The water temperature in Dubai is cold. I spent a lot of time on the water this weekend and spent most of it pretty chilly. It has been overcast and friday I was at the yacht club at 8am. Grogs was with me and did some invaluable video work and sorted out a few little technique issues I have been having on the new boat.
He is going to come out with me on monday as well and try and make me do some pressure situation drills. So after three hours on the water by myself the rest of the gang turned up to come for a sail. I feel real happy with the work that I did on friday. Afternoon session was finding some modes with these new KA 13’s we have. Glenny has a very fast mode and was cruising on 16 knots upwind in 18 ture. We did some downwind modes late in the day about 4pm, I still not really figiured that bit out yet.
Saturday the breeze was not very good in the morning so did some boat work. It came in about 2 and we were back out. We had some low riding practice when the big cloud sucked all the breeze up. The breeze came back in for another three hours so spent saturday doing upwind to a mark and back over and over and over and over. I am completely fooked now so will give today a miss before i do monday tuesday and wednesday afternoons on the water.
Rob had his new Assassin out for the first time this weekend. He had a few teething issues. I had a sail on it on saturday afternoon for 10 minutes. It feels soo different. I do like the material the wing covers are made from. Being on the foils reminds me of being on a hover craft in Florida. It would take some time to figure out how all the systems work on it, there seems to be a lot less flap movement on thoes boats than I have seen before.
Anyway, not long to go now until people arrive. Happy days! See you all soon.
While I sit here feeling sorry for myself with the flu I thought i’d do a form guide, its only a month away afterall.
1) Scott Babbage: Scott has been the nearly man since Garda. He was on a troubled boat in Weymouth but was right on the money in the USA, barring gear failure would have been in the top three. He says he has not been doing a lot of sailing on his moth since the Worlds. There is no pressure on him and it should not be windy enough to break any gear in Dubai.
2) Simon Payne: Light airs flier, won the last worlds that were sailed in light stuff. I think his knee might hamper him a bit if there is borderline conditions. But then again it all might be a red herring and he might be lapping us all. Plus he is yet to enter. Keeping his powder dry.
3) Arnaud : Always there on the money. Very nearly snuck into second on the last couple of races in the USA. He could also easily win it, but then again so could anyone in the top five.
4) Bora Gulari: Bora has not won any big event overseas before. Maybe he does not travel well or just a bit unlucky. Rumour is that he can take off in a gnats fart now. If thats the case he could again just blow all before him away. I do think his downwind mastery will not be as pronounced in Dubai.
5) Dalton Bergen: Only behind Bora because he got beat by Bora in the PCC’s first day, and thats the latest I have got. He could easily win though. Really helping to push the American fleet along at a rapid pace.
6) Amac : Winning everything in Australia so far in 2010. Very dangerous and hard to place, I feel like i should put him higher up, especially with his new super sail that he is developing. I have only ever seen him go in big air, not sure what he is like in lighter stuff.
7) Rob Gough : Just got his Mach Two and learning quickly how to sail it. Another consistent performer and pretty lightweight.
Ricky Tagg : Word is he is going very well in the Mach Two and has been putting the time in. Can see him causing the big boys some problems.
9) Mark Robinson : Mark showed he has got it in the lighter races in the USA coming up with some top 5 results. I think he will come back into the fold in Dubai and show some good skills. No idea how much time he has put on the water though.
10) Adam May : Always a dangerous customer, I feel like he should also be higher up in the pecking order. We will see.
I wanted to put Bear in the top ten somewhere as well as Martin Gravare and Glenn MacDaddy Raphael. Glenn has got some serious pace going on when he is foiling, but he will loose at least a couple of races to not being able to get on the foils early.
I also think that by having a full Jury here and having a light air regatta we will actually see the Jury penalising people for breaking rule 42 when trying to get onto the foils.
Where do I wanna finish? Anywhere around the outskirsts of the top ten will do.
I have not been feeling myself for the last week. I have been flirting with the flu for quite a few days now. Anyway, due to boat issues and Glenno pressuring me into practising this weekend i borrowed Jonnies bladerider for the Jumeirah regatta. Going to a regatta in a borowed boat and not bothereing to do anything before hand is not clever. First thing that happenned to me was the pin came out the main foil and the push rod bent up, kaboom, not a good start. After some heel pressure action it was straight…ish enough to kind of foil. Coming down was a major issue though, I had very little control even in marginal foiling conditions.
Anyway, i did two races and they were ok. Then the pin fell out again before the third race, I think I foiled off the start line at about mid foil height and that was me done. I was thouroughly pissed off by this point so retired and had some beer. I was shivering like no tomorrow all night on friday and was feeling pretty rough yesterday. Anyway, there was less than five knots so Glennbo and I pulled the plug about 1pm. Im not sure how many races the rest drifted around for but i was not keen. I feel like I will go backwards if I go into a BR. My Mach two is sorted now so should be out tomorrow hopefully. That is if I can shake this flu away.
Lets hope the forecast of 24 knots next friday off the desert holds true. Flat water and we can send it. Yeah.
CNN have done three clips about sailing in Dubai, Oman and Abu Dhabi respectively.
Shirly Robertson is obviously the host, the vids are pretty sweet. They seem very speculative about what is / might be happenning here. Rumours that Alinghi have signed a five year deal on the RAK island are afoot in town. Does that mean that if Alinghi win they are planning on repaying the investment that RAK did for the team?
I would really like to see some sponsorship dollars go into grass roots sailing here, and some PR locally about how great sailing is. There is not one open club in the UAE where you can just turn up and go sailing without being a member. There is no level of sustainability for sailors in the region in that case and funnelling enough people into sailing to get any resonable sailors is a near impossible task. Oman Sail are doing this so well and are the only people in the ME that are leaving a legacy. Good coverage of Dubai but we didn’t get any as a fleet 
. Big boats only I guess.
This weekend is the Jumeirah Regatta sponsored by Jumeirah Hotel Group. Oman sail are coming up and bringing their racing crew with them, shame Corky cannot bring his moth up and play. The entire Dubai fleet should be out and racing, so it should be good fun, even Rob’s boat MIGHT be here 
. We mgiht have some pic’s done with some jurno’s while we are out. The prize giving is always an amazing shebang with Jumierah putting on all you can eat and drink buffett for a couple of hundred local sailors. They brought out Conrad Humphries a couple of years ago too to talk to the weekend warriors about what its like to sail round the world. So it should be a great event this weekend for the young oppie and laser sailors, and hopfully us mothies if the breeze is up a touch. Imagine if we got 18 knots.
The last ten days has been terribly light airs. Last week I was sailing on friday and Saturday in borderline conditions that we will definately see at least a couple of races sailing in during the Dubai Worlds. Light air take off will be everything and understanding the changes that have to be made to achieve this are top of my proiority list. I have worked to a happy place in regard to this and just need my ride height adjuster to really underdtsand if my thought process is working correctly.
This last weekend just gone was a frustrating one, again not a lot of wind and had some technical problems with my boat, which meant I did not get out on friday and had to play swapsies with Glenn on Saturday. Amazing how in such a short period of time our boats feel so completely different. We will see how it goes when the new sails arrive, which is hopefully this week. Anyway, after the shit weather we have had of late, this week is forecast to be really windy, with 25 to 30’s forecast by predict wind on Wednesday and Thursday. Am aiming to sail on monday, and thursday mid week and then in the regatta on friday and saturday. friday is looking windy as well and after the two days of high winds we are going to have a monster sea way going…. Will ask some of the boys to try and get some video of us sending it.
Not much of the fleet were out sailing on the weekend, only the main stay Kerstin on both days. Rob came out on Saturday with Jerome’s boat as his Assssin is still not here, cutting it fine now for the worlds and with only his boat coming as the lone assassin, he cannot be a happy camper, its been over 6 months now. Am pretty worn down right now. Might go for a massage.
The Worlds prep are in full flow right now. We had a few issues with the server and loosing all the emails. So sorry to everyone about that. Anyway, PUMA are stepping up to the plate big time at the moment. I thinke everyone is going to be very impressed with what they are doing. They have even bought a copy of top gun and putting that on a repeater, so any mothie who does not know the words to the entire movie by the end has no excuse. We are having a Top Gun test at the prize giving, so get revising. We might put another ammendment up on the NOR saying if you fail this test you are invalid to win the Moth World Title, so the pressure is on.
Been really really busy with organising stuff and the PR. Glenn suggested to PUMA that we sailed the puma moths around the biggest fountain in the world, near the biggest building in the world……. could be interesting. Glenno is absolutely killing it on the new boat, i feel like a child against a man. I’m glad to see we have a good number of US entries for the Worlds and even happier there are three women racing, think Aus could have even more.
Have pretty much found my set up on the Mach two now, I have just conceded that sailing them in bigger waves requires even more concentration than ever before. Amac described it brilliantly on the phone the other day, its like a race car, has tons of grip but when it lets go it LETS go. The Mothosphere is well quiet right now, no one is even having any arguments. I did notice that boat number 218 was for sale in the UK… I was under the impression that I had boat 218 from China, at least thats what the box had written all over it.
We have 10 of the worlds top 15 coming for the Dubai Worlds, which is not a bad turnout I do not think, shows the fleet is going to be pretty good and competetive. Who will win??
Emma and Magnus have left and have kindly written a report on their three weeks training here.
Oh to live in Europe .
Christmas vacation in Dubai
A few days before Christmas we left snow and -17 degrees in Stockholm for almost three weeks of great sailing in Dubai.
The venue at Dubai Offshore Sailing Club (DOSC) offered fantastic moth-conditions with nice breeze, comfortable air and water temperature, easy beach launching, good food and beer at the relaxed club restaurant and most importantly extremely friendly and helpful local sailors (expats). Thanks a lot to all of you!
The fact that the wind usually didn’t fill in until after lunch gave us some opportunity to explore the rest of Dubai with its extraordinary buildings, palm-islands and gigantic shopping malls.
We’re now back in snowy Stockholm but are already longing for our return to Dubai and the Moth Worlds. For those of you who hesitate about going to the worlds, we highly recommend you to sign up, it will be a great event!
See you in March!
Emma & Magnus
On another note, big props to the whippet Chris Steele on winning the splash worlds in new Zealand. Get on a real boat dude!
Picked up my newly finished main foil from the builders. Need to wait a couple more days before giving it some 2000 grit and a polish. I am going to send up my rudder and my verticals as my rudder makes the most fucking annoying whining noise when going at speed.
So, put my rig further forward, this felt much more balanced. Sorted my bridle out properly. Went front hole on main foil. First thing to note, do not stab yourself in the face with tiller extension when getting into the boat. Next thing, make sure you have taken off the masking tape that has gone hard due to epoxy spray on main foil.Then after 15 minutes swimming taking masking tape off, send it as hard as you possibly can.
It was 18 to 19 knots out the north on friday with a good / dangerous chop. Glenny and I did 5 hours of epic crashing, pitchpoling, and some seriously fast sailing. Boat felt much better with the changes I had made. I did not put wand limiter on this friday. Spent an hour in the flatter stuff behind the island doing manouvers, think we chucked in 100 plus tacks. Finding that the mach two gives you much less room for error on the way into a tack but gives a lot more room for error on the way out.
Downwind I had some HUGE wipeouts, go hard or go home seems to be the way the brain is processing the mach two right now.
Saturday I extended the main push rod in the main foil and wound off 10 turns of lift on the main foil. I also put a wand limiter on to stop the wand going forward all the way. This has helped with the ridiculous ride height that we were running and now have only a couple of inches of rudder in the water in the flat water. This is impossible to achieve in the waves so need to get a ride height thingy or find a happy place in between.
The worlds tallest building is open, not the Burj Dubai but the Burj Khalifa after the ruler. Oh dear, bail out fallout me thinks?
Also, tall order to get results online from the aussie nationals, after all the whinging and moaning they do over there about not getting results out its a shocking effort.
When I got my new bladeriders I always kept a notebook of what i did and how it affected my sailing and what boat work i had to do before i went out again. Unfortunately i lost it recently which was not too clever as it is a good reference point.
So I have started again with my mach two but i thought i would write it here so i don’t loose another one in future.
Sailing 2.01.10
Shrouds : 4 on the back. Thoughts. Too far back, move up half hole next sail.
Main foil : No packer. used middle hole on the option of three. Thoughts, not enough AoA, tacking was difficult. Next Sail use back hole, still no packer, see difference.
Rudder gantry : Left as factory standard. Do not change for a while until got the rest organised.
Gearing : Started in the Middle. Morning session terrible, moved to higher gearing in afternoon. Was better. Leave here for a while.
Wand Nut, left in middle, wand was not moving forward in morning, moved to front in afternoon. (possibly try a wand limiter next week).
Problems I had : Snapped bridle in morning, stupidly didnt put half hitch in the splice. Need to repair properly before nect weekend.
Make straight wand, fuck that bendy shit. Get main foil finished properly.
Next sail settings : 3.5 shrouds, front hole for main foil (if thats shit then back hole). Fix bridle. Touch less gearing.