Skandia Team GBR

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Day 1 - “Aerosol Ant Killer” (way too literal)

Ouch! Tuesday night was a painful experience in numerous ways.

Rigged my new International Moth OK, as expected the camber-inducers in the sail were a pain, but got them sorted.. trying to remember how Mike Cooke had rigged it on Saturday required a photographic memory that I didn’t have and after numerous false starts, it was all logical and we got there in the end!

Eventually I got the boat into the water, the breeze had dropped to around 4 knots I guess at the most… Launching was a huge challenge for me, (a) not being as fit as I need to be (b) being shorter than most… I need a better technique to get over the wings as the boat comes up… (or more wind and do the wing-scoop technique??)

Sailing the boat in sub-optimal breeze was a bit of a nightmare… also one of the camber-inducers had popped off (I forgot to tension the main properly once the mast was up, despite Mike warning me!) the whole boat in such light breeze just flopped around a lot while I tried to get the main set and the boat balanced… (my muscles are still aching as I write this).. inevitably resulting in my arse and elbow being in the wrong place and doing more swimming!

At some point, although I don’t recollect when, I must have trodden on the hydrofoil rod from the wand to the mainfoil and cracked the housing and bent the rod.. also the outboard end of the rod got bent and i really don’t know how that happened… But hey there wasn’t enough wind to even think about foiling so that didn’t effect things on the water, although it really p!55ed me off when I realised when I was back on shore!!

So I spent nearly an hour trying to get to grips with the boat in conditions I probably wouldn’t sail in again… I have to admit I was pretty despondent yesterday evening, Had I made the right choice of boat/challenge was uppermost in my mind and thinking about my lack of progress, the breakage and the technique struggle I had in getting the boat upright when I launched / capsized didn’t help either… I have aches in muscles I had forgotten about, bruises and cuts both physically and mentally and a significant investment sat on the shore that can’t be given up on.

But it was day 1, it was way too light to get the boat to perform properly and it was the 2nd time I have sailed this year, probably around the 10th or so in the last 12 months…

So repairs have started on the push-rod…

I’m watching lots of video’s of Moths to “learn” technique…

And I am now looking forward to getting back out on the water and trying a little harder, with a little more technique and a little more wind and then I’m sure a little more positive results will follow..

1 comment:

Joe said...

I've found that so much of sailing them is Moth/boat-specific technique, I really struggled on my first sail but it didn't take long to get it together and start really enjoying it. My biggest improvement was from putting a piece of elastic on the tiller! It holds it fairly central when climbing in the boat. Before that, it was nearly impossible to grab without tipping the boat over!