2011 Int Moth Worlds- Bullets, Breakages and a Blast

by Richard Burling on 23 Jan 2011
Over the last week Peter Burling joined 112 sailors from around the world to compete in the Foiling Moth worlds being held just out of Sydney.

Being a development class, Moth sailors can use a variety of equipment with the wings on the rudder and centerboard lifting the boat out of the water. The biggest development talking point was the USA sailors arriving with a 'hard wing sail' (as were used by Oracle in the last America's Cup) which proved very fast up wind but not quite robust enough for big wind high speed capsizes.

For Peter this was a break from his 49er Olympic campaign – the moth being a high-profile international class due to its speed and innovative technology, and the Olympic 49er sailors were joined by top sailors from the Olympic Laser class, 18 foot skiff sailors, as well as Moth specialist sailors from around the world. Peter reports that the Moth is one of the very few classes where things happen faster than the 49er and the aim of the regatta was to have fun as well as for cross-training for fitness and agility – he certainly managed both.

Peter calculated that he had only sailed the Moth about 25 days in total before the pre Worlds regatta – the Australian nationals - which finished a day before the worlds started. With help from the 'Australian Moth Squad' – a group of Aussies Mothies practicing on Lake Macquarie, he felt that he was learning heaps and starting to get on the pace. fourth at the pre-worlds was very encouraging.

The Worlds started with nine qualifying races over the first days three – the qualifying round used to divide the fleet into Gold and Silver fleets. Beautiful sunny conditions with wind up to 20 knots made for champagne sailing. Seaweed catching on the Moths foils was a complicating factor – to capsize to clear the weed or continue on at a slower speed? Nathan Outteridge, Peter’s Australian 49er training partner, was dominant and top qualifier with Peter winning 5 of his 9 races to be second qualifier in Gold fleet. Simon Payne GBR and Bora Gulari USA, the previous two world champions, were outside the top 10 at this stage.

Sailors took their qualifying score (which counted as a single race) into Gold or Silver fleets, with another 9 races – nice for Peter taking only 2 points into the final stages of the regatta. The forecast was predicting solid breeze over 20 knots for the rest of the week and that is exactly what the sailors got … exciting high speed racing ensued with the inevitable capsizes from these high performance 3.3 metre long boats. Many of the sailors recorded speeds of over 30 knots, and that was just getting to the start line!

Day 1 of Gold fleet was in Peter’s words ' a shocker' – while on the first downwind of Race 1 in about sixth he failed to spot a silver fleeter, who had somehow wandered onto the gold fleet course. Evasive actions had Peter’s sail just clip the other Moth’s boom, causing a rip in Peter’s sail … nursing his boat around the course with the rip continuing to grow he dropped to 14th. A quick sail back to shore while the others boats sailed race 2 had Peter rigging an old sail up and back in time for race 3. With fresh legs Peter lead around every mark of this race to record his first win in gold fleet. Nathan Outteridge had a 1, 1, 4 day to start to take a stranglehold on the regatta.

Day 2 of Gold fleet was even windier – silver fleet was held ashore while the Gold fleeters went out to do battle with the conditions … the wind was averaging 25 knots but coming off the shore in stronger bullets. Facebook reported that all the leading boats were knocked down (capsized) on the first reach with a scramble to right the boats to see who could get going quickest. Again carnage happened near the bottom mark as a gust nearing 30 knots whipped across the course. Peter reported that after a breakage to his 'height-above-water-adjuster' from an initial capsize made his boat very unstable, he capsized another 20 times but soldiered on to finish 11th. Sailors reported that the water felt like concrete when being catapulted from 1.5 metres high out of their moths at high speed. Fortunately the Race committee sent the fleet in for repairs to boats and bodies while the conditions moderated. The wind dropped sufficiently early evening for another race where Peter scored a welcome second.

For the last day of Worlds the sailors were out on the water 3 hours earlier than usual – hoping for lighter morning winds and to fit the last 4 programmed races in. The first two races were the lightest so far in Gold fleet - Peter got off to a flier scoring a 2,1 to just sneak up into third overall. As the wind increased the Laser sailors started to shine – Tom Slingsby, 3 times Laser World champion and International Sailor-of-the-Year 2010 won the penultimate race (he finished seventh overall). Nathan Outteridge sealed the overall world title with a race to spare without having to sail to final race.

It was all on for the last race of the regatta .... Peter being one of 5 sailors in with a chance of a podium finish but it wasn’t to be as Scott Baggage AUS won the final race to finish 3nd overall, Joe Turner AUS second overall, Peter Burling NZL fourth overall and Bora Gulari USA fifth overall.

A superbly run regatta, hugely enjoyable and a fun experience for Peter with his fourth place finish at only his third ever Moth regatta. Facebook was great allowing large numbers of fans to be kept-up-to-date all over the world in real time. The next Moth Worlds are in Italy immediately after the 2012 Olympics.

Event website www.mothworlds.org/belmont/ has excellent daily videos under the 'Gallery and Video' section.

Day 2 highlights has Peter sailing 2.10 to 2.24 minutes (Peter’s sail had a red SLAM sticker on it) The highlights videos are well worth watching for fans of high speed sailing.



Also an amazing six photo sequence of a high-speed eject by World Champion Nathan Outteridge while racing – just scroll down www.mothworlds.org/belmont/media/gallery/how-to-press-eject-by-nathan-outteridge!this_link

Final overall results www.mothworlds.org/belmont/results!click_here