Thursday 18 September 2008

The show down.

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.

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