So a few people have been asking me to post something so they can “keep up with the news”, so Les here you go

About 4 races into last season I decided that I had taken the development of Virtual Reality as far as it could go. Virtual Reality managed to spend about 30 seconds on foils under some sort of control, with the overall weight and centerboard position being major factors preventing her from achieving any sort of reasonable foiling setup. With that realisation at hand I decided that it was simply pointless to spend any more money on VR to get her up to speed purchasing carbon wings and moving the centerboard case forwards.

Once VR was sold, I was able to start working on my new design and building my new boat. The reason that I am going the home build route versus a Prowler or Bladerider is simply a financial one for me, I cannot justify spending $20K on a brand new boat. If you look around at a moth regatta there are very few people who simply pony up the cash on a $20K moth. Most will have worked their way up buying incrementally better boats over a few seasons, throwing in few grand each time they upgrade.

So as I started to put pen to paper, John Gilmour was also starting a new design of his own, soon one thing led to another and there were plans to build three new boats at St. George. When this is happening it simply made good sense to work together and combine efforts.

Over the course of the season John and Mark Wolny have been working hard to prepare firstly the male plug and secondly the female mould for John’s new design. With that work behind them now it is time to start producing the hulls.

So with a turn of fate and work commitments it now looks like I am first in line to produce a boat to John’s design starting in a couple of weeks. Whilst that may change, I am now about to have no free time as every last minute is spent building my third moth.

So if I am building my third, why is this chapter 5? Well this will be the 5th moth I have owned, over the last 22 years. So when do I expect to be on the water? Realistically I hope to be on the water for the start of the season in September. Any earlier is simply a bonus. I will be documenting the process so when it is all finished there will hopefully be a how-to guide for anyone who wants to home build themselves.