Yachting Victoria has released it’s latest yardsticks, and there are now three moth related entries:

MOTH SKIFF 103.00 More results required
Moth – Foiler 83.00 More results required
Bladerider X8 79.00 New Class more results required

Now last time I looked, there wasn’t a “Moth Skiff”, a “Moth Foiler” or a “Bladerider X8″ class, there is just one, a Moth, so there should be one yardstick for all 3. Now what should that yardstick be ? Well YA Victoria’s own document has the following to say:

USE OF THE YARDSTICK
The aim of the yardstick is to provide a basis for yachts of different ratings to compete fairly when sailed well.
the yardstick is not intended to compensate for differences in skills or competence of individual sailors. The
yardstick is calculated and maintained on a statistical basis and within broad limits remains valid for a variety
of wind strengths and courses sailed. Comparison of yachts of different classes sailing different courses is
thought to be outside the scope of the current rating system.

So since the Bladerider is a Moth, it shouldn’t have a lower handicap just because Rohan sails one. To be fair though, the moth covers a huge performance difference from the slowest scow to the fastest foiler. To have a single number that covers all moths, you would either never win, or win all the time. Which just doesn’t work.

So, is the whole concept of a sailing handicap busted ? As long as it is class based, probably. So what should a moth yardstick be? How about 88 which is the average of all three which should represent. Applying the Bladerider number we are faster than everything other than: 18″ skiffs, F14s, F16s, F18s, Hobie 18s, NACRAs, Tipans and Tornados.

That just doesn’t feel right to me.

Out and about on YouTube, you can find such gems as l’hydroptere, clocking along at almost 45knots average speed on the way to the class D sailing speed record.

This configuration may prove to work well, should the moth rules be relaxed. (Which BTW, I don’t think they ever will)

This morning was analytics time. The Angle Pro, kindly on loan from Mark Wolny came out and setups were compared with the club pace leader and mine. As a couple of people have suggested, the rudder was the main source of my pain, with the angle of attack set completely the wrong way. After a quick adjustment, the numbers were looking a lot better, so I decided to use that setup today. Comparing the new setup to the old one is like comparing apples and oranges as it was only 7 knots last time out and we had gusts up to 20 today. The boat felt much better and I managed to clock 17.2knots. The boat has a lot more speed in it, and I was spending most of the time trying to slow it down. For the first time I was managing to stay up from tack to tack, and I am now starting to get to hang of this whole flying thing. All I need to do is learn how to tack, gybe and sail downwind on a foiler, and I might be getting somewhere.

Wardi has started a debate about removing some of the restrictions on the moth class. Phil has blogged about the prototype that he has seen out and about. Nice try Phil, using the “fake decoy” tactic. I saw what you were doing during the week and I took a photo of the real boat you were sailing, here it is.

So saturday provided a breeze that was a huge 5-7 knot SE breeze, another day where foiling was a challenge for all. Due to a last minute work trip to Brisbane, and a few errands on Saturday morning I only had an hour to get things sorted before heading out on the water. The best part of the race for me was a perfect port tack start on the biased pin end followed by a quick tack over to starboard ahead of the rest, 5 seconds later they were starting to get up and go. Game over.

The setup is still set at 1.5 degrees on the main foil, but it definitely needs more. I can get good lift from the front foil by putting on more AOA but as soon as she gets going, the wand reduces the lift with the bow up so high and the main foil then stalls out and she crashes back down.

One good thing about this is that I have seen this problem on the second and third week out, due to the light winds. If the winds had been say 15 knots instead of 8, then this problem would have been masked by the extra wind speed.

One of the other problems I am having is knowing what the correct angles are to sail downwind. With no boats around to compare with, it makes it harder to try different headings and see the differences in VMG.

So another thing that this confirms is that NOT going to the nationals in Wallaroo was definitely the right thing to do, as I would have been absolutely nowhere, and extremely frustrated.