Moth pow-wow

Toby Heppell reports on the Moth Designers Meeting as key stakeholders make their case

With the wind still not playing ball at the International Moth World Championships Monday saw the fleet gather for a designers talk and Q and A session. In attendance were Rohan Veal representing Bladerider, John Illet (Fastacraft), Dave Chisholm (Velociraptor), Andrew MacDougall (Ka Sails) and Mike Lennon (Hyde Sails). In essence the conference was a chance for the designers to explain their latest moves and discuss with the class their future plans.

Bladerider – Rohan Veal

The big announcements came first as Veal explained Bladerider Ltd were to be ending their relationship with McConaghy in China with the current Bladerider X8 stock now being sold off. In addition to this there are to be several new additions to the Bladerider line-up. In fact there is to be an entirely new Bladerider line-up as of next year.

The word line-up is key here as the company is proposing four boats in their range. The basic premise of this is to offer an increasing number of entry levels to increase participation. In addition while much of the manufacturing will remain in Asia, the top end boats will now be built and produced in Melbourne Australia. The range will be:

1 – Bladerider FX:

To be the least expensive of the range the FX was announced earlier this year and will be competing this week at the Worlds. The hull is made from fibreglass and obviously heavier than the carbon Moths will be. When this boat was announced we spoke to Rohan Veal which can be found here.

2 – Bladerider RX:

This is the next boat in the range and it will be a vacuum infused carbon laminate as opposed to the more expensive pre-preg construction. It will also lack the bladder moulded curved wingbars of the current Bladerider X8 and will have the alloy spreaders and rudder gantry of the FX.

3 – Bladerider SRX:

Essentially this looks to be the closest to the current Bladerider X8. It will feature the same vacuum infused hull as the RX but will have the more expensive wing bars and all the little Gucci carbon bits and pieces that are associated with the current boat.

4 – Bladerider VRX:

This is to be Bladerider premier boat for the top end of the fleet. Each boat will be custom made in Melbourne and will be adaptable to individual sailors' needs.

Obviously with the aim of producing a range of boats pricing will be staggered from the FX to the VRX. At this stage Veal says they are unsure exactly what the cost of each individual boat may be. “We have no idea of the cost of the top end boat,” Veal explained to Graham Vials who asked about top end price. “We think we can make the hulls cheaper than in China but the rest of the parts will come from there.” He concluded that the cost probably would not go up but there would be an increase in shipping from Melbourne. There is, however, a price list already available for the FX on the Bladerider website.

Fastacraft – John Illet:

Another big announcement came from the Godfather of Foiling, John Illet, who is set to move the manufacture of his hulls from Australia to Vietnam and will be increasing his build capacity in the process. Currently Illet says he is able to produce around 15 boats a year in five boat batches leaving him with fairly long lead-times for a purchaser. By moving operations out to Vietnam capacity should be significantly increased meaning Fastacraft will be able to push out anything up to around 200 boats per year. However, while the hull will be built and painted in Vietnam (reducing the colour options) the bare hulls will then be shipped back to Australia for finishing before being sent to the purchaser. Initially the plan is to produce a run of 15 boats and then step production up to something approaching 30 per year and follow demand from thereon.

Evidently the move is focussed on increasing production more than decreasing price and Illet does not expect the cost of boats to change.

Velociraptor – Dave Chisholm:

In spite of all designers being asked to speak it was clear some were more up for the idea than others. Principally Bladerider and Fastacraft both had major new announcements whereas the new kid on the block, the Velociraptor, had no real significant developments – hardly surprising given the company is still less than a year old.

Chisholm talked about the building process and their ethos mostly. This week they have been showing off both the production versions of the Velociraptor and their two 'S' versions owned by Chisholm and Adam May. The 'S' version of the boat is a bespoke product built individually for sailors. The standard boat retails at around £8500 ex VAT though there is no confirmed price on the Velociraptor S which will presumably vary upwards based on spec.

One of the features of the Velociraptor are the non-removable wing bars which some have questioned with regard to transport of the boats. Chisholm addressed this point explaining that they are soon to introduce an optional sleeve on the inside of the bars meaning they are able to be removed from the boat. These are able to be retro-fitted to any Velociraptor at no extra cost and will add an extra 50g to the weight. Given that the inserts can be retrofitted the advice is to buy the boat without them and add them at a later date if and when you want to transport the boat long distances.

Ka Sails – Andrew MacDougall:



MacDougall started by saying he was humbled by the amount of people using his sails at the event (read most of the fleet) and it is this that has kept him working on the Moth sails when Ka's real business has always been the windsurfing side of his company. In fact MacDougall commented that at some point in the future he can see a time where the windsurfing side gets put even more to one side as he continues to focus on Moths.

On a similar vein MacDougall stated that he is beginning to look into other areas of interest in the class and is keen to do some work on developing foils soon. In particular he wants to offer an independent foil package ”I will be building them for people that want to build their own boats,” he commented. “I would also like to address the problems people have been having in cold water.”

With Adam May cutting down a sail to 6.5m for Katherine Knight this championship there has been much discussion of the potential to develop a range of varying sized sails to allow competition through a greater range of conditions. In addition to this there was a brief discussion about increasing rig size and MacDougall has said he wants to make a nine metre sail for fun. These ideas are likely to be discussed further at the AGM later this week.

MacDougall also apologised for the fact that many of his sails have not measured this week and needed to be re-cut and promised this would not happen again. Mostly this is due to a revised measurement system that many of the designers are continuing to get to grips with.

There was a question from Graham Vials about the possibility of using a lighter more expensive cloth for his Ka sails but MacDougall said he wanted to build sails that last well and last well for everyone which means not using super-light cloth.

Hyde Sails – Mike Lennon:

Lennon talked of how taken he is with the fleet, particularly that innovation and participation continues to increase at a significant rate when many other classes are struggling. He explained he got into Moth sail designing when Paul Brotherton picked up a boat and asked him to design some sails. Since then he has bought a Bladerider and has continued to create new sails with his latest reflecting the Ka designs.

He disagreed with MacDougall on the issue of cloth and says he believes the lighter Technora material he has been using is just as durable as any other. In addition Lennon feels on a fully battened main the issues of durability are reduced as the sail never really flaps.

With Lennon coming from a dinghy/yacht sail designing background as opposed to the windsurfing background of MacDougall the cams that wrap around the mast and attach to the battens inside the luff sleeve are new to him and something he has had to outsource. He is now using Neil Pryde battens that utilise a two to one purchase system to prevent them from sticking in the tacks and gybes, where the batten has to 'pop.'

Following Lennon's talk, there was much discussion about rule 42 specifically with regard to pumping upwind. This will be discussed further at the AGM on Wednesday which we will attend and keep you posted.

It seems from all this that a couple of things are evident. Firstly there does not appear to be a place for medium sized builders in the Moth fleet at the moment. Certainly there is a market for very small numbers of boats from one manufacturer but if you start to go big you need to go very big. Secondly, with both Bladerider and Velciraptor offering various Moths of differing specs variety is very 'in' at the moment. Obviously these two companies believe those at the top are willing to pay almost anything to get their hands on the fastest kit and the rest are happy to pay less and receive less.