 200m back through the shallow waters.

This Saturday is the big Austria Moth Saturday. Niki and I are going to do the MultiHull Cup race at Weiden YC. This will hopefully be the first proper foiling Moth Race in Austria that I know about. We both have a hull and so that makes us multihulls if we team up. There will be a few F18 cats to try and beat and a party afterwards. Perfect.

It will be a show down between old Moth experience and new Moth talent. I have never been beaten by Niki in a race that I have finished. However he has finished more races than me due to his determination and because he hides my car keys. Therefore he has beaten me in the 2 Moth regattas that we have done in Germany and the UK. This is my chance to show that the old Moth experience is worth more than the young upstart talent. So I will be taking a spare car key, but I hope this is my last realistic chance at the title of Austria Number one and that the Austrian fleet grows.

Alp Dream Team

2008-09-15T14:15:00.004+01:00

Albtraum is nightmare in German. So we dressed up as the Dream Team from the Alps for the Sergio Fonseca Touch Rugby Tournament.

We won the important fancy dress competition and all our games so we drew level overall with the Mexican bandits. They also won all their games and won the team spirit award. (So Tequila is a better spirit than schnapps)...

Heidi lost her rag (must be that time of the month) with Kletter Max when he would not sub off, but we managed to make friends again. Heidi was very proud of her son when he hung in there and scored an awesome try against the Mexican bandits.

All and all the tournament can only be described as an amazing sporting spectacle.

Big Moth performance gains are obvious.

2008-09-10T22:28:00.003+01:00

One area where there must be a huge drag and potential performance gain is the vortex under the sail. I have not done the maths but ... we twist the sails and so the grunt comes from low down in strong winds. Sails are nice elliptical profiles on the way up but the bottom is definitely not. We use loads of downhaul to flatten and feather the top like a windsurfer, but that does not help the bottom which is doing all the work. So there must be a huge vortex under the sail and around the boom that is pure drag. Our smart windsurfing friends who have similar sails rake the rig back to close this gap.

So we have a 3.3 meter long boat and 2m wide sail so there should be room to cross the boat International Canoe style with the sail on the deck but we need a radical configuration change. Maybe we can do a tramp that goes between the sail and boom from wing bar to wing bar but then how do you tack....?

Also it is a bloody stupid idea to have the centre of lift in the centre of the boat. Why hike so hard when we could double the effective width of the boat. Once we are up we only need a small foil to stay up and why not put that down to leeward as there is plenty of power in the rig?

So while the corporations are working away on the next generation of Moths that will be faster (and bloody good luck to them), I thought it was time to try to see if it was possible to see if an open community discussion could work to get the boats to the next level. Moth performance has always been boosted by bloody obvious ideas like:
- Why not make the boats lighter by using materials with better structural properties.
- Why not make the boat wider with simple hiking racks.
- Why not make hulls lighter and less drag by making them narrower.
- Why not fly above the water on hydrofoils.

So why not move the centre of lift to leeward and reduce the vortex drag under the sail? The only problem is how and how?