Way back in my High School days I took my moth to the Combined High Schools (CHS) regatta. The CHS regatta is sailed every year at Belmont, site of the next Australian worlds. Anyhoo here is a scan I did today of a photo that was on my wall for ages growing up.

Now if I could only find the shot of my third boat, Disaster Area that I have lost somewhere.

So today’s conditions for the last race of the season looked to be a perfect 20 knot westerly on dead flat water with a windward leeward course straight up the river.

Putting the foils in I noticed that my rudder flap was right down, no worries, a few twists and … it was exactly in the same place. The push-rod, which is an original plastic one had broken. Game over. At least I wasn’t wet yet …

So that marks the end of the 08-09 season at St. George, and onto the winter hiatus for a few months.

As always there is a list of boat work to be done, and re-painting the hull will be back on the agenda again. The paint on the hull has turned out to be way too soft, and combined with a thrown together at the last minute cradle has resulted in the boat looking like a complete heap again. At least this time around, I know the paint will be easy to remove …

I have always liked Scott’s moths. His ropes are always über neat with as few knots as possible. And Scott being the kind, caring guy that he is likes to share them via sailingbits.com.

We’ll whilst on hiatus last week I was determined to teach myself how to splice. So after work today I got myself a set of fids and set about re-doing my vang and my wing support rope knot-free and here are the results.

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Whilst not perfect, I am happy with my first attempt. The vang is even using the same 2 year old ropes just re-done.

With the drift-off that is also known as the NSW states but a distant memory, I have skipped out of town for a week. Does this mean that boat stuff has stopped … well no.

On Tuesday I caught up with Andrew Landenberger, and checked out his new house / loft on the River, and got inspired with a few new ideas to try when I get back home …

The other thing that amazes me in Grafton is how easy it is to get access to some really great machinery. There almost seems to be a secret society of retired gentlemen who have fully decked out workshops in their basements. (Almost every house in Grafton proper was raised out of flood in the 1930’s so they have a whole “workshop floor” below the house.)

I am not just talking hobby equipment either, I am talking full scale, ex-industrial metal work lathes that some of these guys served their apprenticeships on capable of making parts for powerstations. And they know how to use them.

So I spent an hour or so with Dad watching a lathe bring some new custom parts to life, designing on the fly as we went. Then, once finished it was back to another full scale workshop in Dad’s basement for the finishing touches.

Now I just need to fit them on the boat and learn how to use them before next season.
If only we had a club which included a bunch of mad moth scientists … oh wait … we do.

On a side note my laptop is currently back at the manufacturer being reparired, and Mothcast is currently on hiatus as well until it comes back.

Luka hosting an autograph signing (aka a flying ant briefing) session at St. George a couple of weeks ago.