Back on the Water

The 2011 moth season has officially begun with a short but successful trip out onto the water. The boat worked great, the pilot not so much. But I didn't die or get hypothermia so I guess that's a good thing. Plus I got some pics! When I first headed out the wind was about perfect, probably 12kts and steady, good conditions for the first boating of the year. After getting things sorted a bit I headed out again but the wind was starting to come up more. By the time I turned around it was blowing pretty solid 20kts. I now know that I suck at reaching in 20kts. I had a really hard time getting the boat into a grove and I crashed to windward a lot. Thankfully Mothball 1 seems to have a good bow shape for going nose in. For as many times as she went in she never really felt like she was going to go down the mineshaft, even with the bow completely submerged to the mast.


I ended up in this position a lot. I could get up and going no problem and i was trying to keep the boat healed to windward, but I think I'm underestimating how much leverage you get with the boat when you are up on the foils. Clearly there was some wind out there though.


This is the only shot I got of actual foiling. Sorry for the blurry image, but I kind of like it. Its so blurry that its almost artsy. Anyway, the boat is clearly riding high, I could probably use more vang though. Man these sails need a lot of vang. A few rig mods to make now but I think Mothball 1 is going to have a very productive summer.

Bent Wand/Simple Ride Height Adjuster?

So I built my bent wand, it was quite simple. The main section is made of stiff carbon tube and bottom is a solid small diameter carbon round which is fairly flexible and fits inside the main tube. The lower section is set at about 50 deg off from main tube and has float made from a half section of larger carbon tube. When the boat is flying less than 10 cm above the water it will be controlled by the short main section and above that the 'bent' section will take control. Should work good I think. But I was playing with it and I came up with another cool feature than I could implement. Using the bent wand it would be easy to make a simple ride height adjuster. Simply attach a small diameter line the end of wand and then wrap it over the wand pivot and back to the cockpit. If you tighten this line the wand bends and effectively gets shorter. Simple. Will it work in the real world? I don't see why it wouldn't. Yes the tension on the line will have a small effect on wand pivot, but this effect could easily be compensated by adjusting the wand tensioner. No moving parts, nothing to get jammed, and very little added weight.