As a Brit you can not help being motivated by the success that GB are having at the Olympics. So here is a rundown of my personal international sporting preparation...
Alfred has been busy in the Bat Cave and Lord Flashheart is nearly repaired. A big thanks to 2 people that contacted me with tips on where to get carbon tubes at short notice. This kind of camaraderie demonstrates to me how cool the the Moth fleet is. Aardvark delivered a new mast boom and replacement tubes so I am sorted (nearly). A new Hyde sail arrived too so if everything fits together I will be blisteringly fast at the worlds in my 4 year old boat (maybe).
The Bat Cave is turning into a disaster. It is about 16 degrees down there and a humid 35 outside so the ventilation means I am pumping water down there and the high humidity means everything is going moldy and there are puddles of condensation on the floor. This is really disappointing because a winters work is potentially wasted and the space unusable. However I think I will have to buy a dehumidifier and stop the ventilation in summer at least. It is really disappointing that the answer to making the space work is to throw energy at the problem, but that is how we humans solve a lot of problems...
On a side note I have decided to start a new blog for all the bike stuff. This is because I did not think it fair to hijack the Moth audience for my political rants. However if you are interested (as a surprisingly large number of Moth sailors seem to be) here is the blog address:
crowize-vienna.blogspot.co.at. I will blog here about the bat-mobile project which you can see Alfred is progressing extremely slowly.
Manfred will deliver materials to Garda so I will hopefully be able to get Alfred to concentrate on this project this winter (once he has fixed the humidity problem...).
Touch Rugby continues as we train for the Euros which are shortly after the Moth worlds. Despite captaining the
A-Team to victory in the Austrian league this year I am learning that I am getting too old for touch. The brain now knows what should be done but the body does not do is fast enough. Here is a great video of our team (with me (Nr. 8) wondering what the fuck is going on) at the Worlds against The Cook Islands last summer.
I look forward to seeing a lot of you in Garda. I will arrive on Saturday midday and hope to get the new rig working sail measured and a few beers drunk before Mondays racing start. I have only really raced at the German nationals since the Euros 2 years ago so my training has been streamlined. Therefore it will be a challenge to retain my "always come in the middle of the fleet" title.