I really liked Adam May’s the foiling guide, and like my how to make a Moth part 1 it alludes to a more parts that are “yet to come”, as a teaser the last line of the document is “[Wand and cable section still to come to complete this section]” but it never came …
with a recent post over on Sailing Anarchy complaining that people never put information out there I rolled up my sleeves and wrote Magic wands – Wand control systems on Hydrofoil moths.
This is my understanding of how this all works, if you don’t agree then let the debate start …
Bruuuuce!
Nice work. Maybe this would be a good kernel for a wiki on wikipedia or Mothtopia (or whatever a Moth wiki would be called). Then you would get the wisdom of others in the mix. Just a thought. Good sailing,
Bruce-
THANK YOU!
(and a moth wiki would be a great idea!)
Thanks a lot Bruce for this nice basics presentation.
Agree on the wiki !
That would helps a lot to share data with others and more experienced sailors for fine tuning our boats. It is quite frustrating to be stucked on basic tuning matter whereas you can spend your time having fun on the water. Only basic measurement comparison can really help to start having the good stuffs on.
As soon as what makes the difference over water is not really the equipment but the ability of the rider; I think that’s will not make a big deal to share some tuning advises and measurement benchmark data.
That would definitely helps to built a more competitive fleet and attract new sailors reluctant to mothic science.
Cheers
Nico
Nico,
One of the things about the moth is the development aspect. That aspect of the boats implies that someone will always be looking for a performance edge, and it is for that reason that you won’t get a huge amount of data sharing. We are already at the stage where the ability of the rider has more to do with performance than the boat itself.
The manufacturers have a roll to play here. They should all have a known baseline setup for their boats that they make available to their customers. Once you know those numbers you need to record and measure, measure, check, measure.
Yeah of course Bruce we are a development class; but the manufacturers already have all the data of their competitors, so what?
Sharing data would mostly help the amateur builders to grow up and experiment new ideas. Besides, that would help a lot all the amateur sailors to fine tune their boats, especially those who haven’t the chance to sail with training partners.
Incremental path through continuous measuring and checking is the heavy load that carry the lonesome experimenterl mothist !
Now I stop blogging and measuring, I go sailing.
Cheers
Nico,
I am not sure exactly what you are after … but any amateur builder can ask me any question they like and I will tell them what they want to know.
My point about the manufacturers is that they should be supplying data about their boats to their customers.
My point about measuring was that you need to know where you are, and you also need to know how your boat responds to change, this is much more important than knowing that I run 2 degrees A)A on the front foil for example. That number is meaningless for anyone else because that is tuned to my foil and my all up sailing weight … think of it in comparison to motor-sport, even though racing car teams know what each other are running, they all have their own approach to solving the same problem. It is the ability to tune is what needs to be learnt, not the numbers that someone else is running, because they are constantly changing now.
I’ll write a post on how I do my measurement and store my data.
Amateurs unite! Who cares if the pros learn all our secrets – we will lose to them anyway! United we fly, divided we…well…fly slower!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moth_(dinghy)
LOL Karl !
Amateur mothies rocks !!! you bet!
http://wiki.mothosphere.com, it will be semi-private to keep Doug out.
Bruce,
Great article, informative and very useful. Just one small thing, I used an adjustable wand height system at the worlds on lake Garda. The morse cable attachment at the bow was mounted on a separate piece of carbon which I could rotate independently. This allowed me to adjust the flap angle by a few degrees from the wings. it worked fine too. Someone else also had a similar system at the worlds in weymouth.