PHOTOS: Foiling the Nemesis

Action shots of Adam May's new foiling Moth

Tornado Olympic sailor turned flying Moth guru, Adam May recently completed his new foil-born Moth, to his new The Mistress 2 design and sailed this for the first time at the class' Nationals last week in New Quay in the depths of Wales. The new boat won her first race straight out of the box but in a week that saw marginal foiling conditions May ended the Nationals in third place.

May made up for this yesterday while demonstrating his new beast to thedailysail on Portland Harbour when he conveniently set a new foiling speed record for the class of 23.9 knots as recorded by his on board GPS, much to the chagrin of National Champion Simon Payne who was merely spectating on this occasion. At the time the wind was 12-15 knots with gusts of up to 20.

May's new The Mistress 2 design, the hull shell constructed by Linton Jenkins in the building just behind the new Weymouth & Portland Sailing Academy, but finished off by May, is a refinement of his previous boat with a finer entry and flatter aft sections to help her get out of the water. The mast and centreboard/foil have been moved forward a fraction while the rudder gantry arrangement is now the maximum distance aft from the hull, in order to maximise the distance between the T-foils thereby helping to stabilise the ride.

The boat is still using the Fast-A-Craft foil system with a wand sensor dangling from the bow automatically altering the pitch of the trim tab on the trailing edge of the daggerboard's horizontal T-foil.

Impressively by further tweaks such as reducing the foredeck to a minimum May says he has removed an extra 3kg from the boat making her all up weight just 30kg, ie substantially lighter than her crew...

For those interested in the flying Moth May and Simon Payne are also running FoilSchool, teaching 'low fliers' how to go foiling.

The Moth class will be decamping to Lake Garda over the next week where Payne and May will be taking on two time world champion and chief foiler, Rohan Veal.

More photos on the following pages...