Moth Training Day - Frampton June 4th 2011

[polyfiller]

Yes... also forgot to praise everyone for handling some difficult conditions and sticking with it.... substantial amounts of pluck were on display.

I've been trying to work out exactly what the tuning issue is / was with Ian's boat .... to give an idea of the difference ... the boat Elaine borrowed was also a Clark (I could be wrong ... remember my memory is somewhat dodgey these days) .... and if so, then I think Ian would really benefit from doing some tuning comparison beteen the boat Elain sailed and scruff ... when I got into Elain's loan boat after her capsize..... it felt as I would expct a balanced moth setup to be, it depowered well and did not attempt to head towards the sky or wind with unwarranted enthusiasm ... if they are same hull, I reckon Ian could do a lot worse than refer to the other boat just to compare settings.

Just for my interest (and to help understand the tuning issue ... just before the point of capsize, can you see the rudder position ? Was I trying to bear away massively ?

Again thanks to all and well done to all. Just for Sue's benefit .... am sorry that I didn't remember to talk / train you on S Gybing .... am trying to find a link I had with an excellent diagram .... will post it here when I find it...... it really does take as much fear out of moth gybing (as is possible) once you have mastered the technique.

And Roger .... exactly how much WILL it cost me for destruction of a certain section of footage ? ! ;-)

[Meat Pie ...]

Toby

Video will be posted soon,so you can see yourself what actually happened....
We do not have your first capsize on film which I think was a simple upwind dunking..blown in.
Looking at the playback you look to be sat way too far back,caught a rescue boat wake,and in you went ...simple as that I am afraid. Arguably not quick enough to sheet out with no attempt to bear away at all from what we could see.
Rudder is well in[but you adjusted the positioning of it if you recall] but Centreboard is visible in the later stages of your crash ! Again arguably could be too much down which may have contributed to your second swim.
As for comparing Scruff to Atlantic Bonus, as you know to compare two Boats is always dangerous when assumptions on tune and performance are being made.Scruff is special ...not prepared to say what makes her special but she has a lot of rocker in the first 1/2 to 2/3rds.When on the plane I used to move forward ...not back..to keep the bow down....It worked very well. Never one of the quickest planing Moths but she scores elsewhere and is fast overall as the records/results show. She has never "bucked".The Rudder blade has always been set vertically and like most of my tuning efforts has always had a fairly neutral helm...very little to no feel coming back thro the Tiller.
Scruff has an M7 mast and apart from being a stiffer section the rig was set up very stiffly for me being so dainty !!!... Atlantic has an M1 with shorter spreaders and is set up for "Wild Bill" ...who is even more dainty than me to allow it to bend and easier for him to hold up the little flea-weight !
You have tried to soften the rig for Ian....fair enough, but Scruff always had impeccable manners when I sailed her with a Tin rig and latterly with a Carbon rig.

As we discussed put it down to differing views on setting a Rig up.
When it comes to Carbon Masts we start a whole new discussion....personally I am still learning with what the new Selden Mast can do ,but, seeing Georgia cope so well on the Training Day [admittedly] with Laura,s Slim sail on a Selden Carbon mast has convinced me that the Carbon initiative and the Slim sail are both potentially very good for the Class. This being one of the advantages forwarded in the proposal to allow Carbon and other materials.

At Frampers we have quite a range of Helm weights from Sumo to Flea -weights.
All are set up differently[no two are alike]which is in itself interesting....it is what makes the Class so interesting.
With quite a few new Carbon options available now and in use this years Nationals will be intersting....

Roger Witts
FRAMPTON MOTHS

[polyfiller]

mmmm interesting ... look forward to seeing the video .... I was deffo trying to bear off as the gust hit and I'd been having problems with it wanting to broach out of the plane a couple of times before the swimming. I reckon you are onto comething about hull shape ... I never had to move forward in the claridge ... and IIRC, the goffo boats had a slightly shorter rear deck so maybe I was sitting in the place I would do on a claridge ... and actually meant I was further back than I should've been for any hull shape !

In terms of boat / rig setup, not convinced the makeup of the rig in terms of stiffness & power should vary that much dependant on hull shape, although my experience with boats with extra rocker is not good (never liked the feel or speed ... had one in particular which drove me nuts .. but that's another story).

In terms of rig setup, I think there are some differences in opinion, but the carbon thing is actually quite exciting from my perspective and NOT from a personal performance POV ..... what I acutally managed to achieve with Wein through trial & error and tuning was akin to what folk are now call auto tuning rigs on some of the real modern performance boats. In essence, the objective as to set the rig up so that it could be powered up to maximum and down to a minimum as necessary. The benefit here is that it should (in theory) allow helms of a wide weight range to sail competitively with the same rig / sail combination in a broad range of wind conditions.

I've learned alot in recent years about the sensitivity of sail performance to mast bend since I've been in the FF. I knew all the theory before and had experience of it in the moth .... but you get a whole new perspective when you are able to setup the same rig for an all up crew weight of 21 stone in an FF and sail stright over the top of heavier weight crews, purely by knowing exactly how to de-power.... and probably because the other boat is no de-powered enough despite having 29 stone over the side.

In terms of Scruff, given your weight and the setup, I think Ian will need to do some considerable work to feel comfortable in stronger winds.... and I'll qualify that by saying I'm not sure exactly how much discomfort he feels in these winds and don't know his exact weight for comparison. worht noting here that although folk look at me and think I'm not heavy ...... I am by no means a lightweight (12st 7lb) and basically my view on sailing in strong winds in the moth was ... the stronger the better ... and my only limit was a guess as to when I thought I was going to break the boat / mast.

What I am hoping to do with When is get a carbon mast with the same properties as the mast on Wein ..... if succesful and the mast can then be purchased by others, I will be very happy .... you see, the issue with the mast on Wein is that by the time I got the boat, it was very difficult to get the same mast made - JC made them from some ali tube and sailboard top sections and didn't have any more left once they were used up ... which is why When doesn't have one .... Fred (junior or senior ... can't remember which) broke the original JC mast and it couldn't be replaced IIRC.

So here's exactly how the auto tuning part of the Wein rig worked ..... it allowed the boat to be setup with very little mast rake. The various controls (lower, proder etc.) allowed bend to be restricted to power up. When de-powering, prodder was let off but lowers left on. Now what really made the de-powering work seemed wrong when I first worked it out ... but it worked..... Most moth masts obtain additional rake as you pull more kicker on. Generally speaking the stiffer the section then the more rake comes on as you attempt to de-power. So the conundrum is that as you attempt to de-power, you actually add weather helm. Reducing centreplate at the same time compensates, but maybe is not the compete solution. So here's the killer feature of the mast on Wein ....... when really excessive amounts of kicker are applied ... virtually no mast rake is added due to the amazing amount of forward bend. This was also assisted by very neutral spreader setting and soft rig tension. Net result = ability to flatten sail hugely, virtually no addition to weather helm and an amazing ability for the rig to absorb gusts. Only downside was a substantial fear of breaking a must offwind .. and I only chickened out of one race in Wein due to such (Draycott).

So what maybe can be achieved is actually a convergance of mast setups to enable folk to come in and be more confident in being able to cope and be competitive. It's actually a strength of the FF's right now. You really only have a couple of choices of hull and the tuning guides & rig setups for each are so well know, you just buy, use the setup guides for appropriate conditions and compete. Easy !

[Meat Pie ...]

Toby
You will have to wait to see the Video but no bearing away visible.
Video downloading is second priority after Laura,s allotment.

As for the Carbon thing,
All good stuff but just something to ponder on....
We currently have several sources for Carbon Masts I guess one more will not hurt.
The idea of "one size fits all" will not suit everyone especially the tweakers amongst us.
Currently there is no information on setting and using them as they are all very new and the users are not yet sure of their set-ups....nothing secretive but we are still learning !
Current Carbon Masts out there...
Superspars
Selden
Aardvark
Severn
Claridge
....and probably one more soon !