VRsport.tv International Moth UK Nationals at the WPNSA - Day 1

by Mark Jardine on 27 Aug 2016 Seventy-three boats have signed on for the 2016 VRsport.tv International Moth UK Nationals at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy. With the odd lightning strike off Chesil Beach and a huge storm over Dorchester, the fleet were released to leave the shore once it was deemed safe enough to sail in Portland Harbour, with racing getting underway just 20 minutes after the scheduled 1pm start time.

The easterly breeze was set to swing around to the south and drop so the race team, led by Bryan Drake, were keen to get as much racing in as possible before this happened. In the end just a single race was possible. A second race was started, but with the vast majority of the fleet low-riding, and those who did manage to get foiling dropping down and stopping once they'd gybed, the race was inevitably abandoned.



David Hivey won the race after finishing 12th at last year's nationals. We spoke to him about what has made the difference this year, 'Boatspeed. I've been spending a lot of time with Rob (Greenhalgh). He's a pretty difficult man to beat so I've been working pretty hard to get around the same speed as him.'

On how much time he's been spending out on the water David said, 'Probably about the same as the professionals! Because I'm a teacher I've spent most of the past 7 weeks sailing. I also managed to spend 3 weeks sailing over Easter and school gave me a week off for the Europeans which was amazing and I've also had 2 weeks training on Lake Garda with Rob.'

'I had a real issue with tacking last year. My boatspeed was almost there and I was rounding the top mark in the top 5 sometimes, but I was capsizing on 50% of my tacks. So I've probably tacked 10,000 times since January trying to make sure I sorted that out.'

On what the draw is to the International Moth over other fleets he's said in, such as the Lasers, RS200s, 400s & 800s David said, 'The standard is higher at the very top end as we've got the Olympics guys, and professional sailors who aren't doing the Olympic classes, so at the very top end it's the best racing you're going to get. But even outside of this you have people who are sailing the boat all the time so the level is very, very high.'

'The draw is the competition and the boat itself - you can have a bad day in a Moth and it's still good fun.'

Second placed Robert Greenhalgh was pleased with his opening race, 'I didn't have the greatest start to the race. I crossed the line on port and was probably being a little conservative and rounded the top mark in fourth and to fight back a bit. The second (abandoned) race was a bit of a lottery. I was in the lead when they canned it, but canning it was the right thing to do.'

Robert said on his training with David Hivey, 'We've got the same kit and he's going quick and he's trying hard so it's good to be pushed.'

Robert's schedule this year has included sailing the Fast 40+ 'Invictus' and also the record-breaking MOD70 'Phaedo3' and we asked if this had impacted on the time he had available for Moth sailing, 'I haven't had a huge amount of sailing in the Moth recently, but enough and I'm certainly not going to use it as an excuse. More is always better, but with 4 or 5 days here I think we'll see everyone improve as the event goes on.'

Andrew Budgen, while well known in other fleets and through his Monster Project Volvo 70, is competing in his first Moth UK Nationals and is the leading 'first timer' after finishing the day's race in sixth. We spoke to him after the racing, 'We had a nice bit of breeze early on which obviously suits me, being one of the bigger guys in the fleet. I had a reasonable start and it might have actually been the first race I've ever done where I flew the whole way round without hitting the deck! I've been working on the boat all week trying to get a new sail plan together which has maybe made a difference. It's the kind of boat that you want be out in quite a lot.'

First home-build over the line was Alister Richardson in eighth, who was sailing his new Moth which has been two years in the making, 'It was my first time racing in the boat which was good fun. It's been in development the whole time of the build and it's still in development!'

There are a couple of unique features on the boat including a foredeck-less bow and tapered stern. We asked Alister to describe these more, 'The thinner transom is for less drag when its low riding and it's also supposed to help a little bit when it's popping out of the water - less of a brake effectively. On the front I haven't got a foredeck and the intention is to get the mast down onto that and get rid of the stump altogether, but that's phase two. I'm just trying to get it to go alright in the same configuration as every other Moth before I start getting more radical.'

Principal Race Officer Bryan Drake summed up his thoughts about the day and trying to get more racing in, 'The Moths foil for a good race and if they can't foil it's not much fun. In the second race we had a few people foiling on the corners where the wind was stronger and they walked away from the others, but as they came downwind towards us the wind decreased and they dropped back in the water and from a Moth point of view I didn't think it was a fair race.

'Races are timed at about 30 minutes each so we can catch up on the schedule. We can turn around races in less than an hour so there's no difficulty in getting in 4 races if they've got the stamina to do so.'

There's set to be 15 to 20 knots on Sunday so the fleet is looking forward to a high speed blast around Portland Harbour.

Results after Day 1:

Pos	Nat	Sail No	Helm	Club	R1	Pts
1	GBR	4434	David Hivey	Datchet Water SC	1	1
2	GBR	4340	Robert Greenhalgh	Royal Southern YC	2	2
3	GBR	4345	Dylan Fletcher	WPNSA	3	3
4	GBR	4349	Mike Lennon	Hayling Island SC	4	4
5	GBR	3942	Jason Belben	Stokes Bay SC	5	5
6	GBR	4358	Andrew Budgen	Warsash SC	6	6
7	GBR	4433	Dan Ward	Frensham Pond SC	7	7
8	GBR	43	Alister Richardson		8	8
9	GBR	4417	Max Maege	BYC	9	9
10	GBR	4278	Alex Koukourakis	Eastbourne Soverign SC	10	10
11	GBR	4099	Ricky Tagg	Hayling Island SC	11	11
12	GBR	3036	Dan Vincent	Stokes Bay SC	12	12
13	GBR	3979	Dan Ellis	Yealm YC	13	13
14	GBR	4291	Simon Hiscocks	WPNSA/Hayling Island SC	14	14
15	GBR	4310	Stu Bithell	Hollingworth Lake SC	15	15
16	GBR	4121	James Phare	Queen Mary SC	16	16
17	GBR	4075	Doug Pybus	Queen Mary SC	17	17
18	GBR	3939	Nic Asher	Waveney & Oulton Broad YC	18	18
19	GBR	4311	Alex Adams	Castle Cove SC	19	19
20	GBR	4438	Matthew Lea	Grafham Water SC	20	20
21	GBR	4409	Ross Harvey	Hayling Island SC	21	21
22	GBR	4347	Eddie Bridle	Brightlingsea SC	22	22
23	NED	4424	Kalle Coster	WV Braasemermeer	23	23
24	GBR	3980	David Simmonds	Hayling Island SC	24	24
25	GBR	4350	David Smithwhite	Hayling Island SC	25	25
26	GBR	4122	Andrew Friend	Queen Mary SC/Norfolk PC	26	26
27	GBR	4309	James McMillan	Gurnard SC	27	27
28	ESP	4047	Andreas John	BSC	28	28
29	GBR	4442	Kyle Stoneham	Thirpe Bay YC	29	29
30	GBR	4299	Chris Clarke	Thorpe Bay YC	30	30
31	GBR	3940	Russ Clark	Stokes Bay SC	31	31
32	GBR	4346	Nick Miller	Marconi SC	32	32
33	GBR	4277	Jeremy Hartley	Stokes Bay SC	33	33
34	GBR	4073	Paul Hignett	Loch Lomond SC	34	34
35	IRL	3600	Alistair Kissane	Howth YC	35	35
36	GBR	3943	Richard Edwards	Parkstone YC	36	36
37	GBR	3945	Chris Tilbrook	Starcross SC	37	37
38	GER	3843	Carlo Mäge	Feldafinger Seglerverein	38	38
39	GBR	4281	Nic Streatfeild	Rutland SC	39	39
40	GBR	4096	Tim Penfold	Hayling Island SC	40	40
41	GBR	4233	Dominic Hutton	Stokes Bay SC	41	41
42	GBR	434	Leigh Albrecht	Eastbourne Soverign SC	42	42
43	GBR	3959	Paul Gliddon	Netley SC	43	43
44	GBR	445	Ben Clegg	Brightlingsea SC	44	44
45	GBR	4037	Chris Jeeves		45	45
46	NED	3794	Menno Berens	Marina Muiderzand	46	46
47	GBR	4208	Tom Lambert	Wilsonian SC	47	47
48	DEN	4307	Hans Rasmussen	Troense Bådelaug	48	48
49	GBR	4385	Steve McLean	Hayling Island SC/LSC	49	49
50	GBR	4279	David Jessop	Grafham Water SC	50	50
51	GBR	3944	Phil Bevan	Grafham Water SC	51	51
52	IRL	3632	Jim Devlin	Royal St. George YC	52	52
53	GBR	3730	Jon Peats	Castle Cove SC	53	53
54	GBR	3877	Josie Gliddon	Netley SC	54	54
55	GBR	4372	James Ross	Netley SC	55	55
56	GBR	3870	Eddie Gatehouse	Hayling Island SC	56	56
57	GBR	3966	Cameron Harris	Parkstone YC	57	57
58	GBR	4182	Owain Hughes	Parkstone YC	58	58
59	GBR	3335	Ed Redfearn	Brightlingsea SC	59	59
60	GBR	4230	Mark Emmett	Stokes Bay SC/HISC	60	60
61	GBR	4025	Katherine Knight	WPNSA	61	61
62	GBR	3629	Thomas Mehew	Royal Thames YC	62	62
63	GBR	4343	James Sainsbury	Grafham Water SC	63	63
64	GBR	4479	Adrian Coatsworth	Alton Water SC	64	64
65	GBR	3890	Katie Hughes	Loch Lomond SC	65	65
66	GBR	4336	Jonathan Heathcote	Stokes Bay SC	DNS	74
66	GBR	3704	Mark Dell	Thorpe Bay YC	RET	74
66	NED	4408	Eelco Boers	WV Roerkoning	DNS	74
66	GBR	4147	Penny Clark	Stokes Bay SC	DNC	74
66	GBR	4342	Graham Simmonds	Hayling Island SC	DNS	74
66	GBR	4061	Billy Vennis?Ozanne	Stokes Bay SC	DNS	74
66	GBR	4100	Chris White	Restronguet SC	DNS	74
66	IRL	3916	John McKelvie	Strangford Lough YC/QMSC	DNS	74