New IMCA Mobile Home Page

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

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

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.

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Team Austria on the road to the Italian Nationals

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.

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

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!

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!

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... ;-)