Holes in the Cheese

Since you are only as good as your last race, the Swiss nationals created plenty of scope for improvement for the rest of the season. Swiss cheese is famous for its holes and that's what I found in abundance in Ascona. The breeze was wildly random and I hit a log which took out the gantry after two and a half races - not the best circumstances for assessing racing strengths and weaknesses of a new boat. By definition the best and most consistent sailor wins and Matthias was impressively cool and fast so congratulations to him. It was also nice to be back on Lago Maggiore which is as beautiful as it is fickle - qualities I appreciate not just of sailing venues.

Last weekend I was up in another country famous for its cheese (no holes here however) to do some more time in the boat. Four of us braved the chop and breeze but before long I was alone as attrition took out prodders, pushrod terminations, and vang strops. My makeshift repairs on the gantry made some impressive noises but it all held together which is testament to the fact that Mike is now building a pretty solid boat. I sailed enough before going solo to find the low and fast upwind mode and that's nice as it has been a persistent and annoying gap (or is it a hole?) in the performance envelope. Left to my own resorts I invested some effort in learning to tack with the 16. I figured I needed to be completely level going into the tack as the top of the sail is so flat and feathered that it immediately backed and threw the boat on top of me if I started turning up with any amouint of windward heel. Usually I'm OK if I'm level when head to wind but with the 16, in a stiff breeze, I felt I had to anticipate that.

The Cheese has Moved

The Swiss nationals are approaching and if all goes to plan I will be on the starting line. In theory I'm defending the title but in fact I will be looking for cheese. Last year I showed up in Geneva with a boat on which I had hundreds of hours, a boat that was never really fast but never slow, a boat on which I was confident I could win at the slowest possible speed.

The Cheese has definitely moved since then. There's a new boat with higher top speed but it's the average that counts and I have no idea what that average is and how to keep it up - I've just got a couple of hours in the boat in its current configuration. I hear Switzerland is right up there as far as places to look for cheese go and that's what I'll be doing.

The "Handwriting On the Wall" (from Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson):

Change Happens

They Keep Moving The Cheese

Anticipate Change

Get Ready For The Cheese To Move

Monitor Change

Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old

Adapt To Change Quickly

The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese

Change

Move With The Cheese

Enjoy Change!

Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese!

Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again

They Keep Moving The Cheese.

My Religion

3915 combined some pretty innovative features. The question is where to go next. Radical ideas or subtle refinement? Maybe a bit of both. Can't stay in one place, can't get comfortable. It's a religious question.

WHY?

Why sail a Moth? I’ve come across a bit of backlash from the technological complexity of the upcoming edition of the America’s Cup. I’ve seen it in print, from the pens of esteemed sailors and heard it at the bar. The question of the relevance of tech to grass roots sailing is being brought up. It’s easy to forget that the venerable Beetle Cat, at some time not so long ago, would have been the essence of modernity – centreboards and upwind sailing considered the devil’s work by the staunchest conservatives.

Getting back to the Moth question, the first part of the answer is because sailing has always been about moving forward, exploring what’s just over the horizon and eventually across the ocean. The quest for discovery is part of the spirit of sailing itself – very much at the grass roots. When it comes specifically to the Moth, it’s just that the questions are more interesting, the answers more diverse, the speed and manoeuvrability more exciting, the tactics more complex. There’s probably more but this is enough for me.

Good Season

It's been about 10 days since I closed the season in Geneva with the Swiss title. Exceptionally we had three days of foilable breeze and shared the lake with the glamour D 35s sailing from one of the most comfortable and yet unassuming clubs anywhere. No one there throws around the usual ill informed obnoxious remarks about how moths aren't really tactical, or frets about foiling egotrippers terrifying hapless opti sailors - when in fact the screams are of joy and encouragement. Geneva understands high performance sailing and sport and the place is cool - and that's an adjective that's getting old fashioned and rarer by the day(pics at: http://myimage.photoshelter.com/gallery/Syz-Co-Swiss-Moth-2012/G0000sJ._Ja3SZ1g/C00000Y74GU4y_20).

It's just been a good season. Together with Mike Cook we developed a succesful long footprint boat. We showed steady improvement in the early season and topped it with two national titles, the German and now the Swiss. The Worlds were fantastic and I learned a lot. The time spent on lake Garda was a chance to meet old sailing friends (many taking part in other class championships) from what feels like another age. It's great to know we all still love sailing it in one form or another. For us in the Northern hemisphere it's now time to get a little winter rest and plan the next season.

Old glory

Bruinisse is the last meeting of the year for Benelux mothies. I love the drive up from Antwerp through wetlands. The weather being somewhat unsettled, I counted at least half a dozen rainbows as a low easterly sun got under the grey squalls coming in from the north sea. Saturday was quite breezy and frought with breakdowns. Sunday was more mellow but the race course seemed to have its own dark cloud that kept temperatures at 10 degrees. I politely decided to stay ashore  - this has been a very mellow season and I wasn't in the mood to change that at the last minute.

I was however happy to see Morgan Good get 2nd overall with my old prowler. Still a very pretty and fast boat. Very good of Morgan to have done so well in his first moth race.

White Knuckles

A friend called me to say he'd just bought an old Moth so he could learn to foil. Great news to have newcomers to the class in Belgium. He needed some advice on setting up so I volunteered to take a look at his "new" ride. He showed up at the lake with no less than White Knuckle Express - a piece of history! I couldn't resist going for a spin and was amazed at how well it worked once sorted. This is the boat Rohan Veal used to show the world what foiling was all about. It should be in a museum.

There are plenty of videos on the net showing Rohan sailing around on his foiling machine in a style long since surpassed. It's quite interesting to compare Rohan at Garda on the much evolved Bladerider, the boat and Rohan had already moved on so far. Stepping into White Knuckle Express knowing what a Mach 2 feels like makes it so much easier to set up and sail the old boat. It's humbling to think of the huge challenge Rohan faced and met just a few years back without the benefit of experience. We all owe him and John and the handful of pioneeers that first got foiling a great deal.