2010 Classic Moth Nationals; Report and Results

Good turnout again this year with the usual ragtag Mothboat builder, tinkerer, racer clan assembling at Elizabeth City, NC to discuss Mothboat designs, drink beer, watch foiler demos in the evening and fit in 9 races to determine the National champeen.

In my several years attending this regatta in mid September, I'd estimate that 85% of the winds are from the North, NorthEast. Ditto this year, with winds mostly about 5-7 mph, which means the weather mark is tucked up against the shore where big lefty shifts or big righty shifts randomly swirl. Added to the tactical conundrum this year; the start/finish line was moved mid course and protected from crossing in the race instructions. One had to commit to the left or right at the bottom of the course, immediately after rounding the leeward mark, which again was a toss of the dice. Enough to make your brain spin but it gave good close racing throughout the fleet

Jeff Linton impinged on the protected start/finish line and was carrying a DSQ early but turned in five consecutive firsts to take home another National title. Mike Parsons, last year's winner, also carried a DSQ when he sailed through the start/finish line but kept his nose clean with mostly top three finishes to claim second. Previous National champ, Mark Saunders had some dicey first beats early on but managed big comebacks throughout the regatta to finish third, only two points behind Mike.

Your humble scribe raced his Maser to a second place in the slower Gen1 division, behind Rebecca Dudzinski, who borrowed back her Europe dinghy she used in an Olympic campaign. Rebecca gave the faster Gen 2 guys a run for their money, posting an individual race first and a second to finally place 4th overall. John Z in his Mistral and Joe Bousquet in his modified Shelley finished 5th and 6th overall

Number 1 and Number 2 for the regatta; Jeff Linton and Mike Parsons (Jeff on the left). (As always click on the picture for a high resolution image.)



Mark Saunders finished third with a legal fathead. His sail is a foot short on the luff (14' vs 15'). Mark gives up the extra foot of luff so he can eliminate the pinhead and use a fathead (his sail would lie within the outside dimensions of a normal max 15' luff sail).



Us old farts in the Classic Moths always wondered how one of the women Olympic sailors in the Europe dinghy would do if they raced a Europe in the Nationals. Now we know. Pretty damned good! Fourth to Rebecca Dudzinski in her Europe.



John Z, with his modified Mistral, was top Annapolis sailor in fifth......



And Joe Bousquet, sailing his wife's modified high freeboard Shelly was sixth........



Top ten results table;

Skipper	Races	Hull Design
Jeff Linton	2,[DSQ],4,2,1,1,1,1,1	Mousetrap
Mike Parsons	[DSQ]4,2,1,2,3,4,3,3	Mistral
Mark Saunders	4,2,[6],4,4,2,2,2,4	Mistral
Rebecca Dudzinsky	1,3,5,[7],7,4,5,4,2	Europe
John Zseleczky	[10],6,3,3,3,6,3,5,6	Mistral
Joe Bousquet	7,1,1,5,5,[10],6,6,5	Modified Shelly
Rod Mincher	5,[11],8,6,9,5,7,7,8	Maser
Rod Koch	3,7,[DSQ],8,8,7,10,8,7	Modified Europe
Walt Collins	6,[10],7,9,6,9,8,10,11	Cates
Lewis Hay	8,5,10,11,10,8,[12],11,10	Europe

Thanks again to John and Sarah Pugh for hosting this years regatta on their commodious back lawn. Thanks to Greg Duncan for putting the regatta together. Thanks to Mike and Barbara, Ed Salva, John Z for bringing some tasty beers to swill down.

Thanks to Elizabeth Albaugh and Len Parker for the photos.

And finally I couldn't let Rutledge Young of Charleston, SC off the hook for this great photo of his Savannah Wedge design.

Another Tweaked Classic Moth Sail

Scott Sandell, who has been concocting different sail plans for his fleet of Europe dinghy's on Long Island Sound, has been working on the next generation Europe dinghy power plant over the winter. He sends along a picture of the first test sail. (Click on picture for higher resolution.)



Scott writes that initial on the water testing shows the new rig needs to be sheeted further out than the second generation mylar sail.

I asked Scott for some more pictures of the construction but Scott says his immediate priority is to disassemble the temporary structure he erected to construct the rig. The mayor of Sag Harbor says the structure must be off Main Street by mid April. Merchants on Main St are complaining of losing customers because of the lack of parking and soon, summer tourists will be swarming Sag Harbor.

Classic Moth tinkering; Different sail plan

The Classic Moth has a classic pinhead sail plan. There has been a small movement in 2009 by two Moth boaters to see what the boat would look like with a more "modern" sail plan.

Scott Sandell, who has assembled a fleet of cast off Europe Moth dinghies at the tip of Long Island, has been working with Farrar sails to develop a larger sail plan. His first attempt piled on the roach; I think about 18" more than the class legal sail at mid girth.

Picture of Scott's first sail....



A picture of Scott's sail sailed by Ed Salva next to a class legal Classic Moth.



Scott decided the first version was too powerful, especially for the light weights, and this fall came out with a smaller, less roachy sail.



Meanwhile, your blogger, spurred on by friends who said the class legal sail looked too "Classic", built a fat head sail with a straight leech (it met the Classic Moth mid girth rule). I raced it (non-scoring) at Chestertown in the summer. My thoughts at this time are it may be too powerful and may change the class too much. I need to do some more sailing with it in 2010. A picture of me with the fathead with George Albaugh in his Europe dinghy.



Long live the tinkerers!

Addendum; Email from Scott Sandell.......

My peeps are requesting you change your description of our fleet. We have two boats that won the world championships, three from the last Europe trials, and one incedibly beautiful Cristalli built in Belgium. Hardly cast offs! Thanks!

We feel we have the sail nailed. I cannot ever imagine the CMBA taking much of a look at it, but this design works for a wide variety of helms. Thanks for the encouragement along the way!

Riding the daggerboard

In a previous post about capsizing to weather , I mentioned I could have speeded things up by riding the daggerboard underwater. Lo and behold, someone has posted a YouTube on just such a technique. What follows is a demonstration courtesy of an Europe dinghy sailor.

Round and round they go

There is something mesmerizing about watching Shockwave40 videos. Sort of like shaking up a snow globe and watching until all those white bits settle to the bottom. Shockwave40 shoots his videos from the shore and his videos most often feature one class of boat. He does a good job, camera steady and zoomed in. Since this is England most of the featured dinghy sailors are very competent. His water gurgling soundtrack sounds as if it is added on. I did feature on of his other videos in January.

First up from Shockwave 40 are the Lasers;



And then the solitary Europe dinghy. In this video, the skipper looks remarkably similar to USA Mothist, Mike Parsons.



These videos were taken at the Leigh and Lowton SC Winter Series

Europe dinghy sailing compilation

From the bio on YouTube, this video looks to be the work of a 16 year old from Argentina. Damn fine job!

For all the Euro nuts in the Classic Moth. (I know, all the Classic Mothies are nuts).

Last day of 2008

For December 31, we have a northerly gale howling. The Severn River below the Route 50 bridge is a mass of white horses. Temperatures tonight will dive to 20F (-6 C). Ah .... but in the Southern Hemisphere, it is summer.

A real short video of Europe dinghy sailing (11 seconds) taken in Napier, New Zealand, on the West of the North Island. Sparkling waves, puffy clouds, 15 knots of wind. To the sailing of 2008 and to the sailing to come in 2009.



Happy New Year!

Europe Dinghy; Companion video

George Albaugh, Classic Moth sailor who races a Europe dinghy, liked the first Europe YouTube so I now post a companion video from the same YouTuber as the first one.

Europe dinghy, Another Classic Moth

The USA Classic Moth rule uses the International Moth rule as it was up to the early 1970's before the class merged with the Australian Association and allowed wings and a higher aspect sailplan. The Europe dinghy, or, as it was originally known, the Europa, was a Roland Moth design from the 1960's. It was always thought of as the baby Finn. Europe's certainly qualify for Classic Moth racing (other than the Europe one-design sail which has grown too much roach for the Classic Moth rule) and in the U.S several Europes have been absorbed into the Classic Moth class. In Europe, the one-design Europe class remains very strong despite (or because of) the elimination of the class from women's Olympic competition.

A very good video of Europe's playing in some big waves;