International Moth Winter Championship 2025 at Rutland Sailing Club

Podium in the International Moth Winter Championship 2025 at Rutland (l-r) Alex Adams, Paul Gliddon, Jason Belben © IMCAUK

Paul Gliddon's recently converted Exocet sporting solid wings and reduced foredeck © IMCAUK

Paul Gliddon's recently converted Exocet sporting solid wings and reduced foredeck © IMCAUK

The International Moth Winter Championships were held at Rutland Sailing Club over the weekend of 18th/19th October, this being the last major event of the year. The fleet consisted of Exocet, Aerocet and Exploder designs with various rigs and helm weights. Most noticeable was Paul Gliddon's recently converted Exocet sporting solid wings and reduced foredeck.

The forecast promised a full weekend of sailing with mild temperatures but Saturday's light breeze never fully reached expectations and proceedings were postponed until Sunday.

The fleet were rewarded for their patience as Sunday brought a 15 Knot NE and the racing kicked off promptly. It was a difficult decision as to what setup best, big foils and sail to help through the lulls, take off and tacking or full on small foils for straight line speed. The racing format was fast and furious with an amended 3-2-1 sequence and 20 minute races, no hanging around and seven races.

Points to note were:

• How the fresh cold water of Rutland helped initiated ventilation of the foils. This could result in slipping sideways if main foil or loss of steering if rudder (not a comfortable experience when doing 20+ knots!) to prevent this meant reducing ride height or changing trim.

• Coming off the foil briefly would result in big place changing when the boats are going so fast on flat water and the race is short. This would generally happen on failed foil tacks or at the windward gate where it was particularly gusty.

• Metal verticals on the foils are filtering down the fleet with plenty of talk of how to achieve this speed gain on a budget.

The races were generally dominated by Paul with only a few mistakes; sailing the wrong course or coming off the foil at the wrong time. Followed closely by Alex Adams and then Jason Belben each capitalising on others mistakes. The rest of the showed more variation with close racing at all levels.

So noticeable take home from the event was how an older design Exocet Hull can be brought up to the front of the fleet and with the current second hand market how cheap it can be to be the fastest foiling dinghy on the water.

Overall Results: