Sent

Well that was a great day of mothing. Good wind, good height control, reasonable endurance (well compared with all previous attempts), no breakages and plenty of speed. Unfortunately the GPS is busted so no top speeds to tell of.

Markla was lucky to get three days of mothing in last week and it really showed on Sunday. His windward heel looked pretty much spot on with mainsheet and hiking skillz working well together to keep it all smooth. It sounds obvious but getting the basics right on a moth is tricky as well as important. He tried a couple of gybes too, first two were far enough but he didn't move across quick enough, third was an over correction and didn't go far enough around before trying to change sides.

I was nervous about going out because it looked quite windy but after seeing Markla handling the conditions easily and the boat looking very stable on the foils it had to be done. And it was well worth it, upwind was fast and in control, downwind was fast and in control. Paced a cougar cat upwind for a reasonable distance. Tried a gybe but wasn't sending it through far enough or with enough speed. Longest foiling rides I've had by far. The arms and hands gave up first and the quads were sore (but didn't cramp like last time) but the hamstrings really weren't used to sitting on the wing bar that long and hard and were the sorest on Monday and Tuesday.

The internal vang works now that it doesn't twist up inside the boom, only problem is that the line is a little too small and the cleats don't hold it when fully cranked.

Still a couple of jury rigged repairs to finalise; the pushrod is held together with grey sticky weld, wand paddle is huge and heavy (it's a resin infused 50mm paint brush taped to the wand, the wand will bounce up on a wave and without plenty of shock-cord it comes down very slowly which is affecting ride height a little), the gunwale edges under the heavily loaded lacings are cracked (markla is still debating which solution to implement).

I busted my ankle at touch last night, can't put any weight on it, so won't be sailing this weekend. Bugger, was looking forward to it.