They are designed to be a logical next step from what I am currently running and hopefully be on par with the current Prowler foils, although I simply won’t be able to come close with the material or build quality.

John Ilett, sets that bar, very, very high.

The machine is prepped and ready to go, so the cutting starts tomorrow.

So over the weekend the machine has been put in to action cutting out some sample foil shapes. Not full sections, just some tapered NACA 63412 bits. So that means it is time for yet another CNC video …

Note to self: The last four posts have all been CNC related. I might be starting to loose the sailing crowd and gaining the hobbyist CNC crowd instead.

Oh and I screwed up the editing of the video and it does play one bit twice.

Now onto the real thing … once all the other boat work I have been doing is finished, but more on that later.

I suppose I had better get moving on my foil designs. If only I didn’t have another moth related side project that was keeping me busy …

The video is here.

In case you are wondering that is my brother, Andrew in the video. The next stop will be some cutting tests in a couple of weeks time. Once dust extractors have been purchased and installed.

The other stream of work that is going on is the analysis and design of the foils. The first set will be ultra conservative with the goal of catching back up with everyone else, before anything else is tried. So yes that means boring old NACA 63412 and semi-elliptical profiles like the Mk5 Prowler.

The wind was a steady 15 with some serious gusts to 20-22+, and the speed over the water was seriously impressive. So impressive that I was completely shitting myself.

Returning to the shore, Lea asked if I had broken anything as I was coming in so soon. My response was simple and short, “no Lea, mi cohones pequeño”

New foils just jumped to the top of the winter build list. Now if only I had a CNC machine handy …

(d) (i) Boats
The forward part of the hull on each side of all participating boats in an event shall only display advertising chosen and required to be displayed by that event organizer as follows:
- for boats under 6.5 metres, 25% of the hull length, and 
- for boats over 6.5 metres, 20% of the hull length
excluding bow numbers.  If such advertising is required, it shall be so stated in the Notice of Race.  If advertising is for alcohol or tobacco, the word “may” instead of “shall” applies;

So this essentially means that the entire front 25% of the hull must be free of any sponsors logos, the name of you boat or any builders marks. I am glad I know this now as I was planning to put the name of my boat there when I re-paint it, and I would have to remove those stickers at any event that enforces this rule.

I think that major event sponsors deserve this type of exposure and I expect that more events will enforce this rule going forwards.

I can also see a lot of boat owners having to remove the Bladerider signage off the front of their boats in the next few weeks to comply with this rule. That would suck.

And we are already planning version 2.

This should be up and running this week hardware wise, now on to the software …

One design classes generally promise that there is an even playing field with all equipment being identical. Once you talk to a few people who compete at the top levels in classes like the 49er you realise that this is not the case at all. For example, 49er masts. The top 49er guys will arrive at the docks when the batch of masts arrives from the manufacturer and go through the entire shipment of masts looking for masts that are on the extremes of manufacturing tolerances for stiffness. This essentially allows them to get stiff and soft masts for a class where all masts are created equal. (The class is currently addressing this by switching to carbon masts).

Having spent the last six months developing my own boat, it is very apparent that tiny changes in certain areas on a moth can make huge performance differences around the course, and these types of changes would be almost impossible to police if someone wanted to bend the rules a little bit. So the whole one design thing doesn’t appeal to me at all, and I don’t think it will work as the motivation to tinker is too great with a foiler.

So do I think the FX is a bad idea? Quite the opposite actually. I think that the idea of the FX is a good one. For a lighter guy, say in the 65-75 kg mark, of average skill level, they could buy a FX, sail it well and still expect to be very competitive in a moth fleet. They probably won’t win, but there are a lot of us that would never sail at all if our goal was to win. Will they be the first to take off in light weather? Probably not. Could they expect to be right there in medium winds if they sailed well? Absolutely. Could they upgrade their boat in the future? Well it is still a moth …

Lowering the barrier to entry for the class is a very welcome addition, especially in countries where there is not a large number of second hand boats.

So would I buy one, probably not as is, however add in the option of an FX plus where I can upgrade to a carbon hull and a monofilm sail but keep the cheaper wings, gantry and prodder and I think it would be very tempting. The only problem then is that I would continue to live in envy of those uber-sexy moulded wings …

Rohan even states the following in the Bladerider high performance guide “It seems that only a few have claimed to have done an airborne tack, but rarely (ie ever) are they ever witnessed by anyone”. On Sailing Anarcy they simply say “Pictures or it didn’t happen”. Well you are going to have pictures then Thierry Martinez is the guy to take them.

In the sequence you can see that Simon Payne has clearly tacked and is nowhere near the surface of the water in his latest blog entry.

So now that the grail has been found, we don’t have to worry about the Knights who say Ni.