Tuesday 11 January 2011

Darling leave the light on for me.



Brad funk and his space ship..Photo from award winning Thierry Martinez

Lay day! Time to recover and do some boat work. We had big winds yesterday which peaked at about 28 knots. It was a wild ride and the rich got richer as the big and strong smoked upwind.

The windward mark can be a long way away sometimes.

Well done to Nathan, Peter and the others who showed the rest what a Moth can do in these winds when you light the blue touch paper. And fast it was! I went through the line in the 2nd race with 28.6 knots on the clock. Clive Watts, owner of CST recorded 30.3knots which was a nice birthday present for him.

It wasnt so long ago that we had the prestigious 20 knot club...

So I'm struggling in this event and some people have asked me why I still race after winning the worlds in 2006 ands 2010. For the love of the sport mate, you have to get over your ego and if you still enjoy it, go sailing. In this game sometimes you are the pigeon and sometimes you are the statue. You have to be pragmatic and the effort required to win a worlds is immense! You cant do it every time and accordingly you have to be realistic about your result. You win when you can and you dont run for the skirting boards when you cant. Anyway it was fun yesterday and my little Abarth Moth was going nearly as fast as the car. I wouldn't have missed those downwinds for anything. At the end of the day you are a long time dead. I can't wait for Campioni already.

The AGM was in typical Moth style, emotional and hi energy. A strong discussion on the wing and its place in the class was debated and the rules team will set to work creating a framework to measure it, with a vote on the subject planned at an EGM later this year.

Charlie McKee stated that he wanted to thank the exec for their work, he mentioned that there had been some "regrettable" US blog posts and media/forum coverage which anyway now is all forgotten, but it was nice of him. Mark and Adam have put a lot of work in.

On gear? Well Nathan and some of the other Aussie Moth Squad have cut 60mm off the tips of their main foils and accordingly it's our intention to make a smaller foil for big winds, so dont get the saw out just yet!

5 comments:

Fred said...

Thanks Simon,
needed that first part of your text. Did not have the best day on the ice yesterday. The "juniors" were flying away.
Smooth Sailing!

MikeBz said...

Quote: "At the end of the day you are a long time dead."

Or as Pink Floyd put it: "Life is a short warm moment, and death is a long cold rest."

Doug Culnane said...

So Campioni for 2012 Worlds is confirmed? Great news I will get into training for it now. Start with one Cappuccino a month and aim to build up the Cappuccino rate to 3 a day in time for the event.

Ole, Denmark said...

What an wonderfull attitude to the sport - good luck on the race track

Foiler Town USA said...

60mm, awesome that wil be just right for my foil where the port hand tip was chopped off in a "peanut butter sandwich / coach boat / moth interface" failure last April.

Nice work Si, great attitude