the trouble with multicoloured paint jobs......

a few photos showing progress so far... (I think I could have finished a couple of single colour spray jobs by now, but where's the fun in that...)

essential ingredients for a mean paint job - battleship plans, tape, sander, marker, and plenty of tea

final layer of filler.... good colour.....

taped up...

so far two of the four colours are done, hopefully have some time next week/ weekend to get back to norfolk to get the rest finished, soon time to go sailing!

for those light wind days....

GBR update post rest day

Yesterday was a well earned rest day for the fleet after the previous day's races in what can only be described as epic conditions. Not sure what the wind speed was at times (it always seems more out there then the Aussie weather stations report), however it must have been 25+ knots in the gusts. This led to lots of action in the two fleets with many wipeouts, close calls and some not so close calls. Mikis came off the water a little battered and bruised after someone capsized onto his boat pulling him out of the back at a fair speed, there was also a guy that came off the water with broken ribs although he seems to be okay from what we've heard.

Peter Barton has perhaps had the most bad luck of the fleet after breaking two king posts during the first races of two championship days, losing 5 races in total. However I had to chuckle when he told me about his experiences on day 2 of the championship. Finding his Mach 2 a little high and sketchy downwind during the gusts he sailed into a nearby beach to change his default ride height setting remembering the often said words of a former Ninja sailor “longer for lower, longer for lower, longer for lower”. After enacting said setup change however and unsurprisingly finding it had not sufficiently lowered the ride height he decided to return to the beach to lower further, by again lengthening the rod! Fortunately he saw the error of his ways after becoming fully airborne a couple of times sailing upwind back to the starting area before heading downwind again!

In the gold fleet Andy Budgen continues to impress in his bright yellow mach 2 despite only having had the boat for a matter of months, would be great to see him on the UK circuit next year if he's back in the UK for the summer.  Jason Russell has also shown some impressive bouts of speed pulling in some good results in the breeze. Ben Paton's Ninja has had something of a radical temporary nose job, and despite rumours of some of the GBR sailors taking bets as to whether it would hold up he proved us wrong sending it round for some solid results. Mike and Simon continue to battle it out at the sharp end with the rest of us in silver enjoying some close racing.

For the rest day myself, Peter and Ben decided after doing some boat work and a few other chores to head to a local beach for a bit of a dip in the surf. Finding the beach fairly deserted we thought it must be due to the 'poor' weather i.e. windy and a bit grey and overcast. This is pretty much as good as it gets back home so after a quick change we did a bit of body surfing in the waves which was good fun. Walking back up the beach however we suddenly realised why the beach was deserted after reading a sign warning against swimming due to strong currents, bluebottle jellyfish and sharks! Oops, stupid Poms....!

So today is the penultimate day of the championship with the remainder of the series set to be pretty windy by all accounts. Here's to some great action packed racing for the final 6 or so races.

Ben doing his morning warm up routine with modified nosejob ninja.

 Ben swimming unaware of the dangers lurking beneath.

 Should probably have read this BEFORE going swimming.

 Should definitely have read this BEFORE going swimming!

 Belmont has an array of modern boutiques.  Including this nautical themed adult shop.....great place to source the booby prizes I reckon.

 Ben applying camoflage for a typical day's ninja sailing....

Killer Weed

Wing rigs, smaller rudders, new foil designs, adjustable wands....all those speed increasing innovations aside I totally agree with Matt Knowles' comments regarding the weed.  Yesterday it was pretty much everywhere and could be a real game changer for some of the front runners I suspect where the racing will be really tight.  I missed a couple of races yesterday after ploughing into some at about 9 knots shattered my twist grip on the boat......dread to think what that kind of weed could do at 20+ knots.  

Yesterday's races kicked off in a very tricky marginal breeze.  This made things interesting as the windward mark was quite close to the shore leading to many low riding and a lucky few that could get up onto the foils gaining bucket fulls of places.  Mike Lennon had a good day finishing in 11th overall in the nationals, very commendable.  Simon Payne building on his top gun quotes during the event build up decided to try and surpass this with an actual re-enactment of a scene.  Going downwind he was heard muttering call signs and screaming eject, eject, eject shortly before exiting the moth backwards/ upside down at about 20 knots - breaking his tiller extension in the process.  Impressive.  Mikis once again reproved that history can repeat itself by somehow breaking a boom (how many is that now?!)  in the marginal conditions, although I wouldn't be surprised if it was the killer weed again!  I think it was a pretty mixed day for the rest of the rest of us brits, having moments of brilliance but also many moments of just going dog slow.....although hopefully with the winds forecast to come back over the next few days this could change...

Heres a clip to give you an idea of what it was like with Ben perfectly demonstrating a new technique for Belmont - 'the Wack' (Weed Removal Tack).....

Time to build that carbon, sailor operated kelp remover for my foils I think! 

Wild

Possibly the most appropriate colour scheme for yesterday's shenanigans....

The day dawned with a light breeze so after some boatwork I hit the water to try out my new Hyde for the second time. This was to be short lived however, as soon as I lined up with a few of the Aussies my kicker blew out meaning a return to shore to re-rig.  The sail feels good although bizarrely I'm finding it much easier to tack than to gybe at the moment.

During the afternoon the breeze built to 20+ knots with an awkward chop. Myself, Ben and Arnaud decided to launch and join the others that were doing mock races. These were good fun upwind and the pack seemed fairly close. Downwind however all hell would break lose in the waves with people spilling and nose diving all over the place.

Mike Lennon had an unlucky day breaking his mast on the final tack of one of the mock upwind legs. Being a true humanitarian I sailed up to him and offered to head back ashore to fetch help (nothing to do with the conditions...). I then proceeded to capsize, pitchpoll and roll my way downwind before making it ashore to get a rib to come to the rescue. The rib driver was a friendly chap who told me that around a month ago he had spotted a hammerhead shark as he pointed at Mike who had been drifting for over an hour by that point.....a detail I thought Mike might not appreciate me sharing immediately. Rumour has it that one of the Yanks also had gear failure and was circled by a menacing shark, however this has yet to be confirmed with conflicting reports suggesting it may have simply been a friendly dolphin, or possibly the shadow of a passing cloud.

Bearing away in 30 knots (or so he claimed) Ben managed to crack the hull of his ninja just next to the centreboard casing and so returned ashore. Perhaps unluckier however was Mikis who proved that history can and sometimes does repeat itself in the moth class. Whilst foiling at some speed his centerboard horizontal decided to go AWOL and also took out his rudder as well for good measure. Fortunately, unlike in Horsens, this time it was a fairly clean break leading to no prolonged centreboard whacking in the boat park.

Today is looking fairly breezy again but at least the sun is out, hope the folks back home are enjoying the snow!

back in england...

Happy new year, just a reminder that the bloody mary is next weekend, and a couple of pictures from last year's event....

Unfortunately my new boat is not going to be ready in time, though it is nearly ready for the paintwork to begin....

Arrived in Belmont....

After a few days relaxing with friends and sightseeing in Sydney I made it up to Belmont yesterday.  So nice to unpack the boat in beaming sunshine and 30 something degrees.  Certainly beats the temperature in the UK at the moment which was -12 when I drove to the airport - definitely the coldest winter I can remember in the UK.  Good luck back home guys with the Bloody Mary!!!!  :-)

The venue itself is really great - friendly locals, flat water, extremely hot (too hot for some of us Poms) with a vast array of fast food outlets (Arnaud...).  The club follows the traditional Aussie sports club model - i.e. is well funded through pokies and other entertainment and the non-sailing locals seem genuinely interested in what's happening on the water - definitely something the UK clubs can learn from I think....

Today the weather is apparently due to change here with the winds shifting to come from the South.  This has led to quite light winds, although I've been told normal service should hopefully be resumed in a few days time.....I really hope so as I'm currently the heaviest I've ever been after having to substitute sailing for gym work due to the weather...

In terms of spying on innovations I havent had a great deal of time to look around.  Hats off to the guys that brought wingsails - very impressive speed out of the box from what I've been told and although they may not be using them all the time for a first iteration they seem very quick.  The new mach 2 booms also look very smart.....

Ricky - thanks so much for your hard work getting the boats out here - we owe you big time.  Looks like everything went really smoothly.

Phil - you post one more shark article on your blog and I'm bringing one back in my travel box to throw at you at the next open....!  Either that or a bluebottle.