Defying gravity

Moth foiling newbie and thedailysail dinghy correspondent Toby Heppell gives his verdict on last week's Nationals

Jason Belben has been trying to win the International Moth UK National Championships for 30 years. This year he finally achieved his goal, sailing a spectacular series to win the event in an impressive manner. Not to take anything away from Belben, who was spectacularly consistent, but one aspect of the Nationals this year was the notable lack of some key competitors, almost certainly due to the close proximity to the World Championships on Lake Garda.

One such notable exception was that of Graham Vials who was due to attend in his brand new replacement Bladerider, following his old one struggling with a few early manufacturing issues both during and before the Worlds. Many of the UK fleet were rather looking forward to seeing how the Bladerider went on home waters, away from the breezy and lumpy conditions of Garda. Sadly for Vials, and those hoping to witness his new Bladerider, his boat once again broke on the first race of the first day. As he was unable to fix it before the three allotted races had concluded and as he had come to win, there was no point in staying for the rest of an event when he already had three DNS’ so he left after the first day. The only other Bladerider at the event was a relatively new one, unfortunately this also had some problems and so was unable to compete for most races.

Another sailor who was unable to make the entire event was current European Champion, Simon Payne, as work commitments only enabled him to attend two days of sailing.

Interestingly in the weeks between the World Championships and the UK Nationals, Payne and a number of others in the class have been involved in some heated debate with relation to sail measurement. Up until the 2005 Worlds sails were measured using one method, but it was decided after that Championship to change the method of measurement so as to more accurately measure the area of the sail.

Once sails began to be measured in the new way a number of older designs were suddenly deemed to be too big. However, with many new sailors joining the Moth fleet recently it would have been unwise for the Committee to decide all of these sails were no longer legal. Of course the major problem with this is the top sailors all started hoarding their old sails, particularly the MSL9 sail, the last of the big designs and widely considered the best shape Moth sail to date. The Moth class does not have any ruling on how many sails are allowed to be used at any one event so at this year’s World Championships a number of sailors turned up with a new MSL12 sail (which measures to the post-2005 ruling and so is a little smaller) and an MSL9 (which measures to the pre-2005 rule and is a little larger). They then used the larger sail in the lighter weather and the smaller sail in the breezier conditions.

There is neither space nor time here to go into the debate in full but simply a number of competitors feel this is taking unfair advantage of a rule that was made to allow new sailors to compete. This debate has been raging on and off since 2005 but finally a solution looks like it is at hand, and it is a simple one. Most of the top sailors have now agreed not to use their MSL9 sails in competition unless they are modified to measure. This simple step, I feel, shows just how easy sailing can be - why make a new rule when we can all agree to sail fairly? Of course this agreement can always be broken but it was encouraging to see Payne at the nationals with a new sail and talking of his MSL9 being modified as we speak.

This year attending both the Moth World Championships and the UK National Championships, we have come to a few interesting conclusions: At the World Championships in Italy we found ourselves turning down offers to head out on the water come the end of the event, in favour of catching up with some work. We realised that as the very top Moth sailors made the boat look so easy to foil it became a little less exciting to watch as the week progressed. This, in addition to the speed differences between the foiling boats being phenomenal, made spectating rather trying at times. Often it was hard to see who was winning and the real fun was clearly coming from those at the back of the fleet crashing.

Attending the UK National Championships last week, much of the same might have been said. Although the fleet were racing a much easier to follow ‘triangle sausage course’ – rather than the ridiculous inverted p and d courses sailed at the Worlds – racing was still not too interesting. In fact the boats were sailing fairly far out in Weymouth Harbour which meant from the shore they almost could have been any class. However, it was not all unspectacular as two moments in particular were witnessed and appreciated by a great number of folks. First was out in Garda at the Worlds when racing had been cancelled for the day three Brits went out for a ‘training session’ anyway. Of course being obviously far too windy this produced some spectacular crashes with a great many other Moth sailors standing on the shore cheering. It was, all in all, some of the most spectacular sailing we have ever seen but it was also a good example of why sailing, at its most spectator friendly is no good for competition. Simply, 70 Moths could not have gone out in those conditions, three were struggling to even sail let alone race.

On two separate occasions at the Weymouth Nationals there was some ‘freestyle sailing’ going on mostly by a very experienced few. They were sailing very near to the pontoons and showing off what they could do, trick wise.

We thought this was very interesting and, at the time, there were a few joking suggestions about including a freestyle round in the championship proper. Since then we have got to wondering whether or not this is such a silly idea. Sometimes in sailing we are far too hung up on the start line-finish line format we have all become accustomed to. It would perhaps be interesting to see what other formats are available now that technology has moved on dramatically. Certainly being up on foils allows a great deal of scope for trick pulling and though currently sailors are doing little more than leaps off the boats and picking things up (see the video from the Nationals here) it strikes me if this were introduced as a part of competition it would not be too long before people were pulling out some really impressive tricks. Perhaps the inclusion of this sort of sailing would be worth considering for the future. Some might argue it would remove many of the skill elements associated with sailing but it would also bring in a whole new skill base and be highly attractive for media coverage.

Finally it was great to see Major Tony Hibbert, the man responsible for joining the UK and Australian Moth classes together and so creating the International Moth, Mervyn Cook, the man behind the Magnum series of Moths, and other famous Mothies of the past such as John Claridge attending the UK Nationals. It was particularly interesting to note that although the technology has moved on so much in the years since many of these guys sailed Moths some of the issues are still the same. After they were all shown the foils and how they worked soon the question of which design is currently fastest came up. To see everyone arguing their point it was not hard to imagine the same scene 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years ago. It is this development nature that keeps the Moth so special and oddly keeps it in touch with the past.

Perhaps one of the best aspects of this year’s UK Moth National Championship was the thought of returning to Weymouth with potentially 100 boats in 2008 for the World Championships which are due to take place there. What a spectacle that will be.



More photos by Sailrocketter Helena Darvelid, including some development 'freestyle' moves, on the following pages... If any one has any better names for the Moth Freestyle moves then, please email suggestions here .

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