Teknologika - Moth blog

Well you can cheer or cry, depending on your point of view, but there will not be a moth in the Olympics any time soon. The ISAF meeting in Madrid has concluded and the following equipment was selected:

Ballot 1: Women’s Windsurfing – RS:X
Ballot 2: Men’s Windsurfing – RS:X
Ballot 3: Women’s 1 Person Dinghy – Laser Radial
Ballot 4: Men’s 1 Person Dinghy – Laser
Ballot 5: Men’s 1 Person Dinghy (heavyweight) – Finn
Ballot 6: Women’s 2 Person Dinghy – 470
Ballot 7: Men’s 2 Person Dinghy – 470
Ballot 8: Men’s 2 Person Dinghy (high performance) – 49er
Ballot 9: Women’s Keelboat Match – Elliott 6m
Ballot 10: Men’s Keelboat – Star

There was a significant debate about the 29er XX vs the 470 for the women and can read the full story here sailing.org news article

I mentioned a couple of posts back that I thought changing my vang strop lengths had improved my upwind speed. I finally got around to fixing up my GPS (soldering was required) so I could download the data from last week, and the polar diagram really tells the story.

You can clearly see that the effective tacking angle is much narrower (the red is before the change and the green is after). The average and maximum speeds, and VMG are all much higher. This is because I am now able to point high and foil instead of needing to low ride if I want to have any chance of actually making the windward mark.

The total adjustment was to shorten the top vang strop about 50mm. This really goes to show that the smallest thing, if incorrect, can make a huge difference. It also highlights the size of the hill you have to climb when you reinvent the wheel yourself.

So I was planning to go to the Interclub today at Balmoral, but yesterday what was supposed to be a 5 minute repair to my rudder on inspection was a bit more damaged than I thought. So in the interests of making things bullet proof, I decided to completely re-do the whole tiller attachment. A quick trip to CST composites for a new sleeving tube and this morning it was glued on and looking like this.

Tomorrow I will be vacuum bagging the whole thing in carbon, which I couldn’t do the first time around. I also finished the mould for my T join in my new foils today, so I will be laying that up shortly as well.

Mothcast Show number 2 with Phil Stevenson is now online at http://www.mothcast.net

Phil Stevenson is one of the true innovators of the moth class. Over the recient years, Phil has homebuilt several moths and a development International Canoe using stressed ply, as well as designing and developing his own hydrofoils.

Dowload the show directly

This episode is sponsored by ful-vue design.

Subscribe to the Podcast

After a flurry of activity, my foil construction has stalled over the last couple of weeks due to work trips, bad weather and wanting to not spend every last second working on moth related stuff.

What I have been doing thought is making a number of smaller tweaks on my boat and it has been steadily improving its performance.

Last week with only Grant and I sailing, I tried a new wand configuration, albeit a hacked together temporary one and it was an improvement on what I was already running. If there is one thing that my boat has now it is control, and lots of it. My boat gives me a great feeling of confidence when it is up that it is not going to buck and throw me off. With the new wand I can now feel every bump in the road downwind and that is a great sign of the boat reacting to what it is sailing over.

This weeks tweak was to re-do my vang strops completely, and I think that I have finally sorted out my upwind VMG problem. Saturdays conditions were a perfect sailing breeze with some gusts over the 20 mark but the majority of the breeze sitting in the 15-20 range, with flat water making for great foiling or non-foiling conditions.

Downwind I am still not as quick as the fast guys, but the stays are now starting to make audible speed noise, when they weren’t before. I didn’t have the GPS on, but I think that I am tantalisingly close to breaking the 20kt mark in the right conditions. The new foil should definitely get me over that line.

Now if only I could turn corners without loosing 20-50 seconds to the leaders every time ….

Next time we meet for a port and starboard crossing, you might want to keep these photos in mind.

And I think that my next boat will be called son of skynet. This was for a halloween party last night.

Luka’s new toys arrived this week.

It looks even better out of the box !

From today, you can access and subscribe to Mothcast from the iTunes music store.

If you haven’t yet you can just click here:

If the Bladerider manages to succeed and become a one design Olympic class it will most likley have a minimum weight. And that is the subject of my latest poll:

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Well, as expected, our MDF moulds are one shot only. I am really happy with the foil skin that emerged, but the mould didn’t survive and is off to mould heaven.

All four skins are completed now, so it is time to move onto phase 2, putting all the bits together.

It looks like it is time for design number 2, and another $3 worth of MDF in the machine for my “spare” main foil. That’s why they call it a development class