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.
Monday, 22 June 2009
Monday, 15 June 2009
On TV
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.
So you can watch it here. We are on 15 mins in to the show.
Tomahawk for Sale
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
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
Saturday, 13 June 2009
The price of fame and foutune
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.
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.
Friday, 12 June 2009
15 mins of pain
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!
So I am off to shit myself on national television!
Monday, 8 June 2009
The life of an international sportsman(?)...
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 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.
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