People have talked for a long time about the Dubai bubble bursting, people thought it happenned when the US led the global recession and had a large amount of debt. Now people are saying it has definately happenned with Dubai World not paying back their debts. One thing that you need to know about the Arab’s is that they hate to loose face and they will not go down without a fight. It does not mean a great deal other than the half million units that are coming online will be empty, no difference from a lot of JBR, but there still seems to be zillions of people here.
The muscat race is all over, the 100 foot tri did not break the race record of 50 hours, which is held by a small J boat. That shows how little wind there was on the race and I am oh so glad I was not invovled. I decided over the last week that sailing is the worst spectator sport in the world. We took Glenny’s boat round to watch the match racing, suffice to say it was so boring that we spent the entire time wake boarding and skurfing rather than watching the racing. They only got 4 flights away out of 12 and had to use that complicated formula to figure out who won. Don’t ask me who won cause i don’t know. There must be a better way to get Jo Public involed in the sailing, there was no race village, no PR, no nothing for the RC event, and we had the very top pro’s here racing. Sad.
Saturday there was not a lot of breeze about, and with hardly any of the mothies with boats out on the water we went dune bashing. Not sure why the guys with boats are not sailing right now, if I were them I would be out whenever there was a puff big enough to foil. Dune bashing was good fun, had a small issue with Rob loosing his tire off his rim. This meant we had to try something we had seen on top gear when they spray deodrant round the rim then light it to get it back on. Well, it worked, with both Rob and Jonny getting slightly less eyebrow hair in the process, and me ‘testing’ the unturnoffable fire extinguisher on Simon’s car.
National day is on Wednesday with quite a lot of breeze forecast. Not sure what I will be up to, there are a few options of what to sail. I would most prefer to be on my moth. Another day in the bubble it is!
The race starts this morning in a few hours. You can follow it here.
Forecast looks absolutely terrible with less than 5 knots for the next three days after the windy week we had last week.The RC boys did not get a race away yesterday so are looking at 9 flights today. Boring huh. I am meeting with Glenn and Lisa and then taking glenbo’s boat round to watch a bit of the match racing as there is no chance of getting on the water today.
Morgan Larson is in town and is in charge of BMW as Larry and Russell did not turn up for fear of being blown up by the Iranian’s. Pathetic. Had a good old chat with him and also met a new mothie from Sydney called Stewie, man that kid can talk. He bought Robbo’s old prowler and is sailing at Balmoral, good times. Its Eid in the Arab world today, which means slaughter of goats and general good will to people.
So as promised I have done a bit of work to the blog. I thought it was looking a bit crap. Not sure if it is a whole load better now but I have given it a go.
I went for a sail today on Team Aqua’s RC 44, they were just having a shakedown sail and having a look at their new main, which by all accounts I thought looked terrible. I have absolutely no basis to put that argument against anyone and do not know what I was looking at the be fair. It was only a shakedown afterall.
I just wrote a big long paragraph about pro sailors…. if i posted everything that I wrote on here and then deleted it I would write for days. It was nothing bad, just some thoughts about how you go about becoming a pro sailor etc.
One of the guys asked me what I was doing tonight, and I said having a quiet one because I am going mothing tomorrow and cannot sail when I am dusty. They all chuckled and said yeah, balance must be hard when you are hungover. This stuck with me because I do not think about balance when I am moth sailing. I find it draining on the brain concentrating on not popping out too high through a wave. Maybe their brains work differently to mine and they were talking about sail balance and trim balance?? My point being that moth sailing has moved on a great deal, not only in terms of the gear everyone is using but also the way people think about sailing the boats.
Gone are the days of flying low and being scared of being too high, now people are pushing and pushing and concentrating so hard on staying high but in control. This requires a massive amount of concentration, evident by the swimming immediately after the finish of any race in high air. Gone are the days of working like a maniac after a tack to get back on the foils, now it is all about minimsing your losses through the tack and getting back to speed as fast as possible. No more days of getting through a foiling gybe, now its all about getting your sheet perfect to come out and only having to give the main one big yank to get your apparent forward as fast as possible. And Balance??
What is the reason people are attracted to sailing? I was always pretty good at most sports, but never massively sharp in the actually going to school bit. I was attracted to sailing because I found a lot of sports too easy, badminton for example. Boring and really quite dull. I was good at it at school but hated playing it with all my heart. Sailing on the other hand is not just about being physically good at something. Yeah it helps with balance………….. but having a good understanding and brain really does help a lot. So my question that i have been asking myself is…. is it better to be a bit on the can’t catch, run like a girl side but very bright, or dumb as f**K but can do anything phsically and coordination wise. Or do you have to be somewhere in between??
Obviously being dumb and not very physical is not a recipe for a world beater!!!
The weekend is forecast for the first big Shamal of the season. 15 knots early on friday building to early twenties in the afternoon. I have a look on Predictwind and its looking pretty interesting. Saturday is looking big out the west with mid twenties building to 30.
As have not been on the water due to lack of boat I think Jonny is keen on a training sesh, I will take a boat out and get some video. Also have a sail and shake the cobwebs away. If it is favourable in the am we might try RTW but juding by it there is going to be a big seaway running. Will go play in the swell anyway and try some video from the boat and make a new vid. After the break I am positively itching to get my new boat and get on the water. I am even going to go for a surf on saturday morning…. Throw in some possible climbing tonight, rugby tomorrow night and the 20 Km I have already done this week I feel like I have a little bit too much jucie flowing through the old body right now. I am praying so hard we get these conditions for the worlds for at least two days. It will be an unreal sailing with a big fleet in big breeze and big swell, in warm water, rounded off with some beach activities from the Puma boys and Girl.
Sultan was 8th in the 43 footers this week, out fo 102 or something. Pretty good for his bad boat. There is another race during the national day holiday, just after the RC44 event. Not sure when all the guys turn up, some point this week. I wonder what will become of the class when and if the America’s cup gets back on track. I will wander down and have a look, say word up to Andy who was in the Gorge and sailed with Morgan in that ridiculous race they did down the river in 40 knots! Who is going to win? Who cares!!!
The Dubai Sailing Season has begun. It actually began in September but it was way to hot to go sailing. Its now perfect and everyone is here to play.
The 22 foot dhow season had its second round on the weekend and Sultan won, which is a good result. He seems to be the king of the 22 footers. If we can transfer that into the 43 and 60 footers then a good season will be on the cards. The new 43 seems a lot faster than last season and already there have been some promising results.
All the RC 44′s turned up ther other day. Which means Larry et al will be in town in three weeks. Wonder if there is any spying going on with Alinghi yet???!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
The RC event is over the same weekend as the Dubai Muscat race (worlds most boring and slowest race). Oman Sail are doing it on the Arabian 100, as mentioned in their big media release this week. I quite fancy doing a bit of this big boat racing!! How hard can it be to be a pro, surely not that hard? Hike a bit, don’t tell the wanky skipper that he is wank and try not to get on the piss too much. So, anyone want to give me a ride?
I am still really really keen to do the next hobie 16 worlds, as long as it is windy, and also really super keen to do the Archipelaog raid, if i can organise my life in time. I almost signed up for a triathlon yesterday but only to realise the race is the same day as the last day of the Dubai Worlds, so that canned that idea. 1.5 Km swim, 100 KM bike and 10 km run is probably a little beyond me though…….
What sport is the closet to sailing?
Football (soccer) and Rugby are both invasion games where team work is essential. This is true of big boat sailing i guess but still does not sit quite right.
I thought about laods of different sports and the closest one i can come up with is boxing. Boxers have big ego’s, do a lot of pre event talk and bad mouthing, then go into the fight. If they win they justify all the chat and then think they are even better, if they loose then they make an immediate excuse and keep it in their mind that they are the real deal, when they are actually not.
Sailors too have the talk it up cup, in all classes. People chat this and chat that and then go super slowly on the race course, but as soon as they come in on the dock there was a big righty or they got nailed on a layline etc yada yada yada. I find it very funny with the comparisons.Its not so much in the dinghy classes, its way more prevailant in the yacht classes though.
What else, just listened to Bruce’s pod cast, not a lot of people know but at the worlds I was using BR’s new R and D high modulus main foil on the first two days. Safe to say it was like a keel on the bottom of my boat as it was almost twice as heavy as the normal ones. I presume this would have become part of the new kits or upgrade if the heel had not snapped off it. I think they would have had a big problem down range with these however, it was ok in the heavy stuff but it just felt sluggish when the breeze died off a little.
Im sure we had the talk at the agm about number of hydrofoils and the concencus from all the sailors was that pretty much everyone only used one set of foils anyway. I think Bora had a few rudders but no idea how many he used or if he changed. Rohan changed rudders a few times but the difference was more in his head i reckon and not in the foils. No one was openly bothered about it to be honest. I think of it like this, if Bora was winning the worlds and needed to beat nathan in the last race but snapped his main foil after the finish of the penultimate race, i would offer my foil hands down. Same goes for anyone else that sailed well enough to be in that position in the first place, i do not think giving people penalties is the way forward, gear development is part of the game and is one of the many reasons why the moth fleet is becoming much more professional in every way. Anyway, another good podcast from the boys, i find it really interesting on the different views within the class.
Off to play rugby tonight, which might be interesting.
Jonny and I went for a spin on Oman Sails’ 105 foot triamaran yesterday. As neither of us had tickets for the F1 and Kings of Leon we thought we should do something like sailing just to change it up.
Hooch and Rivet invited us for a sail after a few cheeky drinks at barasti on Thursday night, in return for fixing their Battle Flag. They failed to mention it is 20 foot long. Anyway.
I was neither blown away by the boat or dissapointed by it, it is massively over built and looks like it is missing a few meters of mast. We did clock 25 knots though, in about 12 true, but its just not the same, not on the edge, far to easy to sail. I had imagined it would be hair raising and full on. It is a nice piece of kit though, and I would do an offshore in her for sure, so easy to drive and go fast. The smallest change in sail trim makes a big difference in performance, and the apparent it creates is no more than a moth but it makes you realise what apparent wind really is.
On Friday we delivered Glenn’s boat up to RAK where one of the Alinghi boys had bought it. We bumped into Jon Ide who is in charge of Electrics ( i think) on the boat. They had their 60 meter mast on but were out sailing when we got there, never mind. They were saying the new mainsail does not fit in the biggest shed they had there, and it was a BIG shed! They also refused to tell us how fast it was going with the 60 metre rig, but we reckon it was absolutely smoking from what we could see of it sailing. We tried to put it into perspective when we went sailing on the 105 on Oman Sail, they have a 30 Meter rig…….. And thats big! I cant imagine a boat with twice the size rig and sail area, it must be such a complete weapon! So both Glenbo and I are mothless, but our Mach 2′s should arrive about the same time… ish, hopefully there are no delays, but this is mothing! There is not a lot of breeze around right now as we go through the change from summer into winter, foggy mornings and not a lot of action. I do have a video of me doing the worlds slowest tack, where i pretty much got stuck in irons and had to wait an age to cut the jib, I am trying to upload to youtube, I’ll add it in later.
I think I will also do some work on my blog, try and make it look a bit prettier. I have quite a few web pages and things to keep updated with the Worlds coming up, but I think it should make a bit more of an effort.
