2012 Projects

Now that Mothball 1 is stripped down for the season I’m starting to think about improvements and mods for 2012. Some of the modifications I’ve already started. Let’s start with foils. After checking out the information on Bruce McLeod’s blog (http://www.teknologika.com/mothblog/the-evolution-of-moth-main-hydrofoils/) I concluded that my main foil was too big. It was about 10% larger than the Bladerider main foil. Enter Mr. Dremel. After inspecting the foil and comparing it to all of the other foils out there I decided that my flap was too large, in particular at the tips. I couldn’t take too much off the flap, but I did taper it down 10mm at the tips. This should bring the flap into better proportion with the cross-section of the rest of the foil and reduce drag. Tapering the flap reduced the total area by 5%. I’m considering cutting the tips down a bit to reduce the area even more, but I may wait a bit for that. Does anyone know the approximate area of the M2 foils?

I’ve also decided that I want a ride-height adjuster. I can get good height, but it seems like I always have more height sailing downwind. If I set the height for downwind then I’m a bit low upwind, and if I set it good for upwind then downwind is horrifying. Is this normal? I saw the ride height adjuster on Sailingbits.com (http://www.sailingbits.com/catalog/moth-ride-height--gearing-adjuster-p-377.html). Does anyone know if this adjuster will fit onto Bladerider components? Seems like buying one of these would be way easier than developing my own system.

These are my only two big planned changes. I want to refinish the hull and make some other minor repairs, but these are relatively easy. My hope for 2012 is to get things sorted and then make it to some Moth events on the west coast.

End of the Road

This weekend was the last mothing in Montana, and a beautiful weekend it was. The breeze was a bit variable, but I did get a few good sessions. My last sail was in 7-10 kts of breeze and I logged 14 miles in 1.5 hours at an average speed of about 10 kts. I also pulled off four fully jibes and didn’t ever get the sail wet. I’m to the point I’d feel pretty comfortable taking Mothball 1 somewhere to race and I don’t even think I’d embarrass myself. But for now it’s time to start thinking snow (forecasted for Friday). Mothball one will be fully stripped down and prepared for a full refinishing next spring. I have some ideas for mods and new parts, but I’ll save that for another day.

A Day of Many Firsts

I had a lot of new and different experiences today on Mothball one, some of the experiences were good, others not so much, but I ended the day with a smile. I went out this afternoon with 8-10 kts of breeze and quickly had my first new mothing adventure of the day. I was sailing towards the shore and knew there was a shallow spot somewhere. I was about to turn when I looked down and saw the bottom way too close. I quickly thought about whether it would be better to keep foiling and pray that I make it over the shallow spot or just eject and hope for the best, but about one second later the decision was made for me as the boat hit the ground and I was shot into the water. I stood up in the thigh deep water and was feeling pretty stupid, but after some inspection I realized that the damage was fairly minimal, just some scratched paint and a small crack at the end of the daggerboard box. Lucky. The wind was still nice so I just swam out to deeper water and took off again and kept sailing for another hour.

The wind started to die so I went in to take a break. The wind was forecast to come up later in the afternoon so I stuck around to wait for it. It took some time, but the wind finely came up late in the day. I sailed upwind with some good pace into the building breeze. The wind was blowing down the entire 30 mile length of Canyon Ferry Lake and with the wind increasing to 15 kts the waves started building quickly. I sailed upwind for about three miles and then turned around with the wind still increasing. By the time I was heading back down the lake the wind was gusting to 20-25 kts and the waves were getting quite big. This was the first time I’d ever sailed downwind in big waves. I hit a max speed of 19kts in the lumpy seas even with my scratched main foil. After launching over a big wave I did my first high-speed ventilation of the main foil and crashed rather dramatically. I crashed several more time before I figured out how to drive the waves to avoid the big breakers.

As I was getting back to the marina the wind had decreased to around 15 and the seas had flattened quite a bit. I had to make three jibes to make it back to the docks and I was hopeful that I could end this exciting sail with a foiling jibe. I went into the first jibe feeling good and the boat stayed flat and fast. I got to the other side in position and sheeted in and kept sailing. Yay! First foiling jibe = DONE! My next jibe didn’t go quite and well, but I was able to stay up on the last jibe too.

So it was quite an exciting day on many levels. I tried to ruin my boat, but didn’t, I sailed in big waves and survived, and I made two foiling jibes. Too bad this sailing season is almost over, this is getting fun!

20 Knot Barrier = Broken!

I know that doing 20 kts on a moth is really nothing special, but breaking 20 kts on homebuild with homemade foils is still pretty cool in my book. I went out tonight expecting to a 10-15 kt breeze but was pleasantly surprised with a 10-20 kt breeze with some higher gusts. On two separate runs I recorded speeds on the GPS of over 20 kts with a max speed of 20.9 kts. The boat did very well, but I felt like I needed to change my pants afterwards. No matter how you cut it, 20 kts over the water is really fast. I can’t hardly imagine what 30 kts is like.

I’m getting closer to the illusive foiling gibe too. On two different attempts tonight I stayed flat and on the foils all the way through the jibe only to fall off at the very end due to not enough wind and speed. I’m not there yet, but I’m getting very close...

Cascading Failures

It’s amazing how small breakages can instantly get worse. I was out sailing last night in some nice 10-15 kt breeze and the boat was felling really good. I made a high-speed pass of the shoreline and suddenly BLAM the vang explodes. The boat goes instantly out of control and I spin and crash fairly violently. A quick look at the vang confirms that one of the small attachment lines has worn through and exploded. No big deal, I can re-tie it on the water and keep sailing. After fixing the vang I take off again but the rudder has a terrible vibration, something is clearly very wrong. I stop the boat and go back to check the rudder, everything looks ok, but on closer inspection I see that the rudder has split down the middle. You may remember that the daggerboard did the same thing to me last year but I was able to fix it and it hasn’t had any trouble since. But it’s strange how a simple broken line on the vang can cascade to a broken rudder. I’m really hoping that I’m running out of things on this boat that can break, but I shouldn’t be too surprised about failures as I start to push the boat harder. Thankfully this is another easy fix. Test, learn, improve.

I did find the cause of the mysterly leak too. There was a small crack in the chine below the hole that my brother put in the side with his head. Right now its fixed with a piece of tape. Yet another easy fix :)

Mystery Leak ?

Mothball One spent most of the day in the water on Saturday. It was a nice day but not much wind. I went out several times and chased some Fins around and let my brother take the boat out. The hull was in the water for about 8 hours and most of that time it was upright. When I took the boat out of the water and opened the drain plug I was greeted with a puff of air from the plug hole indicating that the hull was still sealed and pressurized. But then I started moving the hull around I heard water sloshing around. I tipped the boat up and got about a liter of water to drain out. So here's the mystery, how did I get water in a hull that appeared to still be sealed and pressurized when I took it out of the water? This is the first time I've ever gotten water from the hull after a day of sailing that I couldn't explain.

Wand Tension ?

I've been looking around for some insight on wand tension but I'm not having much luck. Specifically, how much wand tension should I be using for different wind conditions, upwind vs. downwind, flat water vs. waves. How much tension is too much/too little. Anyone have the answer to these questions?