Its got to that stage of the year where you just canot get a tan. The only thing you can do is rig your boat, then go inside for half an hour to cool down before you go sailing. Sailing is measured in bottles of water, not what you want to achieve.
Anyway, i was sailing for all of about 25 second when the head pulled through on my raptor, this is because i am a dickhead and forgot that it has to plug into my mast…. oh well.total de rig and re rig in 45 degrees, Ive learnt my lesson quickly.
I think Ive sorted my teething problems with the sail and it felt so good upwind. I am still struggling a little with a new sail and being heavier. In breeze that i would power though before hiking flat out I am having to almost sit in… Weird feeling and takes a little to get used to it. The raptor really does seem to be very sensitive to over sheeting and you can feel your boat die as soon as its wrong. On the whole though, it feels better each time I sail, so moving in the correct direction.
My SK90 arrived this week to so its time to build my rig and adjustable forestay, that is one gasmo that I do like. Not sure my system will be quite as refined as others but it will do what i want it to do.
Lots of shit flying around the old web at the moment, how very exciting and controversial. Never happy to see things go to court in our industry, its just no good for anyone involved, lets hope they all sort out their stuff.
No, not really at all. I got out for a sail on Friday with my new sail. It looks good on my mast, possibly the only person to be using a mach two mast after I heard on the webpodcastthingy that all the peeps buying raptors are buying CST as well. I like my softer Mach two rig and I dont have any more cashola to be buying a CST. I have put another purchase on my downhaul though as the Raptor seems to really like to be completely cranked till its balls upwind.
No chance to line up with the white hope, we were both at the yacht club on sat afternoon but there was FARK all wind and it was 46 degrees during the day……. and I was a touch hung over…. There looks to be some good late evening breeze coming in this week and weekend so I will go out again and try some different battens. I just signed in for the Euro Champs, looks like there are some slippery sailors signing up to race. I am excited to get onto some flat water and see what the new sail mast combo can do with me tipping the scales at 80.1 Kgs the other day. I think thats a bit heavy so I might loose some, I dont like feeling like a square human. Safe to say, I am now absolutely crap as crap can be at tacking my boat.
And how Rubbish are the UK at football, are we really kidding ourselves that we will get much better…. its always the same. I left the pub at half time the other night. Congrats to Scott B for winning the 18 footers and to Mike Lennon for winning the open meeting on the weekend.
Just catching up on some net mothing and read that lots of peeps are going for the adjustable wand for waves. I am not sure I understand how it works….
As I understand it, the only time you are in serious trouble is if the waves are bigger than your main foil.. At this stage if does not matter what length your wand is at, you are swimming as soon as you make a mistake.
Also, by winding down the ride height you ride lower and therefore neutral is further back too. Personally I do not like sailing with my wand out the water at any time, I feel very outta control and stop concentrating on sailing and start worrying about my good looks. With a shorter wand, doesn’t that mean you spend more time with the wand out the water??
In my thinking, by the time you need to shorten your wand to go downwind, its going to be a question of who capsizes less is going to do better so isn’t it better to practice technique instead of hoping the boat is going to save you?
It was 50 degrees in the sun the other day up at the boat building yard on their eltronic thermometer. Its only the beginning of June as well so this looks like its going to one long long summer. However, there is 30 knots forecast on friday night and 23 to 24 forecast on saturday.
I was talking to glenny last week and he reckons he needs to go for a sail as he has only sailed once since the worlds and I am on about 4 or 5 sails since then. Probs a good day to get the velocitek out and see how fast we can go on saturday i think. Friday is taken up by a stag do and tonight the ministry of sound are playing their first set in the Middle East so going to check that out. I suppose saturday will also be a good test of if all this effort to put weight on was worth it or not.
Beriut was awesome, I recommend to anyone. Its basically a mix between Greece, Southern Italy and Cyprus. If there were not bullet holes and Arabic writing on walls you would think you were in Europe. Also, somewhat suprisingly, all the people are extremly friendly. Its a shame they are so close to all the trouble and its probably not the best time to go right now, I cannot imagine they are very happy about the flotilla getting nailed just off their border. I have ruled it out as somewhere to live though, as there is not a lot of wind at all.
The richest sailing race in the world was last weekend, and we were out there to watch it. Sultan got away to a flyer, but lacked boat speed for numerous reasons. The boat just seemed sluggish for some reason, i really wanted to get them to put a tweaker on the leech of their big sail, just to see if it would make a difference in the breeze. There was a little chat of them opening the rule so others could race. If that happens I will get one like a shot and do some of the big races. Something I did find very amusing was the start of the race. There were 100, 60 foot shows lined up and anchored. One of them put their sail up and then so did the rest….. in my book, all were OCS as the starting flare had not gone…. but not here, restarts are bit of a problem when you have two anchors for your support boat to pick up and then re tow your boat into position.
Looking like I will be on the IOW for Cowes this year, if any mothies are over lets have rum. My plans might change drastically within the next month though, fingers crossed.
I was planning on jetting over to the moth fest this week for a bit of fun and relaxing / drinking. Alas, it was not meant to be as I am currently sitting in Dubai terminal two waiting for my flight to Lebanon for the boat show. Oh well, at least I get outta town right.
I am over there for four days working, Glenny and his crazy crew of drunk Aussies are there for the weekend as well so it could prove to be quite a merry event. I got my new raptor sail the other day also, but have not actually had time to get it out the bag. Next week is also a write off as I have the clubs end of season Ball to attend followed by jetting 70 miles offshore to get involved with the richest sailing race in the world. The 60 foot dhows have their end of season race and I will be out there for two days….. so I cant actually see when my next sail is going to be. Its all good though.
Currently there is a crying child next to me, joy of joys. To be honest the thing that is top of my agenda when i get back from Beirut is finding the correct pub to watch the world cup in….. its going to be a cheap one so when England loose to the USA in our first game we can forget about it very quickly.
Did you know, there are 409 Lebanese Dib Dabs to one UAE Dib Dab….. i brought my calculator.
Massive congrats to Rob Gough for cracking 30 knots. That is some epic sailing right there. Forecast is to be windy here this week but not sure i can find enough flat water to crank it up and get some high speeds in. Ill try though!! Peace peeps, im motivated!
Ola, whats occuring moth bloggage world? I have been a busy little moth sailor recently and have not had time to sleep or do what unbusy people do.
I have just been catching up on the blog world, there are a lot of technical blog posts recently, which are awesome. I think in the moth world if you try and follow what others do too much then you wind up trying to sail their settings and not what feels good for you. I have sailed a lot of other peoples moth’s in Dubai, and the difference in peoples set up is massive, even if you think they are the same on the beach.
I do not think that mast rake can be copied from one boat to another. I think your mast rake is in direct correllation to the lift that you like to sail with on your rudder, otherwise the balance is not working in the correct direction. I am playing around with new stuff now which to be fair is rig related. Having put the time in the gym for the last 8 weeks I am sitting at 77.2 kgs this morning and I am in the process of changing my boat from a lightweight to a welterweight.
I have had a bit of down time recently, one of my good friends best mates died in a car crash at the Dubai autodrome a week ago and it has been a little crazy with the old school Dubai crowd from college absolutely sending it as hard as they could over the weekend, nothing sharpens peoples perception of what is important to them more than a death of someone they know well. Also I have been watching the pacific which is the new series following on from band of brothers by Tom Hanks. I am so glad I was born into a generation where I am given the choice to say no I am not going to war.
What else is news…….. Oh, some new boat coming out of Australia or Italy?? I couldnt quite follow, someone care to explain? People are saying its going to be at the European’s, should be good to see. Glenny is suffering from a lack of motivation right now, as am I to be honest. How do I renew the motivation, any idea’s??
I have been trying to add some comments to blogs recently but I have forgotten pretty much all of my passwords. Erm, so words of wisdom and general all round funniness will have to wait until I remember them. There has been very little happenning in the way of mothing in Dubai, have been keeping the head down and working.
Operation beefcake moves along nicely and now sitting at a steady 75.5 kgs. I have discovered it is quite hard to take that many calories in on a daily basis. I have a new found respect for fat people, how on earth can you spend so much of your day eating?? My brother is on a crash course diet needing to loose 6kgs in ten days before heading over to Austria for some RC 44 action. Any mothies around near the event go and give him some grief, for nothing else than having no neck. 26 knots here today in the UA of E, its forecast to stay in over the weekend so I should get to test out my new found weight finally.
Ok, for lack of anything exciting to say, thats it!
Peace!
I feel like I am behind the learning curve on the Mach two. I went sailing yesterday and found some new stuff out with my sail and general sailing.
I have also ordered a raptor sail. Why the hell not eh? I have done the last three worlds with only one sail to choose from and also one mast. I think I should have at least 6 sails and 5 masts and also I think 3 sets of foils to play with!!!
I am packing in at 75 kgs now as well. Thought if its gonna be windy at the Euro’s and Belmont I might as well get heavy right?? Not sure what the target weight is, but not being so runt like feels quite nice. Although my bench press action resembles a disco dancer after 7 reps. My unit of a brother can do that shit with one hand. Rubbish!
I have moved my hiking straps outwards as well so all in all show me the righting moment action baby. YEAH!
