The dream comes true

We speak to Rohan Veal about the incredible developments with the new one design Moth

To see more of Thierry Martinez's photos - click here

A mass produced foiling Moth selling in huge numbers? I think many of us thought ‘we’ll believe it, when we see it’. Yet, sure enough, with the dynamic driving force of Mr Foiling Moth himself, Rohan Veal running international sales of the new Bladerider, so, incredibly, come this November there could be as many as 300 of the Chinese-built one design Moths in existence. Beyond this plans are afoot to create a purpose-built factory to mould the boats at the phenomenal rate of up to 2,000 per year.

Star of this weekend’s Dinghy Sailing Show was without doubt the new lacquered red and carbon fibre black form of the Bladerider on the Ronstan stand. There Veal told us that at present Bladerider have around 70 boats on order, built at McConaghy’s new facility in China. The boats are assembled there using spars provided by Brett Burville’s company Windrush, Ronstan the deck gear, with sails from a dedicated loft in China.

Often one designs are dumbed down compared to their one-off counterparts in development classes and at present it is unclear how the new boat will perform against boats such as Veal’s original Prowler or the Linton Jenkins-built Mistresses. The preliminary evidence according to Veal is that the Bladerider is every bit as fast as the one-offs. “From my experience, when I raced them in the National titles I had a poorly set up boat and still managed to win seven out of eight races by minutes and I reflect back on where we are now, I can’t believe I won by so much.”

One gets the impression with Veal that this might be the case if he had sailed a foil-borne Wayfarer. “I think it was more to do with the set-up. It is just like sailing another boat. If you can sort out the wand mechanism and get the efficiency right it makes such a difference upwind, and downwind in waves it seems to be a lot smoother. I can’t wait to race the other guys on Prowlers once it is set up properly to see how it goes.”

The first opportunity to see how the new boat performs fully tuned up will be at the New South Wales State Titles when Veal returns to Australia. But the real test will come at this year’s World Championship on Lake Garda. “We have about 20 Bladeriders going to the Worlds and I would think there will be 60 foilers all-up I would think.” Quite a spectacle.

New talent signing up for Bladeriders includes former 49er World Champion Chris Nicholson and brother Darren, John Harris, helm of the 18ft skiff Rag & Famish, 29er World Champion Scott Babbage and in the UK Graham Vials, who is one of the Bladerider ‘team sailors’. At present five Bladeriders have been sold in the UK with more expected as a result of the stir the boat made this weekend’s show.

“We’ve also sold a number in the US and they are coming to the Worlds. It will be the first time ever that the Americans have attended the World Championships,” continues Veal. “They decided to split off in the 1980s and put asymmetric spinnakers on them which was a waste of time, so we left them to do their own thing.” Bladerider have sales representatives already on both the east coast and west coast of the States and other countries around Europe, although with the UK market they are at present dealing direct.



To buy a Bladerider, the price is US$12,000 plus tax and freight. Thankfully the sterling to US dollar exchange rate is pretty useful at the moment and Veal reckons you could have a boat on the water ready to sail all up for £7,000. Building in China has been fundamental to the competitive pricing point.

With production now set up, Veal’s role is changing to sailing and developing the boat, racing and getting all the other Bladerider sailors up and running. Plans afoot include coaching clinics to get new high riders up to speed. “The main thing is getting boats. The orders are coming in quicker than we can make them. We are always chasing our tail.”

There has been lively talk, enhanced by ISAF President Goran Petterson’s presence at the World Championship in Denmark last year, of a foiling Moth such as the Bladerider becoming a class for the 2012 Olympic Games. This would be a tremendous step if ISAF are bold enough to make it - which in our view they definitely should. Veal has little to add on this at the moment. “The only thing we were told is that it would help our cause dramatically if we had International status by November 2007 and the way the production is going I don’t think that will be a problem. We are doing everything we need to do to be eligible.”

This would require there to be 20 boats on six continents. “That is 120 boats. We are aiming by November to have 300 boats, so I don’t think that will be a problem. In the end it will come down to the event, how they classify what events they want to have and then will we fit into one of those events? Will they make an event for a foiler, or a high performance singlehander. If they really want this they’ll make an event to fit it. Obviously there will be other boats that will be eligible, but the biggest advantage we will have is that we’ll be well established by them. We’ll be the only class to have international status and the interest and growth level we are looking at, I don’t think 300 boats is unachievable by the end of the year.”

Veal has recently been in Dubai where he has been discussing the possibility of holding a Bladerider World Championship in the future. The model they are looking at is along the lines of other ‘pro’ circuits, with big prize money on offer and a fleet of supplied Bladeriders competitors can just turn up and sail.

While the Bladerider looks set to become the dominant force in the Moth world, Veal reckons that it can only help the class as a whole. “The Moth class will never change. There will always be homebuilders experimenting, they’ll still attend world championships. Like Garda – we’re looking at 60 boats which is double what we had the year before. I can’t see it have a negative side-effect introducing a mass produced one design version.”

In years to come Veal reckons that regular Moth sailors are likely to start buying secondhand Bladeriders to take out of class as a cheap way to try out any new developments they want within the Moth rules. “If someone wants to buy a Bladerider they can go and put a wingmast on it and a bolt rope sail on it. We can’t stop them from doing that. I think you’ll see secondhand Bladeriders going around and they’ll feed into the Moth market as experimental boats.”

The one design rules for the Bladerider have yet to be finalised but it is likely that some minor variations will be allowed, particularly to do with the all-important wand that automatically operates the lift generated by the main foil on the centreboard. “You’d get more out of that than changing the rig,” Veal emphasises the importance of this.

So, 300+ foiling Moths by the end of the year... We think this represents one of the most significant steps in our sport in ages. Get back in your pocket, wallet…

Video

At the Dinghy Sailing Show Rohan gave us a guided tour to the new Bladerider...



In clip one he talks us through the wand mechanism (23MB)



In clip two he discusses McConaghy's construction of the boat in China (10.5MB)



In clip three we are shown the intracacies of the main T-foil (10MB)



In clip four Rohan looks at the rudder mechanism (25MB)

NB: These clips are formatted to play in Windows Media Player and are BIG - therefore only suitable for those with broadband connections. Mac users can now view WMV files by downloading a suitable add on to Quicktime - we for example use Flip4Mac which works a treat. The only noticable difference is that while the clip will play out while downloading on a PC, on a Mac it must download first.

To see Bladerider's promo video - click here