Last weekend was the Classic Moth National Championship in Elizabeth City, NC, "The home of the mothboat." I was racing Aftermath, my wife's modified Shelley and finished 6th. Jeff Linton won the regatta, hosted by the Classic Moth Boat Association, besting Mike Parsons and Mark Saunders. Elizabeth City is an interesting venue. Fresh water with little to no current, a nice grassy lawn (the home of John and Sarah Pugh) to rig up on, and a floating dock that allows launching into four feet of water.
The town is small and dotes on the itinerate sailor: the municipal marina is a stopover on the intercoastal waterway and the local chamber of commerce has adopted the moniker "the Harbor of Hospitality," complete with a logo of a classic moth on the town's water tank.
More interesting was the after race activities on Saturday: both Mike Parsons and John Zscleczky brought down their homebuilt foilers. John's Hungry Beaver is pretty well sorted - the only obvious glitch was his fixed gantry was not angled enough to provide sufficient rudder lift. Even cranking the worm gear to its maximum extent the ride was still bow up. John says his plan is to remove and shim his rudder horizontal to help get more lift.
Mike's Stevo is still a work in progress. Sailing it reminded me of my boat two years ago: the hull, rack, and rig are sound but the foils and foil control systems still need lots of work. The obvious problem was high flights often resulting on sudden crashes. We tweaked the morse cable lengths and played with the wand settings but still couldn't get stable flight. The fact that the breeze was around 10 kts didn't help (perhaps in more wind things would have been better.)
John and I will be sailing in a couple of weeks at the HHPDO in Rye, NY. John in his Hungry Beaver; I will be in a borrowed Bladerider.
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