Queen Mary Moth Squadron

broadland mothing...

2011-09-01T00:36:00.000-07:00

Right. 400meters or so wide, around 1 mile long, 4ft deep, complete with navigation posts, 100 or so boats sailing around and a constant flow of tourists driving rental cruisers down the river... oh and a sail up tree lined dyke to get out onto the broad. perfect moth conditions!

Spent the bank holiday weekend up in Norfolk sailing at the Punt Club regatta, has been a couple of years since I had taken the moth up (had the shire horse (bladerider) and cookie with the V4 up previously) and figured it was time the dazzle moth came up for a blast...

-Whiteboats racing (they're all white, a class rule...)

The great thing about sailing on Barton Broad is the fact that the club sits on a raft in the middle of the broad (lake) which is surrounded by reed-beds and only accessible via a short sail up a dyke...(watch it...) River sailing in moths is a seriosley underated discipline, keeping alert for 180degree windshifts and rogue gusts ready to flip you over under the bows of a passing wherry - top training recommended for anyone serious about their mothing.... perhaps some outings on the thames...hmmn... having finally battled the dyke and reached the broad I was confronted by a very gusty westerly breeze (possibly the worst direction as you end up having to broad reach everywhere with little or no escape options for when it all goes wrong...!)

Oh and there were loads of other boats everywhere too....

-Brown Boat (they're brown, but not always...see how the classes are named around here...very sensible...)

-River Cruisers / M2 ??? ;)

Ended up hurtling around intermittently between gusts and obstacles , did finish a race but spent too much time low riding to live up to the handicap... Amazing how much faster and more lively the ninja is than the old BR (which actually felt quite manageable on the broad). Very good boathandling, future forecasting and reaction training , combined with the dykes make for a top mothing location, worlds anyone??? Amazingly didnt break anything (or anyone)...

- great all of the other boats have disappeared.....

-is it a tack or has the wind disappeared???!

Did I mention you can moor your moth on a mudweight too.....ahh the joys! oh and the brass band playing on the roof of a Wherry.... Barton regatta - August bank Holiday weekend 2012. see you there!

-Wherry , White Moth (appropriate)

Queen Mary update

2011-06-26T15:46:00.000-07:00

Well its been another great weekends sailing on London's lake garda. Summer has finally arrived and brought with it some breeze, 30 degrees and bags of sunshine. On Saturday myself, Doug, Leigh and Paul got out at various times during the day. Leigh is really getting to grips with his Ninja now and seems to have all the usual routines nailed, would be great to see him doing more circuit events. Doug also seems to have also shifted up a gear after tuning a few areas of the boat and was going really well on Saturday until he had a disagreement with a mark which lead to a fairly spectacular capsize and some broken spars.

Andrew is fast getting through the usual new boat issues with his FrankenNinja, even going as far as building his own adjustable wand which looks quite neat (watch out Phil!). In between launching himself during club racing on wednesday he was looking very quick almost pulling off a few foiling tacks. I think we'll be seeing some good things from him in during racing at Stokes.

Recently it feels a bit like the fleet at Queen Mary has been thinning out with Jon relocating his Mach 2 to Weymouth and Ben now moving back to Wales but I think numbers are fairly stable with around 13 moths at the club. We've had a few new boats join and also the welcome return of Adrian in the legendary Nemesis, will be great to see him putting us all to shame again in the light and shifty stuff. So all in all I think we're in pretty good shape for the Nationals and will hopefully be able to give the HISC lot a good run for their money.

I took my moth home to Torbay last weekend to sail in Babbacombe Corinthian's club regatta, the place I originally learnt to sail in an oppi (low rider). Was great fun sailing in one of the most picturesque and shifty places I think I've ever sailed. The final race of the regatta is a pursuit race for the club's Silver Dinghy trophy which was good fun, even if I did get slightly dizzy from repeatedly lapping Tasars....The conditions were just right for the moth - 13-16 knots and flat water and fortunately no capsizes meant I won the race. It was only in the bar when looking at the previous winners of the trophy that I saw that that its actually a fairly significant piece of UK Moth heritage having been won previously by none other than a K Ellway - designer of the Ninja!

Some photos of from club racing at Queen Mary

The Silver Dinghy trophy, where the Ninja began?

Moth West

2011-05-22T00:56:00.000-07:00

finally the dazzle moth has hit the water! (about time too, a combination of work and too much sanding have been holding this back for too long...!) Headed down to Cheddar for the first outing to join the bristol crew along with DJ and Richard .

Following some intial teething problems (well, my having drilled the gantry pin hole in the wrong place...) and some rapid repair / modification at the hand of squadron leader Cookie the boat behaved beautifully now all I need to do is remember how to sail properly again.. Did manage to pull off a couple of flying tacks too...(I was perhaps more surprised at this than anything else though I think it will be a while before they will be intentional rather than fluke... )

Thanks to Darren for the pictures and Mike and Emma for putting me up and all their help with the boat. Not sure if this sums up the mood properly, perhaps a bit crass, though some of the sentiment is there, well most of it....! - video....

So, just what does a dazzle camouflage moth look like?

2011-02-07T14:47:00.000-08:00

Well, here you go, colours are all on, though there is still a bit of fairing to do over tape lines then polishing or lacquer (not sure yet) ... nice!

Looks a bit Jeff Koons (unintentionally...) but without the weird gradients in his scheme, hope he doesn't think he owns the rights to this though too...!

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

2011-01-29T03:34:00.000-08:00

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....

2011-01-15T04:16:00.000-08:00

GBR update post rest day

2011-01-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-06T19:43:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-03T17:14:00.000-08:00

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...

2011-01-02T02:45:00.000-08:00

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....

2011-01-01T17:34:00.000-08:00

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.

punt championships!

2010-08-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

So while everyone else was out in Switzerland another championships was taking place out on the Norfolk Broads... (really need to get the new moth done...fast..) the Norfolk Punt Championships! Sailing with my brother had some good racing at the sharp(er) end of the fleet, battling out with two other brother teams (very Norfolk...) for the championships getting it down to the last race, only to lose the win due to some unfortunate wind shifts....broadland sailing... still 2nd is not too bad for zero practice..good one! looking forward to next year when the new unlimited sail area rules should hopefully come into play...

As for the new boat, should be posting as progress is made, M2 two piece boom is now a one piece again, and trolley is ready to weld, just need to get cracking on the actual boat!

Andrew

SIlvaplana Update

2010-08-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

Quick update before laptop battery dies.

Has been raining solidly for several days now, very cold at night (0 degrees). Tonight it even rained pasta sauce after Doug had an accident cooking at the campsite whilst cooking a communal meal. Jon started to cry but hid it well.

Martin has been impressing us all with his reinvention of traditional english dishes, namely the full monty (all day breakfast in a tin), supernoodles, pepperami, and pot noodle. Martin has also pioneered a new way of keeping warm in his tent at night by choosing to use his dry suit as a pair of pyjamas. This has drawn some odd looks but apparently works better than wearing everything you brought on holiday with you.

Rodders appears to have gone a funny green colour following too many cans of relentless energy drink, and has gone to bed with a mysterious illness. Tom Offer's tent appears to be the size of a small aircraft hanger, we have decided to rig this and pitch the rest of our tents inside. Jon appears to have the smallest tent known to man, even a hobbit would be at risk of aclostrophobia.

The wind has been fickle so far but our spirits are reasonably high and we are hoping for more wind in the coming days.

Emma's Flapjacks have raised the spirits slightly this evening, fingers crossed the weather doesnt get any worse over the next few days.

Over and out.

Lift to Silvaplana?!

2010-08-11T02:17:00.000-07:00

Anyone willing to give a lone mothy with bag a lift to Silvaplana in exchange for beer / fuel money on Thursday afternoon / evening or Friday morning?

I'm currently in Pfaeffikon SZ near Rapperswill, near Zurich (not Pfaeffikon ZH) but happy to get a train to a more convenient pickup point!

Cheers

James

Who's in?

2010-08-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

Preparation for the Euros is well underway at Queen Mary. Quite a few of us have been making it out on the water over recent weekends, despite Queen Mary being more aptly referred to as 'Green Mary' at the moment. An old chap at the nationals warned me that there was toxic algae making its way up the coast from France and I guess it was only a matter of time before it made it here....! The edge of the reservoir looks like a bright green pea soup at the moment making for pleasant launching.

Doug, myself and Ben ventured out last weekend for some light / no airs practice. Doug was running rings around both of us when the wind was light in his ninja, Ben managed to have a breakage free sail which should be commended. This weekend myself and Jon Peates ventured out, I was pretty useless thanks to having my arms pulled out of their sockets giving wakeboarding a try the previous evening. Jon seems to be getting the hang of the Mach 2 a bit more now after some more tuning this saturday, he's certainly not struggling for straight line speed managing to clock 25. something knots in about 12-14 knots of breeze.

The fleet at Queen Mary has really come on in the last few months, its good to see that we have a range of abilities with everyone really keen to share knowledge. It will be interesting to see how Andrew Friend fares in his custom ninja that he is planning to build after taking some time out for studying / working in recent months. Paul Beard is also getting on really well with his Bladerider pulling off foiling gybes much earlier than I remember when I first got mine. Theres been some talk of being more organised and having a class start at the weekends which I think is something we'll definitely look into after the Euros. All in all theres never been a better time for a mothie to join Queen Mary.

On the rash vest front, I've put together the below design for those that are interested. I'm hoping as its the same pattern on both sides this will keep the costs down. Throw me a line if youre interested in buying one....Also for any internationals feeling left out I can send over the photoshop file if you want to get your own patriotic rash vests made up....

Nationals Update

2010-07-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

Nationals is going well. Sailing conditions were great today with a decent breeze kicking for races 4 and 5 and some very close racing. Arnaud had a bit of drama before the start of race 3 after he broke one of his shrouds where it attaches to the plate. Back out for race 4 however he had some good battles with Simon who is currently leading the regatta. Mike Cooke also had more than his fair share of dramas, after looking very quick in one of the races with his new foils he was forced to retire with more breakages. Will be interesting to see how he fares tomorrow given the forecast for decent breeze.

3 more races tomorrow in 11+ knots, hopefully some more good results for the Queen Mary Mothies. Heres some photos of the QM Mothies in action:

Thanks to Heather Davies of Fotoboat for the photography. Bring on the manly breeze for tomorrow's racing!

gone!

2010-06-22T00:58:00.000-07:00

so the BR is packed up and off on its way over to new owner Nico in Valencia... Time to get working on the new one then! Exhibition opens thursday then work commences on building / sourcing parts for the new boat (ninja with a few tweaks, and a mean paintjob...!) anyone who fancies dropping by to check out the exhibition if they are in london are more than welcome - open this thursday through untill the 4th july , at the Royal College of art, (next to Albert hall).

QM Update

2010-06-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

Well its been a while since we posted an update so I thought I’d put something up on the site. I would blame it on other members of the QM fleet being lazy with the blog, but then realised I hadn’t actually granted them access to post anything. Oops.

The fleet has been gradually growing over the last year or so. We are now up to 13 mothies at the club consisting of 2 x Mach2s, 3 x Mistresses (with various types of plastic surgery), 3 x Aardvarks (with various snouts), 3 x Bladeriders and a Prowler. Andrew Friend has sold his Bladerider and is gradually accumulating parts for his FrankenNinja creation whilst Jon Peates has also upgraded to a Mach 2.

Perhaps a top UK club trophy at the Nationals is in order? Best results combined of top 5 boats maybe? We must have at least 4 or 5 UK clubs that would qualify for that?!

The last couple of weekends have been pretty good for sailing. Last weekend myself and Doug joined in with club racing for a change which was good fun. I think both of us were referred to as Jesus at least a few times as we buzzed through the packs of Lasers on the downwind legs. We also swapped boats which was interesting. Its surprising how different the Ninja felt to the Mach2, the Mach 2 seemed to jump out of the water when it was ready to foil whereas the Ninja was much steadier to rise onto the foils but did seem to get there in less breeze than the M2. Doug’s Hyde main also felt quite powerful so definitely a few avenues to explore when we get the time to swap rigs.

This weekend myself, Mike and Chris opted for a windy Saturday afternoon sail. Chris was looking impressive - flying high and very fast in his Bladerider after spending time over the winter tuning it up. I was struggling to tack as unfortunately my kicker was optimised for Dubai windy – about 13 knots. On the Sunday I decided to head back to Devon for some sneaky practice in Torbay. The conditions were absolutely perfect, and I was having a great time until a pitchpoll resulted in me tearing a catflap sized hole in one of the trampolines. Speaking of which does anyone know of a decent trampoline maker in the UK that could replicate a Mach 2 tramp but with tougher Queen Mary proof material? Unfortunately the reservoir eats trampolines for breakfast….

Dubai - windy and wavey practice day

2010-03-03T22:37:00.000-08:00

The British contingent had a windy session with big waves yesterday in Dubai. Adam launched only to bend his push rod within the first 5 minutes, he then spent the next hour and a half trying to get downwind back to the club .... apparently he tried signalling to me a couple of times that he was in distress, however I was too busy screaming like a girl and pitchpolling to notice .... sorry!

Alex suffered a crack to the hull and so had to come in early, however when I briefly sailed upwind with him the boat was looking very high and fast. Tim Penfold returned to shore rigless after tearing out the forestay plate.

The waves were tricky, long like Saundersfoot but with the occassional hole or messed up chop to trip you up. I think I was getting the hang of them by the end, partly by putting more trust in the boat. With the Bladerider in these conditions I tended to sit right up by the shrouds downwind in waves. The Mach 2 doesnt seem to like this as the nose pitches in, it seems to go much better with more ride height and then aggressively steering to avoid the holes ....

Anyway here is a video of calmer conditions from the other day. Myself and Adam had a great downwind run at the of video averaging 22 knots with a max speed of 23.7 apparently.

Brits bring the rain

2010-02-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

Friday night was the Puma party at a really cool beach bar out here called Barasti. It was quite a different pre event party I think for most mothies, loads of photographers taking pictures - some of which were apparently for the Dubai equivalent of Hello magazine - Ahlan! There was a group photo of the Mothies in the podium area which I think JP has a copy of which I'll try to get up here.

Have managed to get a few sails in on the boat now and have also been doing some bimbling so quite happy with the setup. A few of us went out for a light wind practice today, somehow drifting about in no wind seems much more appealing than usual over here.....I think everyone was struggling though to stay up on the foils, I was quite happy with my speed in the light stuff although Arnaud was able to sail a lot higher than most of us.

Yesterday Alex and Mike arrived from the UK and seem to have brought the rain with them. Apparently it only rains about 4 times a year out here so I don't think the drainage is really geared up for it. A bit like the UK with snow I guess. This morning we awoke to flood waters in places - despite it being 30 something odd degrees. Apparently in the other Ibis that Mikis and Phillip are staying in the lobby was under water! Alex also appears to have brought with him some kind of man flu so the plan is to dose him with strong drugs in order to avoid a repeat of Garda for him.

Forecast for the next few days is quite mixed. Tomorrow is light but then Tuesday is looking mental with another storm front coming through with 35 knots and more rain apparently. Perhaps we might be able to foil back to the hotel and save a taxi fare....

Arrived....!

2010-02-20T23:58:00.001-08:00

Arrived in Dubai yesterday for the start of week working and sailing when I can fit it in. The club is fantastic - everyone is really friendly and its a very chilled atmosphere - should be a great championships. The UK is so cold at the moment, apparently due a reversal in the North Atlantic oscillation (whatever that is). Apparently this is why Toronto is so warm at the moment and the UK is the coldest in 25 years......whatever the reason I'm just looking forward to some sailing without constantly numb hands and feet.

Yesterday the wind and shipping didnt quite play ball. The Dubai moths went out for a play in some marginal conditions, JP and Arnaud were busy knitting and so could only launch when the wind had totally died to a drifter. My boat has arrived today so hopefully I should be able to get it assembled in time for a sail this afternoon / early evening if the breeze stays.

Today is perfect - steady force 3-4 with a small chop and of course lots of sunshine.....

The rigging / launching area.

The view from my hotel room suggested Bora had been out here for some time.

Puma moth with worlds tallest building in background.

JP indulging in his second favourite past time - sanding.

Arnaud indulging in his second favourite past time - knitting.

Bloody Mary? More like Bloody Ridiculous.

2010-01-11T10:12:00.000-08:00

This weekend saw an intrepid band of Moth sailors descend on Queen Mary in what can only be described as an attempt to mimic the exploits of Ray Mears but in a Moth. Actually no, given the conditions it was probably more worthy of the suicidal exploits of someone like Bear Grylls….Anyway the aptly named Bloody Mary again did not disappoint with competitors being greeted on arrival by a slap in the face in the form of a gusty northerly breeze, an air temperature of -2 and a balmy water temperature of 3 degrees.

I've never sailed an event like it. I think pretty much everyone, even visitors, had to defrost their boats with warm water before launching, set their controls for the day and then defrost again in order to de-rig once ashore. It was absolutely crazy, I had to just leave my two piece mast in one piece as it was frozen solid.

So after defrosting, gritting the control rods, filling up camelbaks with oxtail soup and substituting the usual sun block for deep heat seven of us hit the water for the start. I attempted to retire within the first five minutes with the pretty good excuse of my spreaders detaching from one of the shrouds on the way out. Unfortunately however Chris and Mike were ultra helpful onshore at getting me back on the water, damnit. I was swiftly followed by Andrew who's boat had stamped its authority by giving him a fat lip (the tiller extension punched him). Doug, Ben and Alex then returned ashore with various gear failures leaving only Jonathan in his Bladerider RX and Geoff Carveth in his X8 to battle the elements. Jonathan was unlucky with gear failure, however Geoff staged what can only be described as a heroic performance given the conditions bringing the boat back just ahead of the foiling 600s to claim the foiler trophy.

The ventilation on the Bladerider was terrible, Geoff had a fence on his rudder which seemed to help him but I don't think anyone got away with it completely. Definitely time to experiment with a few combinations I think.

Next weekend the temperatures are due to get back to a blistering 10 degrees so its all on for the Steve Nicholson trophy at Northampton, 30th January.....hopefully see you all there.

Getting Chilly

2009-12-13T15:56:00.000-08:00

Had a couple of really good sails at the weekend. Managed to get out for a little bit on Saturday for a light wind sail and then again on Sunday for some two boat tuning with Doug in his Ninja.

The temperatures are starting to drop at the moment in the UK, which definitely didnt help with ventilation. I didnt seem to have it as bad as Doug downwind, although upwind was a different story. On starboard tack upwind I would regularly spin out either resulting in a big loss of height or coming off the foils. I tried loosening the wand elastic and not riding so high which seemed to help a bit although it never completely went away. I ditched my paddle a while ago as the ride height seemed pretty good without it, although I'm wandering whether its worth reinstalling it now.....something to try for the Bloody Mary maybe.

Still, managed to finally get some decent headcam footage of some of the runs which was good.

James

Blowing Wings off Seaguls

2009-12-07T05:27:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Mike Cooke’s badgering at this weekend’s training event I said I’d post an update of the goings on at Queen Mary at the moment.

On Saturday Windy Weymouth struck again and so a group of 7 or so of us descended on Axbridge for an impromptu training session. Unfortunately however the 15 knot forecast failed to materialise and so after drifting and occasionally foiling for about an hour we all came in for tea, mince pies and geek talk regarding foil lengths. Although to be honest my contribution mainly consisted of commenting on how nice I thought Alex’s spreaders looked – white carbon – just like Toblerone.

Sunday was a different story altogether at Queen Mary with Torbay style ‘Champagne Sailing’ conditions – i.e. pleasant sunshine but gusts that could rip the wings off seagulls – literally. I arrived at the club just in time to grab a coffee and watch Chris slowly drift in sideways having done a Jiff and leapt through his mainsail (the life ring in the photo was purely coincidental Chris, honest). Mike similarly went out for a ‘play’ and hurt the feelings of his main foil so much that it broke off and tried to actually kill him by flying up through the tramp – scary.

Typically at the moment for me I suffered from gear failure again after launching into a slightly more sensible 18 knots or so. Its always the way isn’t it that the most shoddy, cowboy repairs seem to last longer than the diligent repairs that you do. The musto sail bag that I cut up in order to repair my tramps worked an absolute treat, despite looking like it had been sewn by an eight year old yet the time consuming repair I did on my spreaders didn’t – although I don’t think it was actually my fault this time. Apart from the failures I’m really happy with the boat at the moment though, its riding consistently high and doesn’t seem to be ventilating as much as some of the other Bladeriders given the water temperatures.

In terms of Queen Mary in general the fleet is looking pretty good at the moment. Sam has ordered some Aardvark foils for his mistress – which if Alex’s sailing at the weekend is anything to go by should get him back up to speed. Ben is also getting to grips very quickly with Martin Fear’s old Axiom and should be some good competition soon enough. In the Bladerider camp we seem to keep missing each other like ships in the night despite there being a lot of talk about benchmarking…..something for the New Year I think.

Anyone that fancies coming down to QM for a play, let us know…..might be a good opportunity to get some sneaky practice in before the Bloody Mary on 9th January!

James

It'll be just like Queen Mary on a good day....

2009-08-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

Right, to kick off the inaugural post of the rejouvenated Queen Mary Moth blog myself and Andrew thought we would post excerpts from our 'mothcation' in the US of Aye. Sorry its rather large (although everything over here is...) but weve had limited net access from the campsite.

First few practice days we were waiting around for boats to clear customs. Luckily though the winds were fairly nuclear with a steady 25+ knots being the order of the day.....this gave us plenty of time to fit in with the locals and intimidate the competition by donning wifebeaters and learning the lingo.

The campsite is an interesting affair....mile long trains pass regularly through the night making a deafening screech and sending shockwaves through the British camp. This has made sleeping something of a challenge, not least for Andrew whose tent imploded last night due to conditions somewhat reminiscent of Saundersfoot two weeks previously.

The british team have decided to fit in with local custom as much as possible by donning Indian names.....these have been derived from our experiences so far at the championship;

Adam 'run faster than train / ballerina' May

Andrew 'leaky teepee / go through foils like underpants' Friend

James 'Hawk Eye / Dead Eye Dick' Phare

Simon Payne (his Indian name is currently classified)

Adam and myself were fortunate enough to gain first hand experience of dealing with some locals (pictured below). After a pleasant exchange the previous day they hit the free beer hard. This not only resulted in an inability to walk and talk, but also had a deafening effect.....the result of which was wifey asking hubby if he thought the one drinking the beer was cute. The one drinking the beer being myself about two feet away from her.....I swiftly made my excuses, leaving Adam to fend off the advances with his camera.

MACH 2 BOOM OF DOOM

Having forgotten to bring Rod Harris' tiller of doom with us we were struggling for the first few days for a suitable substitute. Luckily a last minute partnership with le Suisse averted disaster (actually created it). Never before has a World Championship started with the Chief Race Officer banning the inappropriate use of a spar. The Mach 2 boom design really was a stroke of genius by Amac, the funnel like shape not only facilitated the smooth pouring of beverages but the ergonomically designed end allowed for swift consumption....genius. Bar two notible Australian, front running absentees most of the fleet got involved. Even the Mayor of the town rose to the challenge....or rather got down on his knees.

BIG AMERICA

We've also managed to crack the 'American condition' in one fail swoop whilst ordering breakfast. Much to our surprise when ordering a cascade locks cooked breakfast we saw that it featured ham, eggs, sausage and a biscuit....what kind of a breakfast turns up with a biscuit? The answer, an American breakfast, and it wasnt a biscuit - it was a freaking scone complete with clotted cream! It does indeed feel like we are in some strange film / video game environment, a combination of supersize me and Grand Theft Auto perhaps. Especially with Arnaud behind the wheel 'communicating' with the locals using sign language, hand break turns, and some interesting traffic avoidance techniques (seaside slaloming).

LAY DAY TRIP

This featured a quick hop to the other side of Portland to the coast (thanks Ian!), that only took over 4 hours. The plan was to check out the Cape of Disappointment (surely it had to be better than the name?!), it wasnt and left us disappointed - especially knowing how far the drive home would be.

OH YES SAILING

Well you've all seen the photos, video clips and reports......It really is just like Queen Mary on a good day.

More to come soon.....

NOTE: Err, we can't actually upload photos right now but will do soon, we promise. We have over 1000 downloading in the background...

Training this weekend..

2008-01-21T10:42:00.000-08:00

Three moths out this weekend at QM. A good session on saturday, but no so good the sunday. Adie took some video on his blog