A little tease

So George and I were just playing around with some of the new equip, a little tease of what is to come in the next couple weeks, here is the video.

Boat is now in Australia and I am leaving on Friday, so the migration is coming.

Out

Twice the speed of sound

So the Mach 2 site has gone live, quite a few new pictures that have not made it up on simon's site that are fun to look at.  Looks very nice and it is exciting to see another design.  It is interesting that the boat comes with a msl13 though I though a msl14 was in the works.  Who knows what Amac is up to but I am sure he has been working hard to improve the sails. Now with the shadow that big blue is casting over the moth world.  Either way lots of action and equipment choices to be made before next Aug.  What ever happens competition is good and everyone will end up with better gear.  I think this is a very exciting time to be a mothie

Tis the season

With the australian summer rapidly approaching, all of the moth sailing peanut gallery have seemed to take up residence on Scott's blog.  Hope he keeps posting. I wont even have to go on a message board to hear some good old whingeing, that I can add more of my whingeing on top of.

It is going to be  great summer, and with all the video equipment that arrived today it should be well documented on the water.

New Moth Drill

Sitting here in the frigid north dreaming about warmer days, I was thinking of fun things to do when I get to go sailing next.  George and I always joke that we are like fighter pilots on our moths, and  after thinking back about the cafeteria at WPNSA during the worlds I am sure there are many other moths sailors that feel the same way.  Recently George and I have started playing follow the leader.  Where the goal is to shake the other boat off your tail.  Why not take it a step further and have a "dog fight" it could be really fun and good for boat handling.  In the "dog fight" the right of way rules still applying, especially no hunting!  Two boats could "engage" by coming at each other on a reach.  After the initial cross the two boats would either try to tack or gybe to change direction and get after the other boat.  Foiling tacks would be the equivalent of gaining altitude and potential energy since you would gain distance to windward.  If successfully pulled off I bet this would be a heck of a lot more entertaining than watching a match race.

So those of you who have a training partner.  Give it a go, let me know if you also enjoy chasing another boat around in circles.  Maybe we could have the unofficial moth dog fighting championships this January in Australia.

Lights Camera Action

So I now have 4 cameras for filming moth stuff.

Two Wide Hero Helmet Cameras.

each of those films at 30 fps at 512x384

One Sanyo Xacti E2

60 fps at 680x480

One Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA6

for general Amac antics

On a side note I was cruising the Zhik site looking at the gear and stumbled upon the Zhik team page.  The moth team consists of Scott Babbage, Matt Belcher(who will be missed), and Luka Damic.  After clicking on Luka's  profile I noticed he got 3rd in the Australian Nationals last year.  I understand that I did not count in the Australian results but for the overall I could have sworn I got 3rd.  

This year there should be more internationals coming with Andrew Brown, Arnaud, Simon Payne, and myself.  Since I have not heard anything about the Australians changing the not counting internationals rule I am thinking of ways to either warrant the entry fee or make a side competition.

Simon suggested that we should expedite our Australian citizen application so that we could could count, in one of the more hotly contested regattas of the year.  That would be the ideal solution but I am not sure we can make it through all the red tape in a matter of three months.

Another thought I had was to video tape the whole event from my boat and put American flags on top of all the Australian boats.  If the videos made it to the web it would look like a 4 boat regatta with a whole bunch of American flags flying around the water....

A third idea for the internationals was to have our own competition of who can drive a top Australian farthest back in the fleet,  Sort of like a multiple team match race.  Since this would be unofficial, and I think it best that we provide prizes for ourselves.  Perhaps some libations at a local bar reliving the new Australian swear words that we could learn during the day if we were to do such a deed.

I really hope the Australian Moth Class lets people who have traveled from halfway across the world count in their national championship.  It would be the right thing to do.