Code name "Moin Moin."

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

Billy the Fish

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.

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.

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

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

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.