Curses, Foiled Again! Part III 2012 CMBA Nationals.

Hydrofoiling Moths are the state of the developmental art for the International Moth Class and some of the top skippers within the Classic Moth fleet have built boats and compete at IMCA events.  Joe Bousquet and John Zseleczky have completed foiler Moths of the "Hungry Beaver", designed by Naval Architect Bill Beaver.  Fellow Classic Moth sailor Mike Parsons is not far behind in finishing the build of his foiler.  The hulls of hydrofoiling Moths are capable of rising free of the water and then skimming across the water supported solely upon small T-foils attached to the bottoms of the dagger board and rudder blade.  The enormous reduction of wetted surface once foil borne leads to speeds not seen in boats of this size.  In order to sail one of these craft it pays to be young, strong, lightweight, rich, smart and agile.  Your old diarist is none of those things! Photos courtesy of  Amy Smith Linton.

At the conclusion of Classic racing, Walt Collins (wearing shirt with the circle-M insignia) rolls up his Classic sail while while Joe Bousquet rigs his foiler's sail.

Modern Moths have extremely narrow hulls as seen here on Joe's boat Try-foil.  The righting moment necessary to sail the boat is provided by the hiking wings which extend out from the sheer line of the hull.  These wings allow the skipper to move his weight out from the center line of the hull.  Did mention you need to be strong and agile (among other things) to sail one of these?

Joe B. in "low rider" mode.

Joe B. up on foils.  Yep, that's daylight between the bottom of the hull and the surface of the water.

A series of photos showing John Z. transitioning from low riding to hydrofoiling.

The IMCA uses the "Squashed Bug" insignia rather than the Circle-M which the Classic and Vintage Moths use.  The IMCA boats also use a higher aspect sail plan compared to the Classic boats.

The better foiling Mothists can tack and gybe without coming down off the foils during the maneuver.

Jeff Linton swam out to give it a go.  With the boat resting on her side one can see the port side halves of the two T-foils.

Jeff rights the boat,

and gets under way.  I'd be back in the water with the boat flopped on her side again by this point.

Up, Up, Up!

These guys make it look easy--it's NOT!  After a brief demo it was time for fried chicken.  I'll conclude with a few pix from Sunday's action in the next post.  Stay tuned.

2012 CMBA Nationals, Part II

Saturday morning started off with a Skipper's Meeting at 9 am.  This left competitors with two hours to finish rigging/tweaking boats before the first warning signal at 11am.  This year we had two women and two junior sailors racing with the usual suspects.  Hopefully both categories will continue to grow over time. Photo credits:  Amy Smith Linton.

Nancy Swan setting her race timer.

Susan Bousquet rigging her Shelley Aftermath.

Bob Patterson was also rigging up his Mistral as the morning breeze built at a surprising rate.

Joe helps Susan with some fiddly bit on the Shelley.  The Zeppelin-like bow of Greg Duncan's Connecticut peeks out in the background.

As the wind increased Arch Farmer decided that 10 year old Abby should sit out this day of racing.  She's obviously disappointed.

Meanwhile, defending Champion Jeff Linton gears up for the day.

As the time for the first start approached, the lawn was suddenly filled with sails.

At Elizabeth City we launch the boats by handing them down over the bulkhead.  Getting away is always  tricky when the lawn is the lee shore.

Walt Collins helps Dan Malott in the Connecticut Moth.

After a bit of indecision even your old diarist manages to clear the docks and get cleanly away.

Nancy Swan borrowed Walt Collins' boat Feather for the regatta.

Joe B. watches Susan depart in Aftermath.  The boat's name derives from the fact that Joe is a mathematics teacher and he restored the Shelley in the evenings after work.

Meanwhile, 14 year old Zach takes off in Look Out.  Zach is a recent graduate from the summer sailing school which Greg Duncan oversees.  Hopefully Greg can steer more junior sailors into Classic Moths from that program.

A few seconds after the start of Race 1.  Your diarist is buried in the cluster of boats just passing the Committee Boat.

Jeff Linton, seen here on a downwind leg of the course. 

Walt Collins and Bob Patterson not far behind Jeff.

There were the usual harsh and unpredictable gusts that accompany a NW wind as our new boy Zach soon discovered.

He hung in there and got Look Out back on her feet.

Nancy Swan was not as lucky and had to be towed in after Feather swamped.

Five races were completed by the end of Saturday.  Most skippers were more than ready to haul out!

Back ashore Jeff L. tells John Z. a "knock-knock" joke.  Mike P. doesn't get it.

A beach ball for floatation in the cockpit of the Connecticut.  Dan was no doubt happy that he didn't test its efficiency!  After a bit of socializing, the foiler Moths were rigged up and demonstrated.  I'll post a few pix of that action next time.

2012 Classic Moth Boat National Regatta

Unlike last year's chilly affair, this year's edition of the of the CMBA Nats (held over the weekend of 14-16 Sept) offered improvements in both the weather and the turnout of boats.  Last year's event drew 13 Moths, this year 20 boats assembled to race.  In addition to the Classic and Vintage Moths, two of our members also sail International Moths with hydrofoils and they brought them along for demonstrations after Saturday's racing concluded.

Arch Farmer, his brother Larry and grandson Evan stand next to Old 264.  This newly restored boat dates to the early 1930s

At the other end of the spectrum are this pair of hydrofoiling modern Moths.  The hull alone of Old 264 weighs over 150 pounds, the all-up weight of one of the modern boats is 75 lbs!  Photo credit: Amy Smith Linton.

Other boats on the lawn included Gary Gowans' home built Cates-Florida design Gen I Classic (boat with the varnished deck) and Greg Duncan's Skip Etchells designed "Connecticut" Moth (all white boat in background).  The Connecticut was a late 1940s design while the Cates-Florida design dates to the mid  1950s.  The contrasting hull shapes of these two boats offers a nice demonstration of development that occurred during that time span.

Arch Farmer's Dorr Willey-built Moth is another design from the 1940s.  Again, one can appreciate the advancement of hull shapes from the early '30s to the late '40s by studying these two boats.

The Europa design, by Belgian Alois Roland, dates to the early 1960s.  In the late 60s the owners of this Moth design, not liking the developmental aspect of the Moth Class, broke away and formed a strict one-design class around this particular hull shape.  The new class, called the Europe Dinghy was subsequently selected as the women's Olympic single hander and competed in four Olympiads starting with Barcelona in 1992 and ending with the Athens games in 2004.  My boat, Ooh La La, seen here snoozing under her mooring cover was Meg Gaillard's Athens games boat.

Other boats on the lawn included Jeff Linton's Mousetrap.  The Mousetrap design is Jeff's modification of the Mistral Moth to include the Europe dinghy transom  shape.

Jeff's boat features this nifty cassette style rudder.

Another interesting boat is Bill Boyle's Abbott design.  When Bill got this boat she looked like this.

One more look at Old 264.  The Farmer brothers did a wonderful job of bringing this historic boat back from the dead.  In the next post we'll launch boats and go racing.  See you then.

Old 264 sails again

Readers may recall that not quite a year ago I posted that I'd given one of the oldest of the known surviving Moth Boats, Nr 264, to brothers Arch and Larry Farmer with the promise of restoration to race worthy condition.  In January I posted a progress report with a few photos of the work done to that point.  Today I'm pleased to post the first photos of Old 264 being given her initial float test which occurred this past Labor Day weekend.  Arch hopes to have his granddaughter Abby sail the boat in the Classic Moth Boat National Regatta which will take place the third weekend of this month.  I can't wait to see the restored boat up close.

After too many years in storage, Old 264 graces the Pasquotank River near Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

The wind was obviously light to nonexistent that day but it's still wonderful to see the boat back in fighting trim.  The sail (Nr 917) was borrowed for the day from Arch's Dorr Willey-built Moth.

This boat slips along even with the slightest puff of wind.  I'm sure that Joel Van Sant, the founder of the Moth Boat, would approve.

Granddaughter Abby and brother Larry pose with the finished boat.  No doubt she'll be refined and tuned over the next several weeks in anticipation of the regatta.  Wow!  Hopefully this restoration will provide a challenge for the owners of several other ancient Moth Boats to restore their boats and come race.