Totally unrelated, at 1:00pm, as predicted the seabreeze kicked in,15kts from the SE.
By the time I had the had hooked the trailer up my sniffles were gone (an obvious false alarm but you can never be too safe) and proceeded to the yacht club for the boat's 7th sail.
The weather was absolutely perfect. I it was the best sailing experience I can remember. The boat was reasonably easy to get into the air. After a while I was getting the confidence to see how far to windward and down wind I could push it. By the end I was starting every tack on foils. I was surviving 75% of low riding gybes. The closest I got to a foiling gybe was getting to the centre of the boat pointing dead down wind before ditching it.
So things I immediately need to work on.
- For most of the day the boat felt really unstable in heel. I think this was all my fault tho - a combination of not moving my body in and out enough, and trying to steer, or sheet my way back to a comfortable heel. I am very surprised how little help sheeting and steering is, especially compared to displacement boats.
- I am still not sure how to use the twist on the tillerx. This is compounded by me yet to know which direction to turn it to achieve lift. After the sail I think I need to consider it in terms of "bow up/bow down". I will draw arrows on my hands indicating which direction to rotate to achieve bow down.
- An MG and 29er came out while I was out so I got the opportunity to try chasing them up and downwind. When the boat was working properly it was faster than both, however I was loosing so much ground messing about trying to find the take off angle. I need to learn which sit at prior to take off.
w00t indeed. You have finally contracted the third and final stage of sailing flu. Sailing flu is an uncurable virus and has the rare distinction that sufferers should try to spread it to as many other people as possible. It can strike all year round, but is at it's zenith during the summer months when those suffering the disease tend to gather to punt their little boats around a few inflatable buoys, drink beers, cause shenanigans and generally have a great time.
ReplyDeleteFrom here on in, the compulsion just gets worse as you learn to handle the boat better and as the systems get increasingly more refined. Foiling gybes come as the boathandling confidence goes up - foiling tacks come as the absolute l337 skillz reach critical mass.
With the tillerx, boom stickers with up/down and arrows curling in the right directions help. Also prevents various sabot kids from looking at you sideways and asking why you're drawing on yourself.
atleast I have chicken
ReplyDeleteGood to her that it's starting to come together. It's a great feeling when it finally just works!
ReplyDeleteNow make you and it go faster!
Hello. I am very interesed to build the moth you build, becuse it is more or less the only blog on intenet with some exact plans and drawings... But would it be possible to get all the plans, drawings and cad/cnc datas. Could you also tell us which Carbon Sandwich you used? I would be very happy.
ReplyDeleteAntoine Mayer
linux_4_always@hotmail.com
Will email you or mine is
ReplyDeletemr.markla (at) gmail (dot) com.