Cool as ice...pfft

list of cool moth blogs that is much more accurate than any worlds form guide!

Thanks for the plug, but if you knew the real markla, cool would not be a word associated with him. His penchant for moths and heavy metal pale into insignificance compared to his uncool footy building skills and left handed-ness. Narkla on the other-hand is fuckin’ Fonzi cool! Just ask him…ayyyy!

It is true, after one too many days waiting for the wind to fill markl4 challenged me to a footy building duel, something to muck around with until it's worth heading out on the moth. Needless to say the building part is progressing slowly with the styrene sheet plate hulls finally watertight and keels being built now. One design swing rigs will be built next (with thanks to markl4's sorkplace for supplying mylar printing, little do they know), but we'll do these together because there is a knack to it (I'm a model yachty from long ago, including internet debates with DL about 12 years ago!!! maybe I shouldn't admit to that after being rated the coolest bloog...it's in the past now). Next hull build though, I'm not sure markla should heat cure the hull joins in the oven...styrene is a thermoplastic. Photo of the Fonz footy below, I can't find photos of your Elephant Man m4rkla.


On the IKEA moth front, we're in the process of updating the flat pack to incorporate lessons learnt and cool ideas, discussion to follow...

Disclaimer - N4rkla doesn't have nearly as cool (or thick) hair as The Fonz or womanise quite as much (if only I could)...

Before...
After...


Speaking of cool, how awesome is Alinghi 5! Can't wait to see video of it sailing. The yanks will have their work cutout to beat one of the fastest big multihull teams around. I "did" like the look of DoGzilla and thought it would be a contender, but with its latest mods and A5 now to compare against, it just doesn't do it for me anymore. I hope Larry doesn't take it back to the courtroom, settle it on the water.

business time

Boat’s odometer is up to 10. Got sick again on Friday afternoon, this time it was blowing 10-20 from due west. Westerlys here are typically patchy and gusty. As I was rigging a number of large bullets came thru being rather intimidating but the max wind speed moderated by the time I hit the water.

The wind was perpendicular to the channel I was sailing in so I got the longest runs to date – 630m – but not very fast. Typically the boat was sailing along level at a constant speed, but as I sailed into a gust the boat would accelerate, fly too high and crash. This is clear from the GPS track below.



I did have a good time and the long runs are very satisfying, but when I got off the water and saw the top speed it was a bit “is that it?!” (14.3kts). Reminded me a bit of this song…

sicky w00t

There are currently 200 confirmed swine flus in QLD at the moment. Today at 1:30pm I got the sniffles. Acting out of the greater good for my fellow man I quarantined myself.

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.
  

This was my first sailing experience I can remember where I didn't want to get off the water. Other on occasions the wind has died, or I got tired, or cold, or bored. Today the wind was perfect till last light, I was tiring but the boat was so easy to handle that i could just go on and on, working too hard to get cold, bored? not a chance. If I had nav lights I would still be out there.

Bung-holeo!

Beavis and Butthead spring to mind after yesterday's little problem...

I felt like a rock star when I met Markla at the club. The boat was rigged and I was told to get changed because I had first sail! yay! Conditions looked a bit on the light side but with the stiffer wand linkages it would be a good test day. Also the club were running short course practice races so there were rescue boats and plenty of other dinghy's around (this would later prove to be embarrassing).

Anyway, long story short, the boat was very sluggish and after the second capsize over the transom I realised the bungs had been left out. Markla had also realised this from shore and sent one of the rescue boats out with a spare. Managed to get back into shore, empty the boat (which took forever) then send Markla out for the rest of the arvo. It was a bit of a dud day due to flooding the boat, minimal wind and shifty and gusty wind to boot.

Atleast we both got some air time and didn't break anything, the new parts worked well. Lesson learnt, even wannabe rock stars need to check their bungs.

Zappy Wetsuit

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/23/sharkzapping-wet-sui.html

Could this be used as a training tool? Markla faces backwards on the moth too often and forgets to flip the battens in the light stuff, a quick zap should train him well! Now, where to place the electrodes...