Worlds Review.

I had 3 weeks of holiday which started with the Moth Worlds, so I have been off-line for a while. I was unable to update the results on the IMCA Moth site. I am sorry about this because we had 444 visitors a day in June! http://www.moth-sailing.org/statistics/...! I have now caught up with nearly all my email and so I thought I should do a Blog.

The worlds was great. I was a lot windier than I thought it would be. This lead to a lot of breakages as the fleet was not really prepared for the wind and chop. I rigged and went out in the building wind to get some practice in and see if the boat was set up right. After 5 mins the main foil snapped where it comes out of the boat! Luckily I had ordered a new FastaCraft foil for my new boat so I was able to rig this with a few small modifications to the wand and mountings.

My confidence in the boat was very low. In Denmark I had had lots of breakages and problems. I had one windy sail in Austria since then and broke a wing bar. I have just broken a main foil. The wind here looks like it will be lots all week. Some how I was not a pissed off as I should have been because I can not be pissed off for long at lake Garda it is just such a great place to be.

I stated trying to do the races with the new main foil. Due to a total lack of confidence I was not going to try to do anything too heroic, just get round in one bit. The first practice race I did I was lapped by the leaders on my first Lap! The boat was clearly not set up well. I had some help from fellow Mothies and managed to improve the boat so much that I was then getting lapped at the end of my second lap. That makes me twice as fast. I am the Mr 100%.

With the few small modifications to my wand and control system the boat was transformed and I could actually start racing. I was still a bit careful and so I retired if it got too windy or at the first sight of breakage. As the week when on my confidence in the boat grew and I really started to enjoy the racing. I had only minor problems and no further breakages.

In the end I finished 35th out of 63 which I am very happy about. I had a great time as the Moth sailors were really good fun, (saluting at every opportunity...). It was great to chat to other sailors and explain the boat behavior. They gave me tips how to improve it, and so I learnt so much about the foils.


(Picuture by Oskar Kihlborg)

I also had help about what to drink when sailing which eliminated my cramps! This was great because my fitness was not a big problem as I predicted. The biggest problem was sailing the boats which I was learning fast.

As for my predictions about the event.

"The differentiators will be how well the boat is set up which will mean there will be a mix of Hungry Tigers, Mistresses, Prowlers and Bladeriders in the top 10."

This was right but I picked the wrong winner. It was windier than I thought and Rohan is the best Moth sailor in a big wind. I was also surprised how much Andrew had managed to improve the Bladerider. The two together were unbeatable.

I think now the importance of set up is top of the list of all sailors. Having a boat to sail against and test set up with is very important. I am pleased that an Austria fleet is taking shape so I hope I will be able to be better prepared next year. However I hope to finish the build of my new boat, do the IMCA database project, and maybe buy a flat so I will be busy.

Austrian Fleet is GO! No more underestimations.

It looks like we will have an active Hydrofoil Moth Fleet in Austria after the Worlds. Or two boats at least. The report I wrote 2 weeks ago for Austria was supposed to be optimistic, but it turned out to be very conservative. I am so pleased that sailing against other boats may not mean a drive across Europe.

It seams like the Moth Class is gathering momentum faster and faster than anyone could predict, (and there have been some what seamed like outrageous predictions). Are we seeing the start of a new sport like kite surfing? If we are then it means bringing the Moth to the masses, which is part of what the Bladerider is trying to do. (I think but it is not too clear to me.)

If the masses are to sail Moths then we will have to see if they are ready for it. There is a big difference between a Moth and a normal production boat. The amount of material in the layup is totally different. There is no way to make a competitive Moth as robust as a Laser. So if masses of people are to get into hydrofoiling then they have to evolve to be able to handle these racing machines. Maybe this is what is happening.

Maybe what is happening is the same thing that happened with Asymmetric spinnakers, trapeze boats, planing hulls, aluminum masts, plywood... If it is we will see 20 different one design production hydrofoil boats popping up soon. This will give people the benefit of one design racing, where you can race in a handicap fleet of 20 very different boats, and be held to ransom by your one supplier...

In the mean time the Moth is continuing to show where it is at. Check out the worlds preview there will be around 70 boats from 15 different countries. http://www.moth-sailing.org/worlds/2007_italy.xml There are loads of new boats, and designs. A lot of the boats are very different, I can not wait to go round the boat park with my tape measure, and camera.

If you still do not think the Moth is on a big hype mode at the moment check the IMCA site stats at: http://www.moth-sailing.org/statistics/. These always peak around the worlds but lets see how much they peak around these worlds.

My boat is repaired and I think she is better prepared for the racing than me. I can not wait to go down to Garda at the end of next week.

Worlds Preview.

OK so everyone is at it so what about a worlds preview. Here are my thoughts leading up to the event.

I think for the first time Rohan made a claim that was an underestimated. ;-) He said there would be 60 boats at the worlds, but there will be around 70. There is a lot of new kit out there too. There are of course the Bladeriders which and leaving the factory as fast as they can but also Fastacraft are knocking boats out at a surprising rate. It is exciting times for the Moth and the Worlds will be a really great event.

As for who is going to win. My money is on Simon Payne. It will be a big fleet of boats with a lot of guys who have a chance to get to the windward mark first off a crowded start line. Therefore transitional big fleet skills could do it. This is where I think Simon is going to have the edge over Rohan. However Rohan's boat handling is amassing and in the big breeze of Torbole his determination could grind down the competition. So It will be very close.

There is also a lot of other guys that are on form and getting close to the top. I think that the first 10 will be racing together not just the first 3 as it has been for the last 2 big events. We could see some surprise performances, as there are a lot of new boats and riders.

Which boat will prove to be better? The Prowler will be more reliable because this is a refined bit of kit and very well made. I think the Bladerider will be close on quality but does not have the maturity that the Prowler has. The Bladerider is a newer design and does not have the "old fashioned" prowler freeboard but I suspect the difference in weight is neglagible. The differentiators will be how well the boat is set up which will mean there will be a mix of Hungry Tigers, Mistresses, Prowlers and Bladeriders in the top 10.

The middle of the fleet will be getting lapped before they complete the second lap showing that there are big gains in boat speed from small setup and skill differences, and for most of us it does not matter what boat you have.

A lot of beer will be drunk and it will be windy and sunny every day with the wind changing direction at midday.

I will leave Trobole having had a great sail and frustrated trying to compete with boats that are 10 younger than mine. However I hope to get a few bits of racing in before my body and/or boat say we have had enough for the day.

I have 3 free days before I leave for Garda to throw carbon at the boat and pack it and my windsurfing gear on to the car. I can not wait to get there.

What was going through my head when it broke? Nearly the rudder!

Saturday was an interesting day...

The forecast was for yet another light wind drift but there was a chance of a force 3 in the morning. So we made an early start to try to catch the wind before it died. After rigging etc a solid force 4 gusting 5 was blowing and the sun shone. Perfect Garda training conditions...

I launched and sailed out very slowly and very upright because if the boat healed too much I hit the bottom... Once far enough from land 200m I started to sit out, sheet in bear away to see if I could get the first flight in Austria.



She flew. I had her under control but I needed to really fight to keep the upper hand. After a minute of reaching I had to stop to have a rest. Wow this was hard work. I have worked on my fitness with squash and touch rugby but I need to work on my upper body strength. My arms we starting to cramp after 15 mins. This was a battle that I was not ready to fight for 6 hours so I realized that Garda is going to be hard at best.



I was not really confident to sheet in and go for it but trying to keep the power steady and the boat in a straight line. Delicate smooth and nothing aggressive. There is so much power in the rig that it was hard to use it. This is where the modern Moth floppy headed sails mush have an advantage, because they seam to lock in to the wind and provide drive for low drag rather than exponential power, and drag.



Maybe the boat is not set up right, maybe it is my technique, probably it is both. I am a long way from ready for a World Championship. However the sun is shining and the camera boat is there so it is time to show off.




FUCK.

Amazingly Kati caught this moment when the rear wing bar went. The load on the boat is much higher than in the lowriding days due to the dynamic loads which I had underestimated. A joining collar that Adam and i had improvised in the Garda boat park at the Euros 2005 had split and gone.

Waiting for rescue I had time to contemplate my situation. I was a long way from being race repaired at Garda and have one free weekend before I leave. This free weekend will be spent throwing carbon at all possible breakage points of the boat. The Garda worlds looks like a repeat of the Denmark worlds where I will not complete half the races due to boat work issues. Getting a fleet going in Austria will be hard because I am the only one stupid enough to sail on a lake shallow enough to destroy the boat. Without a fleet to train with it will be hard to ever get out of this isolated no mans land where I have to reinvent every thing. The cost per fighting minute is about the same a Concorde. I have one old uncompetitive boat, an other with the build started and a pile of expensive materials. I still need to spend a lot of cash to finish the second boat. I have a workshop fitted out for building Moths with a Monthly cost. Going to Moth Events means driving to the other side of Europe. Meanwhile others train every weekend or full time in new boats from builders who have refined their construction to near perfection. I put so much into this and I am not getting close to getting much back. I am cold I have cuts, bruises and I am about 1 km away from dry land.

Basically Moth sailing is hard and it pushes the limits. If you push the limits you have to be prepared to find them. Maybe this is where i should say stop the madness and kick this bad habit?

On the positive side I think that Kati got one of the most amassing Moth pictures. I can fix my boat relatively easily. My Garmin is one of the only water prof ones (as it was underwater for over an hour) and it showed a matched personal best of 20.4 knots. I it great fun to go an splash about and it was fun flying while it lasted. I have meet some cool people thought Moth sailing and Thanks to Martin, Niki and Kati for their support and help.

I will get back on the horse and ride again, even if it is a bucking bronco. Maybe I can learn to set her up and sail better so than I can fly more consistently upwind. Maybe then I can do a bit of racing at Garda. There are possible technical solutions to the water dept problem.

I would not miss Garda for the world, and I am looking forward to a great event and meeting up with some great people again. I think I just have to lower my expectations about competing. It is the taking part that counts as many losers say but Moth sailing is a part of me.

The Winds Gods are laughing again.

Last weekend the was a 4bf-6bf all weekend and all week the wind has been good, unfortunately I had no Moth time. Thursday was a holiday and it was blowing 5bf in the morning. Finally some flying time looked likely. So Martin and I headed to Weiden to hook up with Niki. As we arrived the wind started to drop and by the time we launched there was none.

Niki is a cat sailor so I was not expecting much light wind Moth balancing skills from him. However I quickly realized balancing is his thing as he rode 200m on one wheel of his mountain bike and showed me his model helicopter that he flies upside down...!

The wind filled in a bit and there were a few nice gusts so we all got a bit of a sail. However unfortunately there was not quite enough wind to get the boat up in the air.

Launching at Weiden was easy as it gets deep(1.4m) fast so we could carry the boat in with the foils locked in position. There is less silt so the bottom is harder. I am not sure if this is good or bad yet...



It was a fun day but that first flight since Denmark is still escaping me so my Garda preparation is about as good as my preparation for Denmark...

On the plus side it gave Martin and Niki enough practice to are able to sail around in light winds with no real problems so they should be able to control the boat when the wind Gods stop pissing around. Of course I am back a work today and there is a steady 4bf...

JPA Maven 2 Hibernate HSQL Test Database.

whatadorkiam posted exactly the article I wanted but it did not work with JPA. After some messing about I got it to work so here is HowTo set up your Maven 2 JPA Hibernate projects so your unit tests run on the test (in-memory) HSQL Database.

Why is this a good idea? Because your test database is always rebuilt for your unit tests but your configured hibernate connection for you installation is left alone. You can build the project and run all tests without installing a database server.

cat src/main/resources/META-INF/persistence.xml
<persistence>
 <persistence-unit name="MyPersistence">
  <description>MySQL Database<description>
  <properties>
     <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class" 
         value="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver">
     <property name="hibernate.dialect" 
         value="org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect" />
     <property name="hibernate.connection.url" 
         value="jdbc:mysql://localhost/myDataBase" />
     <property name="hibernate.connection.username" 
         value="myuser" />
     <property name="hibernate.connection.password" 
         value="mypass" />
     <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" 
         value="update" />
  </properties>
 </persistence-unit>
</persistence>


cat src/test/resources/META-INF/persistence.xml
<persistence>
 <persistence-unit name="MyPersistence">
  <description>HSQL Temp Test Database<description>
  <!-- 
      This is not good but the only way I got JPA Annotations 
      to work.  YOu have to list your Entity Classes.  :-/
  --> 
  <class>my.package.model.entities.AddressEntity</class>
  <class>my.package.model.entities.PersonEntity</class>
  <class>my.package.model.entities.XyzEntity</class>
  ...
  <properties>
   <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class" 
         value="org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver" />
   <property name="hibernate.dialect" 
         value="org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect" />
   <property name="hibernate.connection.url" 
         value="jdbc:hsqldb:mem:MyDataBase" />
   <property name="hibernate.connection.username" 
         value="sa" />
   <property name="hibernate.connection.password" 
         value="" />
   <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" 
         value="update" />
  </properties>
 </persistence-unit>
</persistence>


cat pom.xml
  ...
  <!-- Hibernate -->
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
      <artifactId>hibernate-entitymanager</artifactId>
      <version>3.2.1.ga</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>mysql</groupId>
      <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
      <version>5.0.5 </version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>hsqldb</groupId>
      <artifactId>hsqldb</artifactId>
      <version>1.8.0.7</version>
      <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    ...

Touched Up on the Radio.

Hi! If you have time to listen to Fm4 at (roughly) 13.40 today there is a short feature about touch rugby. The frequency is 103.8 and you can listen on-line http://fm4.orf.at/ if you click on "stream" right at the top of the page.



Chris has also done an FM4 Website Article