Moth Worlds at Sail Melbourne

Veal leads as racing cancelled due to strong winds, with additional reporting from Adam May

Racing at the Moth World Championships at Sail Melbourne was postponed by the host club, Black Rock Yacht Club today, as strong winds, regularly gusting in excess of 28 knots swept their course on Port Phillip Bay.

Storms also featured largely in their decision, as the conditions changed and worsened throughout the day. At times the sun peeped through the clouds and the wind abated to around 20 knots, but not for long.

Black Rock organisers held the 47-strong Moth fleet ashore until 4.00pm, finally having no choice but to postpone racing until Thursday.

Tomorrow, Wednesday is a lay day for the fleet.

Local sailor Rohan Veal (AUS) leads the Championship after three races, with three wins, with two serious British contenders, Simon Payne and Adam May in second and third places respectively and not to be discounted.

British Moth sailor Adam May, currently lying in third place adds some detail:

Currently racing on day 3 is postponed as we are being battered by a big rain
storm and 20 - 28knots of breeze.

Yesterday (Monday) was another great day with some close racing behind Rohan. Although Mark Robinson managed to lead him round the first mark in race 3. Veal's experience in these conditions at his home club is showing through.

I think there are about 10 foilers here. Mainly Fastacraft Foils, but there are some others. Phil Stevenson has got a variety of foil sizes he can bolt on, but has chosen to sail without for most races. There were some unifoilers for the Aussie Nats, but they've been sailing in normal mode since. Glen Oldfield has some very nice high aspect ratio elliptical foils, but a little bit low on area and with a control wand that makes life tricky in waves - he's pondering changes. A new Japanese foiling Prowler had a few too many big crashes on day one and damaged his gantry, and hit the reef yesterday, so John is busy trying to repair that boat.

The top six are all foilers at the moment, and we got some great video footage after racing yesterday, with several group flybys!

Regards from a rainy Melbourne, although the sun is trying to come out again.

	Boat Name	Skipper		Pts	Race 3	Race 2	Race 1
1	OUTLAW	Rohan Veal	AUS	3	1	1	1
2	SHOULDER ANGEL	Simon Payne	GBR	6	2	2	2
3	MISTRESS	Adam May	GBR	10	4	3	3
4	ON THE RAZOR:S EDGE	Mark Robinson	SIN	12	3	4	5
5	WINDRUSH	Brett Burvill	AUS	21	7	7	7
6	ON THE PROWL	Garth Ilett	AUS	22	6	6	10
7	SECTOR 7-G	Les Thorpe	AUS	24	8	12	4
8	HOTBLACK DESIATO	Christopher Dey	AUS	26	9	8	9
9	CAUGHT IN THE ACT	Doug Pybus	GBR	31	10	10	11
10	STRENGTH THROUGH WOU	Steve Ray	AUS	33	12	13	8
11	PIMP JUICE	Aaron Gregory	AUS	40	11	9	20
12	KARMA PACKAGE DEAL	Stephen Donovan	AUS	40	14	14	12
13	CITROEN	Yumiko Shige	JPN	45	17	11	17
14	OBSTREPEROUS	Michael Boode	AUS	49	21	15	13
15	BULLET WITH BUTTERFL	Ben Crocker	AUS	51	19	26	6
16	LANTIS	Keiya Funahashi	JPN	51	15	18	18
17	SHORT BLACK	Luka Damic	AUS	53	13	19	21
18	FLYING LIME	John Ilett	AUS	54	5	5	44.00F
19	SHENANIGANS	Andrew Stevenson	AUS	56	20	20	16
20	SAKURA	Yasuhiro Watanabe	JPN	58	16	27	15
21	HOLLYWOOD GOES TIGER	Peter Harney	AUS	61	22	17	22
22	A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF	Craig Smith	AUS	66	18	21	27
23	MOTH	Andrew Sayle	AUS	69	25	25	19
24	SWEET CHEESUS	Glen Oldfield	AUS	71	24	24	23
25	LESS STRESS	Martin Harrison	GBR	77	23	23	31
26	ANGIALOFA	Greg Wise	AUS	78	26	28	24
27	DREADNOUGH	Ned Dally	AUS	81	27	29	25
28	STATIC JAKEL	Andrew Sim	AUS	84	48.00C	22	14
29	MEAT AXIOM	John Mcateer	AUS	88	28	30	30
30	SOLITARY LEPRECHAUN	Alan Goddard	AUS	93	30	31	32
31	BULLETPROOF	Burkhard Staabs	GER	96	33	35	28
32	LA VIE EN ROSE	Tutomu Tanaka	JPN	98	48.00C	16	34
33	FULL FRONTAL	Martin Johnson	AUS	103	34	36	33
34	SMITH	Ian Sim	AUS	104	37	38	29
35	BLUE PRINT	Zac Douglas	AUS	105	29	32	44.00F
36	CHAINSAW	Philip Stevenson	AUS	108	31	33	44.00F
37	RACKING HELL LINES	James Mackenzie	AUS	111	36	40	35
38	ANYONE CAN BE IMMATU	Joachim Huelsmeyer	GER	114	32	34	48.00C
39	SLARTIBARTFAST	Lee-frances Gray	AUS	116	35	37	44.00F
40	HAIR OF THE DOG	Samuel Neeft	AUS	121	38	39	44.00F
41	RED CHERRY	Patrick Ruf	SUI	122	48.00C	48.00C	26
42	FATSO	Rainer Cuno	AUS	124	40	48.00C	36
43	WEEKEND WARRIOR	Jens Schoenberg		128	39	41	48.00C
44	TALKER	Jenny Muller	AUS	129	43.00F	42	44.00F
45	STING	David Hansa	AUS	132	41	43	48.00C
46	WEEKEND WARRIOR	Jens Schoenberg	AUS	140	48.00C	48.00C	44.00F
47	BULLETPROOF	Simon Redford	AUS	144	48.00C	48.00C	48.00C