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?

More Broken Bits

I am truly amazed how many things you can break on a moth. I spent a lot of time on the water last weekend in a variety of conditions, everything from 5 to 25 kts. Thankfully nothing actually broke on the water. I was hoping to take Mothball 1 up to the Montana Cup this weekend so I broke everything down after sailing and inspected everything and made a list of repairs I wanted to make before trying to race the boat. Here it is:

1. Fix ripped grommets in the tramps

2. Reinforce vang mount

3. Reinforce forestay attachment

4. Repair rack joints

5. Replace mast rotation pin

6. Reinforce gantry attachments

7. fix wand tip

8. Modify spreader attachment

9. Fix rudder pintle holes

Luckily all of these are easy fixes. I'm hoping that I'm running out of parts that can break. Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to make the MT Cup afterall, but its nice to know that I'll be ready next time...