China in your hand

First holiday for a while without Moths and it was great. It's true, there are nine million bicycles in Beijing and also very complicated toilets like this in our hotel room. A man could get a shock by pressing the wrong button at the wrong time...

But actually I liked this most creative use of a knackered old scooter, to hold a washroom sink up. Its art really.



Yesterday reminded me why I like pursuit races as we had the "Cock of the Harbour" (yeah I know) at Hayling Island SC. Good fun starting nearly 15 minutes behind the 49ers and winning the race having started some 1hr 35 mins after the first boat.

The break did me good and it was lovely to get back to HISC, quiet now all the visitors have gone, with only slashed tie down lines and cigarette burns in the cover to remind me yet another championship had just rolled out of town.

I Predict A Diet

Image courtesy of David Rose-Massom

Years ago the weather forecast may as well have been written by J K Rowling, but these days its accurate and I can see its going to be windy for a long time yet. Accordingly I am on the cusp of cutting my foils down for the coming Hayling Island Regatta this weekend. England right now seems the place where the worlds weather systems collide and having been grounded every night this week there is simply no other boat work I can do.

On Sunday its the HISC regatta, a great fun start-from-the-back dash for the Moths, and on Monday Federation week starts at HISC. So if you are a Moth sailor with a bit of time on your hands (you may have just finished an Olympic Test event for example) come down and race with us! I'm sailing til Wednesday then off on holiday. Then its time to start thinking about Campioni!

Here are the things I remember from Campioni in 05.

The girls in the rescue Ribs were topless.
It was 12 knots at the windward mark maybe 18 at the leeward mark, except when it wasn't.
The coffee was great
The club was very friendly
They played Nora Jones in the dinghy park
Go right up wind, go same way down wind
When there is a storm, watch out for the falling rocks from the cliff!
It was light, light guys did well, (here's hoping) but it was a bit of a different time.


S

New Mach2 small front hydrofoil

Speed, we keep being told is bad, intelligent people drive slowly, no flash flash of a speed camera for them. Yet I think its good. It means for example you can go and see your mother in law, but not have to stay the night, and with the Moth Worlds in beautiful Campioni on Lake Garda coming up, it also means that if you are fast, you might do well.

This then is why you should be interested in the above picture. It's the mould for the new Mach2 small front hydrofoil. The new foil will plug straight onto your existing Mach2 vertical foil.

It's being produced right now. We will have more pics for you very soon.

Mach2.1 upgrades

Andrew McDougall at the Syz & Co European Championships. Photo courtesy of Loris von Siebenthal

Hi

In the last two years that we've been immersed in the Mach2 Moth project we've built up a strong knowledge of the product and this 2.1 upgrade comes as a result of Andrew's work in addressing the areas that we have felt we've been able to make an improvement to.

Here are the list of upgrades:

- Front foil mould reset to get a perfect transition from foil to flap, which means less drag.

- Hydrofoil laminate beefed up to improve strength of the already strong Mach2 foils

- Finer alignment of pushrod to flap to reduce flap mechanism friction

- Low friction control rod tube in main vertical foil

- 1st and 2nd gear options on bell crank axle position

- Laminate changes to both verticals to make them even stronger

- Lighter and stronger gantry

- Stronger hull, same or less weight than Mach2.0

- Hulls now comes with bungs and breather tubes

- Stronger vang rope

- Stronger wing tubes, same or less weight than Mach2.0

- Masts made stronger at the base

- Mast foot and pin redesigned to reduce stress on mast and prevent mast foot failure

- Mast stump now locates more accurately and stump tube is stronger

- Rear wing tubes locate more accurately and are stronger

- New more adjustable wand mechanism. Stiffer with greater durability

- Custom hull colours available

The Mach2.1 is available now!