UK Nationals Learning Curve

It has to be said. This is possibly the best Nationals I have attended of any of the classes I have been involved with over the years. The weather was great over the 4 days. Day 2 will live in my memory as one of the best day's sailing I have had in the Moth since I got it. In particular, rocketing downwind at 20+kts feeling completely at ease on such a big course was a unique experience.

Things I learnt:

• Sitting between races - heel the boat on the leeward rack, let the kicker off and the sail out. Allow the boat to gently move backwards and you can drink, eat, fiddle with things and relax without having to constantly keep a hand on the tiller/mainsheet. Also it is very easy to get the boat going from that position when you are lining up to start.
• Sail adjustment is vital - letting off kicker and cunningham (in that order) generates significant extra power when trying to take off. Once airborne - the 2010 Hydes sail responds beautifully to different amounts of cunningham when sailing in gusty conditions.
• The Mach2 does not need as much heel as a BladeRider upwind - it just needs to be as high as possible so it does not get affected unduly by waves. I aimed for a speed of between 12-13 kts. Any excess speed I would use to stuff the boat up and then I would bear off slightly once the speed dropped. Oh and the fitter you are the longer you can keep this up! If I did this right you can take 100yds to windward on someone over a 1/2 mile leg.
• Downwind - sitting in, playing the main a lot and soaking and then heating it up if the breeze strengthened seemed to work quite well.

Things I am struggling with:

• I cannot foil gybe in winds of less than 10 knts. I go through the gybe, apply my knee to the new side and no matter how much I steer it through it either comes down (not so bad) or falls in to windward (oh no not again). Flacking the battens is also an issue here. If you fail a gybe in light winds the losses are severe over someone who manages it because of the length of time it takes to get back on the foils (if indeed you manage it). And I don't have an answer at the moment.
• My tacking is simply not good enough. But unlike the above at least I know what I need to do to improve. Like gybing, crossing the boat earlier seems to be the key. Also slackening kicker and cunningham before tacking aids take off on the new tack.
• Downwind speed is still lacking - I think this could be down to sail settings and knowing when to apply cunnigham/kicker. Flattening the sail at some windier points seemed to produce more speed
• Downwind in waves - Twice I went over the handlebars in one race. I got told to raise my ride height to stop the porpoising which does seem to work but takes all my courage!

On the positive side, I felt sufficiently confident to start thinking about strategy (what Rick calls racecraft) more during the event. When I had enough wind, I really enjoyed gybing to follow the pressure downwind and gosh how it works. Lining up for starts and judging distances to start lines improved throughout.

On a different note, I have two Mach2 mast sockets left and then there will probably be no more. If you want one let me know.