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Silvaplana

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:44:00 GMT

I've now had a couple of weeks to mull over the trip to Switzerland and I was hoping hindsight might make it feel a bit rosier but unfortunately I still hate the place!

The sailing itself was actually not too bad and although I struggled to figure the place out it was a nice bit of water to go for a plod around. Unfortunately that was marred by too many boats in too small a space, combined with some lunatic course ideas. The Swiss interpretation of the grand-prix finishing system left much to be desired with many people not getting proper finishes or positions. The split gate at the bottom was too close together and one single Moth on its side in the middle pretty much closed the thing out which, led to quite a few wipeouts and one very scary incident that resulted in one of the first protests I can remember at a Moth event - a Rule 69 no less. It also shouldn't take 8 marks to set a windward/leeward!

The event looked great to pretty much everyone that wasn't there and they did an excellent job in getting the publicity out and to a high standard. I believe the event suffered from a lack of attention elsewhere. Where were the socials? One trip up a mountain for an overpriced school dinner barely qualifies and the event tent was pretty much wholely wasted serving overpriced bowls of pasta and little else. Bearing in mind there was little else to do within a 10 mile radius it should have been the hub of the whole thing...

The money. I knew this place was going to be expensive but we were stung for absolutely everything. 5chf for a jug of tap water, 5 chf to have your pizza cut so you can share it, £50 to have a boat measured, £30 to have a sail measured, road tax on your car, road tax on your trailer, £20+ for a pizza? Seriously? Steak was out of the question, much to Rod's disappointment!

I came away from the whole thing feeling shortchanged (figuratively and literally). I started the week well but made a poor equipment call and lost a race (went to change sails only to have the previously slow race committee turn us around very quickly). I lost another 2 races following a monster wipeout where I damaged the gantry attachment. This left me counting a DNS in my final score, which put me in the low teens rather than top dozen. I also had a pretty successful mental meltdown on the final day despite having tons of pace and put in two shockers, making mistakes left and right, and wasn't helped by being put in on the start by Rob Gough - one of the few times I was actually anywhere near the line!

I've obviously got a lot to work on, but the boat doesn't seem to be one of them. I can't get off a start line to save my life (I haven't sailed in a fleet that big since the early 90s!), my boat handling is all over the place and tactics non-existent. What was good was that when I was near the front I could stay there, providing I didn't do anything stupid!

In the rest of camp Ninja, Jason Belben finished in 10th and definitely showed pace around the course. Ben Paton proved himself to be one to watch in the future, almost breaking into the top ten on the last day after only 4 months in the boat. He rides high and fast and isn't afraid to take risks. The boy is quick!

I'm pretty confident that the best sailors won in Switzerland, rather than the best boats, and Team Ninja are going to step up next season - next stop Travemunde!

SILVAPLANA Europeans - 216 Pics

noreply@blogger.com (Nikolaus Liebscher) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:15:00 GMT

BIG Thanks to Helmut! Who made all the pics for us!

http://picasaweb.google.com/110711879062957298813/EuropeansSilvaplana2010#

have fun!

4 – Accident With Local Consequences / steve mothing

mr.markla@gmail.com (MARKLA) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:31:00 GMT

there was an unnatural amount of dust gathering on boat, and we finally had wind for the first time in months so we tried to take the boat out today. water was the coldest i have ever felt the gold coast.

session finished 20mins later after I chernobylled another gantry and push rod.

nick took a short vid of steve sailing:

Click me for more photos of Steve.

Silvaplana pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:47:00 GMT

Action man Paton - one to watch I think...

Brief appearance of the Ellway mk2

Special Agent Barton - weeks most improved

Mr Pybus in Lola

Turtle in action

Doug proud of his latest sponsor

A rare smile on my face!

4 Ninjas in the icy water

Phil's branding is a bit subtle...

Whereas James' will sell many tractors...

Martin peaked too soon! Fastest BR on the lake though...

Katherine sporting the mini rig

SILVAPLANA - shorty, long john or better dry suit

noreply@blogger.com (Nikolaus Liebscher) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:25:00 GMT

Picture Game! Who can find the Moths, and for advanced people - Who can find the snow! :-)

my little Sophie

noreply@blogger.com (Nikolaus Liebscher) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:13:00 GMT

it will be hard to go to silvaplana and don't see her for a week!

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maybe the first moth at lake silvaplana

noreply@blogger.com (Nikolaus Liebscher) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:14:00 GMT

spreader construction booring.

mr.markla@gmail.com (MARKLA) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 22:47:00 GMT

while the world is ablaze with wing rigs, I just did a booring sketch woot to answer the question below.

Hi Mark,

...The cut file you provided included spreaders, but judging from your email you haven’t converted these into a finished product previously? My plan is to tip the spreaders with glass to stop the wear from the stays, and to add uni down the sides to cover the core and to give it some more strength. The Bladerider spreaders have a protrusion on the spreaders that fits into the fitting on the mast that you sent a photo of. I’ll search in the Ronstan catalogue for something similar to the fitting that John Illet uses on his spreaders, but in the absence of a ready made solution, I’ll just cast something in glass....

Yeah, I had every intention of making myself carbon spreaders, but I had an alloy set lying about and I have been using them ever since.
The cabon cut file for the spreaders is still sitting in the garage and may get finished some day.

Attached is a drawing about how I was going to do it.
The key is:

Remove the core from the tips of the spreaders.
Lay up some solid fiberglass (not carbon - glass is harder wearing, alternating passes of double bias or woven roving is ideal) plate to 5mm thick
Cut the fiberglass plate to shapes that will fit inside the decored area.
Glue the fibreglass plate in and then lay some 200 uni carbon (UD-C) over the top of the cut part over the length of the spreader arms.
The spreader base can be made the same way, cut an E glass part that is approx 60x20, with a radius and a pin hole where it will attach to the mast.
The UD-C should lap over the top of the protruding part of the E Glass plate.
Ronstan part is RF917 with the pulley drilled out

I haven't tested this laminate yet, but seeing how light on the prowler spreaders are I think it should work. As soon as the UD-C has cured you should have a good idea if it is strong enough.

Cheers

Mark.

Where do you spend your time?

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:39:00 GMT

Si's blog post about the May/Beer wing (kudos to Adam and Kev) has got me thinking. How do you decide where to focus your time on a campaign? Those of us without coaches or squaddie experience tend to have more of a point and shoot focus on sailing. Get in boat, go race.

But a Moth is more of a challenge than that. Do you focus on design and hope to get the leap on people with pure boatspeed. This is a tricky one as you have to be happy that you know the state of the art and know you can do better. I suspect as more and more people become adept at handling Moths that more focus will come onto this but the gains will be smaller and smaller.

Do you focus on handling - being able to nail one more tack and gibe than the next man has got to help

Tactics?

Who knows. I know I spend most of mine in the workshop working on other things!

Anyway, Martin and myself braved the weedy lake that is currently Cheddar for a quick sail yesterday. I was out for a blast checking new foil setups (vastly improved on the Nationals!) and testing out my new standard Hyde which I am very pleased with. Martin has a trial Skinny Ninja rudder on the back of his Bladerider which appears to be doing the business. Will be interesting to see how he gets on with it.

Training at Stokes Bay this weekend before the long drive out to Switzerland. Should be getting out there on Monday evening and hoping for a nice few days of mountain biking, bimbling and the occasional sail with Martin and Rodders. Anyone else out there early?

Inspired

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Culnane) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 20:07:00 GMT

Well Adam has done it and the eagle has landed. Please lets not ban this because it is just so very cool. It is exactly the sort of thing I want to get beaten by. I want to build one but not until I have built my new deck (in the garden (next project in the pad...)). Still it gets the old engineering brain working and it also connects me with my previous life. (I used to be part of the Boatyard in Beer when it was called something more unprofessional). The thing just looks so right. So next boat should have a wing mast and tramp that seals the gap and lets you run around behind it. That and the split flat anhedral foil... Maybe I will just blog about it and read others blogs that have actually done it, but you never know what inspiration can do.

After the IT nationals I realised it was about time I learnt to sail. So I was happy to get invited by Walter to to a race at his club. This was a good opportunity to practice not crashing to things like camera boats, capsized boats and basically anything that does not move. However the fleet of Yachts decided to to a long distance race. So Walter and I looked good off the line starting down by the pin to avoid the bumper tubs at the start boat. We cleared out to the first Island and Walter was a bit to fast for my liking. Luckily he hit submarines made of weed twice and then had to raise his foils to get round the shallow bit of the Island. I flew round without hitting anything (probably because it was under the muddy water so I did not know where it was) which left me with a hero's lead heading for the tree island on my own. I say heading, but I was heading for a small bed of reeds with a tree on it on a background reeds and trees. This Island was about 3 kilometres away as the Moth flies so naturally I made a mess of it and became a zero as fast as you can say "were da fukawii"*. Anyway that was it for training the next sail will be at the Euros, which I am really looking forward to.

Looks like the Austrian fleet may grow by 50% after the Euros which is fantastic news. I hope we will be in position to apply for official IMCA status at the Worlds so that next year we have another official National Association. There is certainly growing enthusiasm and I think we are close to critical mass. I am aware that the format of racing is all wrong here and we need to come up with some kind of better structure if we are to do more than look for trees and things to crash into. The Commodore of my Club Helmet is a top bloke and will be race officer at the Euros but to run an official race in Austria you need someone of his qualification. Therefore a light weight format need to evolve for training and fun racing. I and Niki are working on it but I need bigger plastic bottles for buoys than the 1.5 litre ice tee ones that you can not see until you crash into them. Niki thinks we should team up with the Cats which may work better.

Tomahawk has found a new home and it is great to see someone having fun in her again:

I have also become a measurer so that the Austrian team we can turn up to the Euros all fully raced prepared...

When I think back to the IT Nationals I am no longer surprised that we Austrians did not get on the podium as there were 6 of the top 10 world competitors there. This just goes to show how competitive the SEX (Southern Europe granpriX) fleet is. (ITA 9, 6, 11, SUI 3, SUI 9). Maybe Sail numbers and the new rules and flag/name stickers are rubbish.

I am reading a book called The Art of Unix Programming

which is truly inspiring stuff, and makes me want to program something that is worth while. I had a brief flirt with an Android Contact Provider for the IMCA site but decided to not be responsible to corrupting mobile phones an personal data. However 5% of the hits on the IMCA site are now mobile devices, so I think it is time for a mobile version of the site. So please fire your thoughts/ideas/requests/complaints at me, so that I can think about building something useful.

See you up the hill.

Weymouth Road trip

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 21:17:00 GMT

Tom Offer and myself packed up the boats early this morning for a quick trip down to Foiltown (Not sure why we still call it that - Nostalgia maybe?) to get some weed free sailing in.

Turned out to be a cracking day for it and joining Me and Tom were Doug Pybus, Alex Adams and Helen Rollinson and later on in the day Adam May and Katherine Knight were spotted out as well although they launched from the Academy while we were all hiding on the beach at Castle Cove. The wind gods treated us well with a 15+ knot Westerly giving us all a chance to stretch out sea legs and blow the cobwebs away.
Alex also obliged with a bit of a measuring session as I've got my new Hyde, plus the Ellway sail to get sorted so I'm not panicking and running around Silvaplana. Speaking of which - 8 days till loadup!

Really looking forward to it. 80 boats... I think this is probably this years real world championships - a sign if any that 2 worlds within 8 months of each other were too many and hopefully a mistake the class wont make again.

Ski Trip Bazinga!

noreply@blogger.com (n4rkla) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:14:00 GMT

The gang are off for a ski trip to NZ, specifically Mt Ruapehu, starting this weekend!

Markla and Nessie should be taxiing now with the rest of us stragglers coming in waves tomorrow.

Wish us luck and no broken bones...

Minor Bristol Mothing

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:12:00 GMT

Not much has been going on since the Nationals. Tom and Alan have been off with their boats to Rock and Falmouth respectively to get in some sneaky practice away from my watchful gaze!

I got out for my first post Nationals sail on Wednesday with Tom only to be greeted by 20-25 knots and piles off weed lying around the lake making it less pleasant than needed. We've both decided to scarper off down to Foiltown on Saturday to try and get some real sailing in - time is running out before hitting the road to Silvaplana and I feel rusty!

On the tinkering front I've been busy butchering cams with the aim of trying to fit an extra one in the head of the sail to alleviate a bit of a crease that has appeared which has really smoothed out the head of the sail and given a much more progressive camber up the sail as it seemed to be flattening out too early in the top. I haven't yet decided whether to use the new Ellway sail at the euro's but it's currently looking good. I've just taken delivery of one of the new standard Hydes so I have a backup...

wings

mr.markla@gmail.com (MARKLA) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:40:00 GMT

i did up a drawing of the wings on my boat for reference to the new slino. this drawing is available thru my google docs (i will gradually transfer all of my drawings to this site - still not sure where to put the rhino model and cad files, for now these can be emailed on request).

at the moment I am running aluminium wings as noted on the drawing. i also did some calcs for equivilent carbon wings (based on CST products):

76x1.27 Aluminium (EI 14.37kN/m2)
*ID63x1.8 Carbon

50x1.6 Aluminium (EI 4.92kN/m2)
*ID35x2.5 Carbon
ID40.4x2 Carbon
ID44.7x1.8 Carbon
ID47.2x1.5 Carbon

40x1.6 Aluminium (EI 2.46kN/m2)
ID32x1.5 Carbon
*ID30x12.6x1.5 Ellipse Carbon

As drawn in aluminium the wings would be approx 7.47kg
Using the alternative carbon sections marked with * above gets 4.72kg

A bugetary price for aluminium tubes is $266, for carbon $1873 (again using the * sections)

it nats

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Culnane) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:32:00 GMT

Great weekend in Garda but it made me realise that my 15 knots of fame are over. I got nowhere near the front of the fleet. I am back in the middle of the middle of the fleet.

There is lots to work on but it is great fun racing in conditions where position change fast, and mistakes are more influential than boat speed.

So the Austrian team is in last minute training mode before the Euros.

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new slino

mr.markla@gmail.com (MARKLA) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:33:00 GMT

i can't remember when but I sold the jig-mould-thing to a guy in melbourne and gave him some cut files so he could build a boat like mine. i just got some photos of his progress and they are attached.

gotta love the stealthy look.

more details as they become available.

Team Austria on the road to the Italian Nationals

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Culnane) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:13:00 GMT

It is Poets Day (Piss Off Early Tomorrow Saturday) and now we are on the road and playing with new phones. Looking forward to a weekend off Moth sailing and looking for a hotel.

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Nationals lessons

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:23:00 GMT

Well, I've had a week to sit and ponder on my shortcomings at the Nationals and I think I have figured out what the lesson was. If you are going to take spares, you should be prepared and pretty happy with what you could possibly end up sailing with!

So my mast inexplicably fell down on day one right near the end of race one, leaving me out of race two. I headed back in and started trying to get my head around what I had and what I could make work.
My new mainsail was working better on the stiffer mast I was running and wasn't happy to go back to a bendy mast. I went hunting for a sail that might suit it and 2 boats down the dinghy park found Doug Pybus with a lovely MSL10 that he was prepared to lend.
So on to day two. After some rushing around with ropes and some overnight new shrouds at great expense I rigged up in the morning happy that I had something I could work with - until I tried to launch - first the bottom cam blew seconds after putting the boat into the harbour. Second attempt saw me two tacks in before the whole lot went at once. Third attempt, same deal. Gave up - not something I'm used to having to put up with.
I went back and figured my event was over now anyway as I was now counting DNS's so started rigging up the new Ellway sail as I just wanted to go sailing at this point. After a false start where the cams fell off (highly unusual on a Hyde, mostly to do with the big hole caused by the broken mast!) I finally made it out of the harbour and went to join in the final race of the day. Had pretty good downwind pace but was really struggling for height upwind. Ended up calling it a day after two laps in 5th as my prodder had come unattached and was making some nasty noises (didn't have a spare of that!).

Day three - Found Mike Lennon had a spare 2b (last years sail) which he would lend me and after duck taping an extra number on finally got on the water to see what this Turtle could do. 4th after 2 swims to sort gantry, a 6th after an appalling start and another swim to sort ride height adjuster and 12th after fouling Giovanni on the start line then fluffing my turns leaving me a good half a beat behind and a lot to catch up on. Not too shabby really although a bit rusty and getting myself into situations I would normally spot.

The final day saw a light 6-10 knot breeze and some careful sailing was required. I had a poor first beat but came to the top mark near the lead bunch and clawed my way up to third by the bottom gate. Managed to pull back 200 yards on Si and Arnaud up the next beat and stick with them for a round and just pipping Arnaud down the run when he fluffed his gibe.
The final race of the event had Arnaud and myself battling for the first lap or so before Mike Lennon pulled a flyer and rounded the top mark a couple of hundred yards ahead. I had managed to shake Arnaud in the marginal stuff on the beat and set about reeling Mike back in. Turned out to be not enough racecourse in the end and I finished just behind him.

So plenty of promise in there somewhere. I turned out to be fitter than I thought, faster than I'd hoped while being rustier than I'd expected! New foils felt good, rig was interesting and need more time with it. Team Ninja didn't fare too badly either. Jason Belben was always thereabouts, winning one of the races, Ben Paton, Tom Offer and Pete Barton all got into the top 20 despite sailing Moths for about three months and it was nice to see so many bright coloured boats there. DJ Edwards also managed 8th in his Ninja powered Bladerider!

The event itself was great and the dinghy park had the same camaraderie I've come to expect from Moth events and I'm glad the class continues to be friendly with all the fresh faces coming in.

early european championship 2010 statistics

noreply@blogger.com (Nikolaus Liebscher) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 05:36:00 GMT

Hi everybody, just wanted to know how the boats are mixed at comming european championship at lake silvaplana. And here is the List:

80 entries with 20 nations

29 Mach2

20 Bladerider

7 Ninja

5 Assassin

4 Fastacraft Prowler

2 Homebuild

2 Duvoisin

1 Flashheard

1 Swissmoth, Tony, Velociraptor, Mistress, Axeman, Axiom

If anyone needs help or support with his Assassin, he can ask me, I also try to get a box of spares to the euros (from NZL - becouse I have no spares at home :-)) - if anyone needs something or wants to store it as standby, please email me or direct to Holly Farmer! I am happy to see 5 Assassin at the euros but think there could and should be more than Bladerider!? So where are you (think most of it in NZL) and what you are doing while the great euros are? Register the best regatta this year!

Super nice location, super nice wind conditions and super nice warm water.

Ok last was a bit a lie :-)

See you all there!

Torbay Photos

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 20:01:00 GMT

Emma took a load of photos while out on Terry's gin boat on Friday which I've uploaded to my FlickR page. The originals are massive, so if you want any of them to print out yourself for posterity please get in touch (£5 a time?).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aardvarkissues/

Proper report to follow, including the story of how I only managed 20th and only finished 5 races! Rockin'...

Nationals day one

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:11:00 GMT

Well my defence of the nationals got off to a pretty appaling start.
I was finding my upwind speed was pretty much on par with everyone but I had enough depth downwind to more than make up for my tactical errors on the beats. After clawing myself into contention with the top bunch, trading places with Ricky Tagg and Jason Belben my mast folded up going up the last beat leaving me dissasembling and cutting ropes in the water.
Thankfully I have spares and have now borrowed an MSL10 from Doug Pybus. Spent most of yesterday evening reroping and sorting shrouds...

What fun!

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Forming an opinion

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:11:00 GMT

Well the nationals is finally upon us for another year and with the lack of any form guides on the web I'm sitting in my hotel writing one before heading down to the club!

Top gun has to be Simon Payne. He's world number one for a reason and while he's not had much time on the water that has never stopped him before.

Jason Belben is my next pick. He sails a lot and has had the better of Payne in several nationals - more likely to shine given a lighter regatta.

Mike Lennon has been sailing hard all year and has seems to be on top of his sail development with some cracking looking new rags. Very fast but too many toys in his boat for my liking...

I think Jason Russell is going to surprise a lot of people this year. He's fit and sails hard and has obviously been training hard at HISC.

I tipped DJ Edwards last year and the boyo let me down in the epic saundersfoot conditions. I still think he could be up there as he is a smart sailor with probably on of the best sorted bladeriders going. Perhaps the shifty Torbay breeze will play to his strengths?

As usual, I'm not tipping myself. I've barely sailed, have a ridiculous rig and some experimental sails. Maybe it will all come together... Just maybe!

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Weekend sailing

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 07:31:00 GMT

We very nearly had all 7 of us out on Saturday but a bit of boatwork got in the way. I was still trying to get all my lines in order/trimmed to length and in amongst that and tea drinking/chatting with the various Bristol Moth crew whom I'd not seen most of in a very long time it my boatwork took far longer than it ever should.
So, on Saturday Simon, Leo, Martin and Darren all got out on the water and all showing good signs of improvement. Darren's Prowler is now rebehaving after diagnosing a control system lockup which was stopping his flap going down more than halfway. Simon was back out after a long period off the water due to work commitments and while his boat is currently for sale I think he's reconsidering it. Martin was back out practicing with his KA sail as the North has gone back to be repaired again. Leo however was smoking around the lake - recording a 25 knots top speed in his 5 year old boat! He's also now starting to nail his gibes as the old girl gets more and more tuned up.

Sunday saw Tom, Martin and myself joined out on the water by DJ from Port Talbot. We got out for about three hours in a gusty southerly topping out at around 18 knots. We did our own windward leeward course and all waited around the bottom before restarting and going around again. It was awesome to be back on the water and the Turtle is showing good early promise with a new personal best for me of 24.1 knots. Everything feels stiff and is working as it should and just have to remind myself quite how all this sailing lark works.

Not sure if I'll fit any more sailing in between now and the start of the Nationals on Thursday. Needless to say I'm really looking forward to it and hope to see the biggest Moth nationals fleet for a long time.

Flying Turtle

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 07:12:00 GMT

Wednesday saw Ninja Turtle take to the water/skies. My box of goodies from Hyde arrived just in time for me to roll out to Cheddar and get rigged.
Tom Offer was out there in my old boat getting some time in before the Nationals next week and is looking pretty tidy after having been firmly bitten by the bug.

Suffice to say, everything on the new boat went very nicely. The mk2 version of Kevin's mainsail design looks really good (props to Hyde) and I've got a few days of practice and fiddling to try and get the most out of the new foils and controls.
Terry (spar making Aardvark) has done me a cool 2 piece HM mast with interchangeable top sections so in theory I can gear up or down depending on the breeze but will have to see how they look rigged up first before getting too carried away!

All in all, very pleased with things. Unfortunately I just don't think I'm going to be fit enough to last a full regatta...

fart plug - if you want you can order!

noreply@blogger.com (Nikolaus Liebscher) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 07:06:00 GMT

The fart plug test is over, and for my assassin it was a great thing to have!

Now it is time to get more and more people testing them. So if you want one please mail me (nikolaus_liebscher@hotmail.com) and tell me your kind of drain plug and number of fart plugs you wana have! The plugs will cost something like €29,-- each! - puls shipping costs! I will wait for some orders to do them all at once, but will leave you all a message when it is on the way!

I can NOT give any garantee for them becouse I am not the manufacturer of the valves!

Can also bring them to euros!

It is nice to know when I forget to open the plug and sun is comming or from the sun to the water- there will be no broblem! Also the open plug on the assassin - let all rain water in the hull and one time it was so heavy that I had problems to line up the boat! This is past now - and I will never have these problems again!

If there is some interest you could also find it at www.alendra.de soon!

I am very pry of your experience with them and hope of some feedback after your tests!

All work and no play

noreply@blogger.com (Cookie) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:08:00 GMT

Makes Mikey a dull boy... I'm pretty sure Emma has something like that in mind at the moment anyway. Just got back from a holiday in Greece and I'm straight back into the workshop (on a Sunday) trying to get my latest boat together. Ninja Turtle is taking shape and should be on the water by Wednesday (deliveries of sails and stuff better get here!)...

I suspect my late launching and the fact that I've been sailing less than 10 times in 6 months coupled with a load of new toys on the new boat probably means the possibility of conceding my Nationals title to a new champion. The difference between now and 12 months ago is that there are now other Ninja owners who have the potential to carry on in my stead!

I'm feeling a form guide coming on...

never sail a Moth without kicker - north V8 experience

noreply@blogger.com (Nikolaus Liebscher) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:21:00 GMT

This weekend we had some hard conditions - wind between 10 and 25 knots - very gusty!

After sone minutes my kicker was killed and than I tried to keep sailing (without it) ...

... as I had learned - not a very good idea! I had many problems to controll the boat and jumpt out on downwind course with about more than 20 knots of speed! This was a other way of flying (without boat)!!!

So at the end of this day, I can tell: The Assassin works fine - flys very stable if all settings are well done - if not - sail home!

The North V8! I have changed to the carbon battens. The sail is much more flat now and (so I think) excuses less mistakes for the sailer now - so I will change back to the original battens! Also I think the V8 is much flatter as the KA or the hyde sails are. Not shure about it, but I think in high winds it shoud be better. In very low winds the sail does not make the best looking for me! Also I have some problems with my cambers (secound from the top is turning down and comming out very often), with much of water in the sail after capsizing (OK my mistake that I am too much in water right now) and some little problems with quality of cloth, so I need to go to sailmaker ebfore the euros!

Over all I am quite happy with my assassin, but need to find the best settings for me!

It is time to say a big thanks to DOUG CULNANE for all of his help! And just to show how happy I am about this - I will donate this with a foretec gps as a present! THANKS

Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf says everything is just fine.

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Culnane) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:39:00 GMT

Talking of evil world leaders...

one of these democratically elected evil pieces of shit can find enough money to set up war games where gamers sit at home and machine gun the crap out of wedding parties in lands the other side of the world, but he can not find enough money to provide basic health care for his own tax paying citizens. You get what you deserve in a democracy which means you have to take responsibility for the source and the information that you base your decision on. Otherwise you get blindly dragged into supporting a war by one evil dictator to remove another one, or you end up executing 20 million people because they write blog messages like this one.

I believe in freedom of speech which means that I have to listen to a lot to of stuff that really makes me pissed off. I am totally against censorship on any medium but in the real world the owners of that medium always have vested interests and have to look to the bigger picture. So a decision was made on behalf of IMCA members not to publicize automatic links to a private dispute that was potentially damaging to the positive work of many. I think this is a responsible decision and clearly made with the best interests of the class as a whole in mind. Both parties have been dropped from the blog list and will be welcomed back once they have sorted out their problems. This was not my decision but I recognise that it was made by a higher ranking democratically elected leader who has for many years shown excellent leadership in the interests of IMCA members.

I can live with the above state of play but I personally hope we as a class do not all get totally politically correct and spend all our free time doing things for the benefit of the corporations we represent. Frankly I would rather sail a 3 year old boat that I built than a new one that came with a required code of behaviour. I have no problem with being a corporate whore but I just would like to be able to keep it 9 to 5. So if you have a problem with this information officer

then please complain, because then the IMCA rule of volunteering will be enforced: "He who complains the loudest gets the job", (and at the moment it is our old friend!)

fart plug

noreply@blogger.com (Nikolaus Liebscher) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:41:00 GMT

the gas could go in and out - but no water will pass thru!