Good Weekend

It was a busy weekend at Hayling. 11 moths turned up for our impromptu "Desperate for Cash" slalom event in front of the 150 Oppie sailors that had their Open meeting the same day. Reaching near 30 deg C at times, we had a lovely sea breeze both days.

Of particular note was the appearance of Matthew Ponsford's "White Knuckle Express" which, older Mothies will recall, was the one of the first foiling Moths, originally owned (I think) by Rohan Veal back in 2004. It still has its original foils and does work. Other visitors included Mark Semper in his Prowler, James Phare, and Jason Belben. Jason demonstrated the art of foil gybing whilst making no forward progress in the strong tide. Some thought he was actually going backwards at times. Simon Payne cartwheelend most dramatically after hitting an "island" of weed. He definitely scores highly for some of the most stylish dismounts in the sport.

The slalom being held at 5pm in the dying sea breeze so, together with large clumps of weed, was quite a testing affair. I am not sure we know who won but that was not really the point. This weekend is what we as a fleet dream of all winter and we would rather not be anywhere else, especially when we get to share it with friends.

Talking of which, 5 HISC Mothies are going to Weymouth this weekend to go and test the 2012 Olympic sailing area as part of the Weymouth Regatta. Alex Adams is putting on a barbeque which sounds great. Hopefully Helen will bring some cakes....

I sailed with the prototype mast socket last weekend and it was a complete success. I measured the gap between mast and socket with a micrometer after two days long sailing and it was exactly the same as when I put it on. By comparison, the new plastic socket that cost $52 from Mach2 for Mar Menor only has 5mm clearance left after less than a month's use. I am pretty confident that these new sockets will last for years.