Open dutch skiff trophy, Benelux alive and kicking

Nine moths where at the start line last saturday for the Open dutch skiff trophy! It was a great turn-out whereby 100% of the members of the belgium dutch moth association were racing. I guess there are not to many sailing classes who can say that :-)

It was a great event with a great bunch of sailors. Koos wrote a very nice piece about his experience.

When I think about it I guess the benelux fleet must be one of the most international ones as almost 50% has an international background. Chris who is actually a brit flown in to strengthen the sailing skills in the 'deep' south of the Netherlands. We have Juryk who is a german living more to the east and has amazing logistic skills. As he manages to come to the events without owning a car or a trailer for his boat. And probably one of the few people known to be hitchhiking with a moth and we have Giovanni who is an Italian American living in Belgium......

It was also great that Sven Kloppenburg from Germany joined the fleet for this race.

It was perfect sailing weather as in the morning it started with light winds and during the day the wind increased, with the occasional very gusty period, even up to appr 24 knots. In the lighter stuff Sven and Gio showed good skill and speed and overall Sven was sailing solid and very consistent. Constantijn started every time very well and with the right conditions was fast in the first beat. Juryk was handicapped as his foils where already broken for the races. Koos enjoyed himself, although found out that moving house does not train all the muscles necessary for sailing a moth. Young gun Rob has an old foiler with incredible bow-up attitude and had some material failures. Hans Wust impressed with the enormous progress he made within the short while that he sails a foiler, as he started foiling this summer.

As for my own performance I was happy with the progress I made with the boathandling. Gybes where solid, also when I had to do two quick gybes to dodge 6 capsized skiffs in front of me in one of the more gusty periods. The tacks are also getting better. After the Europeans I have been able to sail only a few days however in those days I focused on tacking and gybing and this focussed approach helped. Although especially on the tacking there is still room for improvement before they are near foiling everytime (with this i mean, the back of the hull touching the water and then quickly going up again). It was also great fun to sail the rounds while overtaking 49ers and 29ers. As the moth is so silent and so much faster it is great fun to overtake them while being close and to see the amazed expressions. Hopefully it inspires some of them to try a moth.

It further amazed me that overtaking on the leeward side is not a big issue. As when foiling the moth is sailing mostly on apparent wind, it is not too much bothered by the disturbed air.

During the AGM of the benelux association I was stitching my trampoline back together as this was the only way I could ensure that I could sail on sunday and join the AGM. This was the only less brilliant thing of the weekend, all the rest was well organised and it was great to be with nine moths on the water showing the other skiff sailors what moth sailing is about.

Results can be found here

After the weekend I read the blog of Rohan and I think it is too bad that he leaves the class as he is the one who inspired a lot of people to go foiling including myself. I wish him all the best and hope that after taking some distance he will be back in due time.