by Neil Backer

We left this conversation yesterday at the critical point. It’s the usual conversation that the arm chair pundits like to start talking about in the run up to a big sailing event. The moth world championships is arguably THE event in sailing this year because it has more gold medallists competing than any other sailing event. Well, it’s definitely enough to rival the Amercias Cup I think. The quality of racing will be a lot better to watch anyway, ok ,maybe that’s just me. On that, if anyone can explain to me how Oracle went from the best boat in the fleet to about as competitive as the beginner teams between the round robin and the Cup Match I’d really like to know?

Back on topic, if anyone can name an event with the quality of fleet to match this then I’d like to see it. There really is a depth of talent here that is eye watering. In fact it’s enough to make you cry if you spend the majority of your week trying to do an honest days work flogging lubricant to the over 50s. The majority of Dinghy sailors never get to race against the best in the world. A few occasionally get to race against an Olympian, the odd one of us gets to race against a medallist. At the moth worlds in 2017 you’ll be banging on the toilet door just before launch o’clock, complaining at the wait, with a good chance that it’s someone you’d normally go a bit weak at the knees about if they sailed within 200 metres of you at the round the island race.

So who is going to win?

First to go is the current holder of the world championship title, the UK. In fact that very World Champion is Paul Goodison who is turning up fresh from the AC and, knowing nothing about how much time he’s had to sail, he’s definitely got a good chance, he is pure quality. Another strong UK sailor will always be Rob Greenhalgh; usually well prepared and driving some primo, slightly experimental kit, you’d be a fool to bet against him. However, time in the boat is also a challenge for him of late. Well that’s what he’ll tell you anyway.

Sadly the current UK champ, Dylan Fletcher, is not available. As member of the GB Olympic squad he’s being marched off to Kiel to continue the relentless Olympic cycle. Far be it for people to have a break in the first year of the cycle. It’s a real shame as Dylan was unbelievably fast at the UK nationals. Still, his Solid State Rocket, not to be confused with a skate park for mice, is coming and will be sailed by none other than former Euro champ Cookie himself. Now we’ll find out if it’s the boat or the sailor eh Cookie? No pressure. There are plenty of other strong UK contenders but it’s unlikely they’ll fight for the title. Ben Paton has already reserved 4th place and Rashley has moved on to some kind of sunsail holiday, or is it Nacra sailing, it all looks the same.

From the Australian contingent we’ve got a huge bevvy of talent coming, including former Moth world champions Josh McKnight and Nathan Outteridge , Americas cup sailors like Tom Slingsby and Iain Jensen and of course long time Worlds contenders like Scott Babbage and Rob Gough. Whilst many of them have been heavily involved in the AC, or several other types of boat, they’ve all got some great kit and will no doubt be loving the idea of getting stuck into racing at Garda. Rumour is a few of the AC sailors went straight from the Cup to Malcesine to get practicing. Commitment like that shows why they are so much better than the rest of us. I’d have been happy to just get away from boats for good I expect.

We also have the other Moth powerhouse nation of America. The main man from their fleet is Bora Gulari, double world champ. This is the point where people always say the kind of pointless and irrelevant line about how he hasn’t won outside of the USA because it makes you sound like you’re talking about a real sport like Football (the one where you can’t pick the ball up and more than one country plays it) or Rugby. If he’s on it, he’s near unstoppable. Rumours are that he really is on it, he’s had loads of time on the water in a brand new Exocet that has all the trimmings. He will be tough to beat.

Other notable contenders from the states are always Anthony Kotoun and Brand Funk. Both very fast moth sailors who consistently push well into the top ten. Maybe not worth a bet for the win but possible for a spray and pay at long odds.

There is of course another recent world champ who’s not from any of those countries. Yes New Zealand, shock as it is to many, is actually its own country and not a part of Australia….And MY GOD do they love sailing again. I can’t think why. Whether they send anyone over to win this event too, we’ll have to wait and see. There are a good few entered but not any who we’d instantly put at the top of the contender list. There have been some suggestions, theories, rumours, that a certain Kiwi, lets call him P Burling, wait that’s too obvious, Peter B, is contemplating a late entry just to stick his hat in the ring. The guy can clearly sail, but one wouldn’t blame him if he had a small hangover after every single living kiwi queued up to buy him a pint of Steinlager over the month of July. Mind you that’s still only about 25 pints in total so maybe he will be looking fast come Monday morning.

As for the other countries: Well, it would be a first if the title went away from one of the 4 countries above. Not an actual first but the first time in a long while, certainly since foiling took over and in fact a long time before that too. There are a number of strong fleets across Europe now and of course our Italian hosts would love to see a home win. Carlo de Paoli looked very good at the UK nationals earlier this year and I’m sure he could put in a good show on his home lake but a win might be a touch too far. It could still be a best result for the Italians in recent years. The Ferrighi bros (which in no way sounds like a pizza take away in Manhattan) can certainly show a turn of speed but an unnamed source has mentioned their ability to let Italian passion flare up. I’ll leave it there so I don’t end up with a horses head in my apartment when I arrive.

Carlo De Paoli

The Swiss have always been strong, the French and German fleets continue to get bigger and bigger and they are all sending big contingents to race this year. It’s graet to see those fleets expanding but I couldn’t name a potential winner out of them. Judging by the amount of people from Sweden who keep trying to buy my boat for much less than it is worth they are also building some strong numbers, or at least enthusiasm for the boat. Poland, Denmark and the low countries always have a good few contenders too now.

We’ve also got fleets in Japan and Argentina coming to race, good effort! There could be a few dark horses there. The Irish fleet gets bigger each year with their own builder now, the Austrians are sending a good few, you’d hope so though as it’s about 2 hours drive and most of us in London do that every Saturday, some better than others. There’s even a few Portuguese coming. Consider that it’s probably going to take them longer to drive there than it will take the Japanese to fly, you’ve got to admire that.

All in all it’s going to be an exceptional sailing event. The majority of us going are just hoping to put together the kind of event that we can be proud of. If we get a good result in one race we’ll be set for years. I’m still getting warm fuzzy feelings from leading a race at the Euros a few years ago. I probably shouldn’t admit that but it’s true. Manage that at the worlds and it’ll be like getting a hole in one. Drop the clubs, take the glove off and never play again. My mates will never hear the end of it. In fact, I’d say I’ll be pretty much unbearable if I just get round the first mark in the top 10 once all week!

I joke but I know most of you are the same. It’s probably all down to some feeble pride thing, or maybe some insecurity that means we keep trying to pretend that we could have made it if we’d taken a different path. We should be able to ignore it but we can’t. We need it. That moment in 6 months time, maybe 6 years, when you can reflect back to some race where you were mixing it with the finest in the world, racing your nuts off and feeling like a hero. I can’t chuffing wait.

Now I’d best get in the car and go. See you there.

by Neil Baker

Part 1

It’s a wonderful time; it’s a horrible time. We’re less than a week away from the start of the 2017 Moth Worlds and it really is a time of mixed feelings for Mothies. It’s getting the heart pumping just putting these thoughts down.
Why is it wonderful, because we’re so close to the Worlds, the most exciting event of the year, and for many Mothies the only time they’ll do the worlds for a few years. We can’t all travel across the world every year to compete. That’s more for those who can write it off as “expenses” #livingthedream. There is the added bonus of the opportunity to race against the best of the best, rumours a certain AC helmsman may now attend are increasing in velocity.
Why is it horrible? Well mostly it is the crushing realisation that you have to deliver. Its high noon in the racing stakes and you have nowhere to hide now. You have to make good on what you’ve invested training, in brownie points with the wife (or husband!) and of course in carbon. Moths have that extreme element for sailors of trying to calculate the biggest bang for your buck when buying your kit for a season, and also figuring out the best time to do it so that you haven’t, quite literally, blown your wad too soon. It can be frustrating to buy something new, like a high lift foil, only for someone to release a newer better one a few months later. Of course most annoyingly for one still stuck at the desk looking over a London train station…the really horrible element this week is the self-gratifying pictures of people already on their way or even already at the best sailing spot on the planet, lake Garda, filling social media feeds with increasing regularity.

Why is Garda simply the best place to race? If you’ve not been there then I don’t quite know how to explain it without sounding like a school newspaper. Still, I’ll try. The wind is like clockwork (touch wood) and the Italians are superb hosts. The pasta always seems to be ready just when you’re going sailing?? The coffee is good enough to make even the most committed Melbournian barista swoon, and for those of a “Patonator” type persuasion, an Aperol Spritz is the finest post sales recovery beverage you’ll get anywhere in the world. The water is also Pan flat when the Orais blowing. Less so when the evil northerly wind is blowing and if we get some f that again it will no doubt separate the men from the boys. If it happens before the gold fleet selection is made it could really change the make up of the fleets.
It is quite poignant to compare it to the last time we were in Garda in 2012 for what was the most hotly contested event ever but now almost seems like looking back into the last century compared to what will be happening this year.

The kit has changed in an imperceptible yet highly effective way. 2012 was a year when gains were increasingly marginal around the foil horizontals despite a lot of the focus being in that area. There have only been small improvements since. However, many other areas have progressed. Aero tramps, lower mast stumps and stiffer EVERYTHING. Adjustable wands have gone mainstream and then moved onto become telescopic and hang off the Bow sprits to give the boat extra stability and much more control in waves. The foil verticals have got thinner and stiffer and the sails have evolved to a whole new level with Carbon battens being de rigeur. Of course there have been a few howlers along the way, the less said about the twin wands idea the better,one can only assume those guys were trying to make up for something. We also don’t see too many wing sails either although that was partly because it was found they didn’t measure.

Simon Owen-Smith

In terms of the boats themselves, Exocets have gone from just single figures in 2012 with just one in the top 10, to being the boat of choice for many. They even finally managed to win the worlds in 2016 at the 5th attempt (took long enough!). Does that mean they’re the best…we’ll find out. Cookie has taken the Rockets into the solid state design and they are going like, erm, something fast that flies, wait, it’ll come to me, and Mach 2 have continued to make small, incremental but effective improvements. There are a few other new designs coming through, we might even see the Lennon “Thinnair”doing well although it’s not raced yet. The Voodoo is getting there and now has some good sailors developing it, we still don’t know what the heck Josh McKnight is going to turn up with. Really, between the big builders, the margins are now very fine. We don’t know which design will win, we know that a Wazsp won’t so stop ****ing asking. One thing we can be certain of is that the best sailor will still probably carry the win. Actually, one more thing we can be certain of is Simon Owen-Smith, the mothies SoS. The most important bit of Moth Kit will be there and he will be busting his ass off for everyone to keep them on the water. Buy that man a beer, I doubt Aperol is his thing, although you never know.
Seeing as we mention kit, some of you might remember a piece I wrote during the 2012 worlds about how I changed a lot of my kit in the run up to the worlds and completely fell on my face. Naturally I’ve done the same thing again but I gave myself a lot more time this year, circa 4 months. I also chose very carefully. Time will tell if I’ve done the right thing, the amount of time on the water will also be a much bigger factor this time, in that it’s been very limited. One key element in my choices has been to look to improve the average time around the course more than the top speed. It’s an age old adage that you need to build your boat handling, then your boat speed, only then do you work to nail your tactics. This is just as true, if not more relevant for moth sailing than any other boat. If you can’t tack consistently you’ve got no chance. If the boat doesn’t keep itself fast, making it easier for you to think more broadly, you’ve got no chance. Tactics be damned, we all know boat speed makes you a tactical genius anyway. So I’ve spent the money on a bow sprit which seems to do all of the above. I can honestly say it makes it feel like I’m tacking a firefly upwind and it’s as stable as a GP 14 downwind. Like I say, it doesn’t necessarily make you fast but it sure as heck saves you a lot of slowing down and that’s what really matters. Thank you Simon Hiscocks at SHOCK.

The racing at this championships will be as full on as anyone can imagine, and far worse. One of my own abiding memories/nightmares from the 2012 event was the start lines. The hunger and commitment from the competitors to hit the cliffs, we were racing at Campione, was manic. We had about one third of the fleet starting on Port in the first few races and by the end it was 80%. Trying to start on port in the first few races was like the scene from Independence Day when Will smith leads his flight of F18 Hornets through the marauding alien fighters as they come out the mother ship. Only it was faster and closer for the moths. I’m already peeing myself at the thought.

The number of boats entered is looking like going over 220. TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY FFS. I used to hope I’d make the gold fleet but now I’m thinking the bronze fleet will take some going. It could be up to 4 flights and the qualifying races will be brutal. Then the standard will rush up as we get to the business end of the event. Anyone who makes gold fleet can expect to be hitting the leeward mark and lining up like lasers trying to squeeze each other out. For most of us that kind of racing is so rare in moths that we have to really think how to deal with it. When you’re already doing the best part of 18 knots it’s pretty difficult to try and crack off to gain clear air. Someone somewhere is laughing at me now saying “18, you’ve got no chance!” and I can’t even do 18 upwind. Drop a tack as you strive for a lane and that will be 20-30 places gone in a second so you’d better be sure you know what you’re doing. Worst of all we might have to race in the morning breeze and then again in the afternoon to get the races finished. So it’ll be about stamina too, not that anyone thinks moth racing is easy. If you’re under 75kgs the boat speed in all directions means you’re flat hiking non-stop once it gets above 12 knots. Average weight is now almost certainly edging over 80 kgs. A small man’s boat it is no more.

So, onto the point many people will have been thinking about in the back of their mind, and probably on some very geeky areas of the internet, who’s going to win?

But if we talk about that now, we’ll have nothing to share tomorrow, see you then.