International Sporting

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.

German Open Nationals Walchensee

Niki and I went to the beautiful Walchensee for the German Open Nationals.  Team Austria arrived with a new set of Aardvark foils for Niki and without the bag of important bits I had taken off Lord falasheart so that I do not losse them...  So day one was a morning full of creative boat work to get us both on the water for the start.

Lord Flashhert had never been better.  The quick creative fixes were better than the stuff I have been using for the last 4 years.  I had 3 days of fantastic racing and it really was a great event. A big thanks to the German Moth fleet and Walchensee sailing club.

In the end I finished in the middle of the fleet, which is where I always end up.  Lord Flashheart showed her age a bit and was the tortoise amongst the hares.

After the last race on the last day we all raced to the shore to escape the Mountain storm.  I was 200 meters from the beach when several tons of air avalanched down a mountain onto the lake and sent me speeding faster than I have even been in a Moth.  I was feeling a bit confident so I rode it as would Lord Flashheart.  Then the next gust came on top of that and I was too scared to jump off so I rode it too.  This did not last long and the wing I was sitting on broke in 4 places under the load.  I rose to the surface of the lake after the crash and my first thought was "Thank Fuck I have stopped because i was not sure how else I could.".  However now Lord Flashheart is in need of new carbon wing and I am not sure if I can get the tubes on time for the Worlds. 

Back to the (moldy) Batcave for some super hero boat fixing.

  

Where is the traffic light?

Here is a nice example of the kind of crap you have to deal with every day on a bike in Vienna.

Where is the traffic light for bikes?


From the other side of the road we can see it here pointing in totally the wrong direction.

I tryed to turn it and it was solid. So this is not vandals. There was no damage to it so I do not think a truck hit it and spun it round. There is no reason for a light pointing where this one does. It is clearly an installation mistake.

I think if there is no traffic lights a you are on a continuous RadWeg then you have right of way (however the rules are so unusably complex that you can never know). So if you can not see the light can you ride on out here at any phase?

The lesson here is do not take the rules of the road, road marking or signs seriously because they are a load of crap.

Location is here:

Feel like a super hero

I had a fantastic sail yesterday with Lord Flashhert and new AUT Moth Sailor Philip. I had my first go ever in a Prowler and a fine machine she is. It was force 3 flat water and sunshine. Really perfect conditions for a buzz around the lake. The windsurfers are not quite up to speed and all other sailing boats are stationary by comparison so you can not help but feel like a super hero as you fly around at high speed.

Meanwhile back in the Bat Cave the Bat Mobile starts to take shape:

The Bat Cave

It has taken absolutely ages, but Stage 1 of the Bat Cave is done. It has taken me all winter to renovate this room in the cellar but it is now fully operational and I was repairing Assassin bits for the AUT fleet today. Unfortunately there are still 2 more rooms to do and the wettest wall in the renovated room is already going moldy and falling to bits... So despite the excitement of having a new play room I can not help questioning the sanity of the project.

However the joy of a screw rack and being able to find my tools soon make the hours of re-mortoring seam worth while, or at least that is what I keep telling myself.

So now the focus can go from play room to building toys in it. The Bat Mobile can now start to take shape. I am gluing bits of foam together in the hope that at some point a fair, fast, good looking shape, that me and the trike fit in, will be the result... this is also emerging to be of questionable sanity.

Summer is here and it is time to play outside. A sail last weekend in a gusty strong wind demonstrated that I have to get some practice in the Moth if I am going to be able to get to the start line at the Worlds let alone stay in the thing. However the blind terror of earlier days has now been replaced with a feeling of annoyance as I get ejected and Lord Flasheart heads for the slit, so I think that is progress.

Sharks Teeth

I have moved this post to my CROWize Blog: http://crowize-vienna.blogspot.co.at/2012/07/sharks-teeth.html

light at the end of the cave

Renovating a cellar is a lot of work but I have got far enough to start gluing together foam to make a male mould for the Batmobile.

I can now also get Lord Flashheart ready to fly. I have fixed the boat cover with our new (surprisingly complicated for a basic robust model...) sewing machine and have just one laminating repair job to do and she will ready for chocks away. It is great to see the Mothapalooza prize which will hopefully help get some diversity back into the fleet. Send me your worlds entry for my list here.

Cycle campaigning is in fashion with the Times Campaign reaching Italy and now Austria!

This is probably my most positive optimistic post ever. So I will keep it short and promise that normal service will be resumed soon.