Nice painting. It is a picture I would like to be in on a semi permanent basis.

Dur.. I saw some footage on the Tv and you don't sit to leeward..What I meant was why is it that a lot of the time the craft is tilted to windard..the person sailing it is sitting on the windward side but that side is lower to the water..?

Cool vid mate, hos the catapulting at 2.32!! That would have been scary!

If your interested in Moth sailing I suggest a peek at this Boat design .net. thread.

WARNING; its 83 pages long and occasionally raucous.

www.boatdesign.net/threads/moth-on-foils-35-9-knots-41-29-mph.11209/

The Worlds are on starting tomorrow I think up at Lake Macquarie. Some details on this blog.

knowlesmoth.blogspot.com/

Might be worth a look if your close by.

the windward heel is to use some of the foils lift to increase upwind height

sboardcrazy said...

Thanks.
The first time I saw them was when I was sailboarding off Coal point in marginal winds <10kts & I wasn't planing.One of those flew / hissed past ..WOW I wouldnt mind doing that! But then I think I read they are hard to sail..? Also I don't have the funds..I haven't had a chance to see the video yet but will.
Last time I was out sailboarding in 25kts Ne off Coal Pt there were some Moths out .. very impressive but so were the cartwheel stacks!

First boat I ever built was an Imperium design Moth. The costs are fairly relative for an out of the box foiling moth, there is not much to them in materials and they are built in China. Thinking about the money I have spent over the years in racing dinghies the moth looks pretty reasonable.

From what I have read they are a bit clumsy to launch but surprisingly easy to sail. I only wish I was young enough to sail one, along with kiteboarding and all those other pursuits the older generation missed out on.

CJW said...

Hmm you reckon the costs are fairly relative? ~25K is pretty steep for an 11ft, 30kg boat, no matter how much carbon and technology is in it.

To me they do not look easy to sail, look at any other top level sailing fleet and how many capsizes are there? Not that many. Go watch a moth race and it's carnage

Impressive boats though for sure, how they are 28kg fully rigged is anyones guess, that is insane. I sailed a moth a few times pre foil era and it was great fun, I reckon with the foils it would be alltime, if only I had a spare 25k lying around

My comments were based on an article by the woman editor of a British sailing magazine. She had the use of a new one for the weekend and commented how surprisingly easy it was to sail after only a few minutes coaching.

There was one on eBay a couple of weeks ago, not sure what it sold for. After the nationals and worlds there will be a few available. Foil kits are available and you can build your own hull. Carbon fibre is easy to work with. Roughly 10 times the cost of fibreglass cloth and you use the same epoxy resin. Hull is really small so materials are not much. Carbon tubes for the outriggers are off the shelf items.

When I was into moths they were built in 1/8 ply and it was not uncommon for blokes to build a hull to last only one regatta. If I remember correctly the hulls had a lower limit of 45 pounds then. This did not count the rig which was heavier than modern moths. Probably 3 times the hull material in the older stuff too.

JayBee said...

Take another look, they do not sit to leeward on moths. They sit to windward like on every other sailboat.

J

Note that sboardcrazy did actually mean that as indicated by the fourth post in this thread, bit of a brain fart on post one

www.mothworlds.org/belmont/

some good footage and reporting here