Ware River Regatta

With apologies to Zallinger's "March of Progress" and the WRYC T-shirt artist, I offer the next step:

August 6th and 7th saw five moths meet for the annual Ware River Governor's cup regatta. It was the largest gathering of moths in the middle Atlantic area to date.

While rigging up we were visited by Ted Causey, who won the moth world championship at Ware River in 1976. Pic by Lin McCarthy.

The breeze was up on Saturday (topping off in the mid 20s with big waves) and we only got in 2 races with some attendant carnage. I won and Bill Beaver took second. Gui Vernieres, John Zseleczky and Mike Parsons rounded out the fleet.

John, Mike, Bill, me and Gui. Pic by Lin McCarthy

After Saturday's second race Bill heard a crack on his strut during a capsize and decided to end-for-end the strut hoping to save the foil. The top (or then the bottom) still decided to part ways while sailing back in. Needless to say he didn't sail Sunday but will surely add to the carnage album.

With Saturday's big breeze, Mike launched and shortly returned to shore figuring that discretion is better than having to repair various bits and pieces. Gui was pleased having a fairly long session in some wind and having nothing break. Neither John nor I had equipment problems, except for the loose nuts at the end of the tillers. We all agreed that whoever managed the offwind legs the best would end up on top. Gui, having his sailboard to play on after Saturday's racing, estimated the puffs in the upper twenties (he was using his 6.5 sqm sail.) The waves on the 2nd race were larger than anything I experienced at Weymouth or at the Gorge -- maybe 2.5-3 ft max. We figured the southeast wind had a fetch of about 20 miles rolling in from the mouth of the Chesapeake.

Me at speed on Saturday. pic by Lin McCarthy

Sunday dawned with still some breeze left over but it had veered to provide flat water. But by the time we got to the starting area it had dropped to sometimes marginal foiling conditions. Lin McCarthy on the RC boat got a nice shot of Gui during one flyby.

Since there were nine classes to grind through the sausage making starting sequence, we decided to bail out and just have some self-started races up to a mark and back. Sunday's sailing was fun even if it didn't count. We got lots of comments, especially from the junior Opti sailors.

I edited a video of the first race and am working on the second tonight. Still pics as I get them. The full set from Lin McCarthy is on the Yahoo! site

 

Sail or Blog?

I've been doing a whole lot more sailing than blogging so here's a consolidated report.

With the Harbor Springs regatta off the schedule, I wanted a chance to sail in fresh water so Susan an I loaded up the boats and headed about an hour and a half south to the Chowan River in North Carolina.  The pictures above shows the foiler and Susan's classic on the trailer and a close up of the Squirrel-cam arrangement.  Over two days they wasn't a lot of wind but I did manage to get airborne for about an hour each day.  Snippets of the video recorded on the first day are below. It's fun being able to sail in a bathing suit and not worry about jellyfish. The freedom without the constraint of the wetsuit made my movements aboard much more graceful. Only 19.5 knots max, but fine in the moderate conditions.

The second day I took off the camera mount and placed the Velocitek forward where I could see it. What a difference!  Being able to view the boat speed through the jibes made three is a row possible. Maybe there is hope!

After returning from North Carolina it was back in the salt waters of Willoughby Bay. I started to play with the Velocitek's ability to download tracks. One session is shown below. The speed statistics include some anomalous readings - max of over 32 knots and a average of over 27 kts. You can be sure that they are not real!



 

  I've also been trying to hit the weather window just right to get nice conditions. One day last week I launched at 9:30 and got the best two hours of the day. I like the website that provided this display. It also has the ability to display forecast conditions for the next few hours. During the summertime it's a question of whether the seabreeze will overcome the pressure gradient or not...

One day I tried another camera mount. The wind started marginal then continued to drop out. The most excitement was watching a least tern dive bomb a seagull. I wonder what was the cause of the tern's consternation?

On the racing side, I competed in a regatta on July 30 at ODU. The handicap fleet had just a handful of boats and they scored me using a Portsmouth number of 65 (my recommendation.) While the breeze was up as we were launching it dropped throughout the day. Needless to say I couldn't sail to the rating and finished out of the money. It was useful to have timed starts, mark roundings, figuring laylines, etc.  There was another race at Ware River the following week and I'll have a separate post for that.

Sail, break, repair, repeat.

Two days ago the rudder's horizontal got a little loose so yesterday was spent reattaching it with a bigger  1/4"-20 bolt and some WEST System Six-10 adhesive. Today I hit the water again and ended up with a broken pushrod. The pain in the neck is that the piece that broke is the 10-32 left hand thread I use for the ride height adjuster. So it's another quickie order to McMaster in Chicago for a couple of bolts (one to replace the broken piece and a second for a spare.)  I did manage to collect a new piece of video with the speed readout much clearer. The breeze was less than Thursday and my top speed was almost as great. I've added some subtitles and music. Enjoy. I still gotta work on the jibes and remember to attach the tiller centering bungee...

The beginnings of a long set of tweaks

For the past week I've been sailing Try-Foil with her new gantry and new M2 mainfoil. These sessions have been the first since last year's debacle at Harbor Springs. The initial settings on the strut and rudder angles were my best guess. I've been tweaking the mainfoil's AoA and have been pushing the boat hard upping my highest recorded speed (as of today it stands at 23.3 kts.) I've also installed a GoPro camera and have taken some interesting video.

My first attempt (sans music) is a sorta homage to the moth pioneer videographers, including my version of the Squirrel-cam, the under-the-transom Bora-cam, and a nod to Gui's North Cacalaki road trip.

The next outing will have the Velocitek much closer to easily read the speed. And even though the turbid water of Willoughby Bay is my home pond, is it any wonder why I'm eager to sail again in the crystal clear water of Lake Michigan up at Harbor Springs?

Gantry #3

After a couple of weeks playing with my classic (the first coat of paint went on yesterday) I finally got around to working on the foiler. The projects include fitting the M2 mainfoil and re-building the gantry attachment points. After my "agricultural" repair of gantry #2 at Cascade Locks, I needed a new gantry that would not fail. The design does away with the lower bottle screw and instead incorporates the threaded fork for gross adjustments. The top attachment points are also forked, but of glass tube rigorously reinforced with lots of carbon. I also beefed up the saddle flanges from 1/8" to 3/16" G10 plate. The whole bit seems much more solid and cleaner. I've decided to do away with the fairing although after a few weeks of use it may come back.

With the gantry attachment points repaired I can reassemble the racks so I can easily lay the boat on its side. Next up is the M2 strut cassette for the well. I hope to have the trial fit in the next few days and perhaps hit the water by next weekend. Stay tuned.

More Seconds

Susan and I just came back from the Classic Moth regatta in Brigantine, NJ, a seven hour drive from Norfolk. I was sailing my 14 year old mistral "Try-Umph" on which I had just recently replaced the roll tanks. Susan was sailing her Shelley, "Aftermath." She finished mid fleet (8th out of 15) and I finished 2nd (with a 2,2,1,1,2), just one point behind John Zseleczky. Mike Parsons finished 3rd. That's three guys who have also built foilers in the top three places.  The racing was fun and the party hosted by Joe Courter was even better. I can't wait 'til next year.  After the racing it seems like the Ware River regatta will have at least 5 international moths so we'll get our own start. As of now, Bill, Gui, John, Mike and I all are interested. Maybe even another couple of guys from the Annapolis area. I'm looking forward to this race in seven weeks -- I hope there'll be some wind.

The replaced roll tanks on Try-Umph were an attempt to improve the appearance and drop a few pound in the hull weight.  The original tanks were overbuilt and were completed in eight pieces as described in this link.    For the new tanks I removed a lot of the underlying structure, sistered the frames with some foam and laid a piece of 5.7 oz carbon cloth under the section where I sit and hike. The results look better to me.


Also on a second lap is the picture in this month's Sailing World, that Photoboat.com took of me in 2008 at the HHPDO in Rye, NY. Since I guess "All publicity is good, except an obituary notice ," I'm glad for the mention, even if my name isn't mentioned. It does go to show that all moths aren't black, that there are some homebuilts being raced, and that all mothies aren't experts. Thanks Dr. Crash, even if I'm not from Indian Harbor.

Photo by Photoboat.com in Sailing World magazine

Back to the Future

School and crew season have finally ended and I can now turn back to working on Try-Foil. The goal this season is to fit the new Mach2 mainfoil and strut to my boat. The first challenge is to adapt the lower bell crank pivot to my modified pushrod location which was situated to match up with the old FC mainfoil. My solution is to simply raise the pin location resulting in an effectively shorter strut. I'll also have to beef up the strut where it exits the hull to match the designed exit point, now an inch and a half higher. I'll also have to fit a new cassette for my well to accommodate the new cross section. Hopefully all will be taken care of in the next couple of weeks.

But first up is a re-decking of Try-Umph, by 1997 mistral classic. Next weekend Susan and I will be heading to New Jersey to sail in the 20th annual Brigantine moth regatta organized by George Albaugh, a CMBA stalwart and class historian. Susan will be in Aftermath, her Shelley,  and I'll be sailing the mistral. With the past few years focused on travel with Try-Foil (in '08 to Weymouth, in '09 to Cascade Locks, and last summer to Harbor Springs) we hadn't made the trip to Brigantine, one of Susan's favorites, in quite a few years. So I'm looking forward to the racing and socializing after a week of  boat work replacing the roll tanks.

As an aside, George recently posted on his blog Mid-Atlantic Musings  some historical material about mothing in the 1950s. Included in recent classic moth discussions was the moth hiking board (seen in the pic at the top, courtesy of George Bailey) a controversy that caused them to be banned at the 1950 IMCA AGM.  Seems nothing is new under the sun as we consider the solid wing sixty years later. Interestingly enough, George relates that Warren Bailey won the 1954 Moth World Championship in his boat MACH ONE. Isn't it a small world?

Here's the video by Clayton Fuller that George posted: