So Saturday was a 4 hour foiling session, which included a club championship race in a building breeze, We had a good turn out of boats and the good thing about our fleet is that we had them at both ends of the fleet.

Since the last club race I have noticed a couple of key differences which, when you count out last week and the Belmont away game, was 4 weeks ago.

Having competition at your level, whatever that is, really forces you to raise your game. Last season, I was the last foiler at the back of the pack, and nothing I did would make no difference to my finishing results, heck I could sail to shore, grab a beer and sail back out and it would not have not changed my finishing position.

Once you have boats near your level of performance that you are actually racing, that really changes the game. No longer can you just turn a corner and sail for the next mark, it is now a mental thought train of “Cool he has just capsized, I can catch him … come on … shit … go faster … come on go faster … I need a gust … where is he? … he’s gybed …. I still have pressure … shit loosing it … pressure to the left … can’t make the mark …. need to gybe …. fuck the pressure has gone … crap low riding … come on … get up … get up … shit … where is some pressure … crap he’s up … come on … oh F$% &*( ^&*&^& shit come on … ” well you get he idea. My point is that once you are actually racing, you suddenly really notice where you loose time, and where you gain it, and you are trying to go as fast as possible as much as possible.

Now that I can gybe, most of the time in a semi-reasonable fashion, I can now actually go downwind in stead of a disjointed procession of go … stop … go … stop … go between the top and bottom marks. I really noticed what a difference this made on our second downwind. John Gilmour was right behind me again, when we headed down wind (after I had to re-tie my tramps when the lacing broke). When I foil gybed cleanly and powered out, and he didn’t get through, I looked back and all of a sudden I was half a leg in front.

No wonder I have been alone at the back of the pack. Every time I gybed, I was giving at least 50-100 meters away to the other boats, and with 3-4 gybes on a down wind, (as I didn’t know the correct angles to sail), to someone like Dave Lister you are handing them a half a kilometre of every downwind leg ….

The great thing about the back of the pack though is that you want to help each other so that you can still have someone to race each week. I always knew that racing improves the breed, bit this week was a graphic example of exactly why that is the case.

The other thing I am really noticing now is that how shit my tacks are.

So there was no club race for us on Saturday, because of the 16′ state titles being held in the club. That meant an early start and early finish was required to get some practice time in.

The breeze took a little while to come in, however it was enough to get a full hour in and hitting a top speed of 19.1 in less than 20 knots of breeze, so I was pretty happy with that.

A slight setup tweak and technique change meant I only landed one of my gybes, whereas I really struggled at Belmont the week before, mainly due to the issues with my flap connector.

It would have been a great day for a club race, but alas, that will have to wait until Saturday. Fingers crossed that we will have better weather than today.

The boat is the best it has ever been, with performance upgrades due to go on after SIRS, things are definitely moving in the right direction.

In the last Mothcast I promised that I would write a blog post on how I measure the AOA on my boat, … well here is how I do it.

Firstly I flip the boat upside down, and get it flat so it won’t move. I don’t need it to be level, so I don’t bother with that.

I insert my iPhone in to the patented angle-o-meter that I have built, using very bush mechanic skills …

The critical thing is that the bottom of the gauge is exactly parallel to the chord line of the foil section.

With the phone on my known measurement datum (right behind the centreboard I reset the reading on the iPhone application (I use iHandy Level or the one I wrote myself), so it reads 0.0.

I then slide the bracket over the end of the foil, and then read the AOA off the gauge.

If you don’t have an iPhone you can buy an Angle Pro from hangar 9, and use the same method.

My 3D rendering skills are steadily improving, and these days I can flick out a 3d model for a foil in a couple of hours. I have almost started some new artistic hobby where I design models for both new foils and existing foils that are out there, not to physically make them, but just because I can.

First there’s the Bladerider-ish main foil …

Then a Mach 2-esque rudder

Then I move onto my new main foil design that I will probably make in 2010, which looks really plain and boring with no bulb.

Yesterdays trip to Belmont was not as successful as I had intended. My last trip to Belmont was in 1990 so it has been a while. Conditions were pretty awful, nothing then 15-18 knot puffs, then nothing.

it did remind me of the sheer awesomeness of Belmont though, and it would be harder to find a better worlds venue. The launching is simple and easy, and the grassed rigging area a nice change from our home club.

The waterway itself is a pure open expanse, and yesterday it was perfectly flat which equals speed, speed speed.

On the result front, I was struggling. My mainsheet shredded itself and my latest push rod attachment did such a good job that it de-laminated the old push rod attachment that I had glued onto. That meant that I was not getting flap down and struggling for height and control.

To solve the issue, this morning I got out some pull-trusion, the dremel and a file and some sculpture in carbon.