Raptor Sails: Moth News

Moth Madness 2010

events & results, homebrew 11 Responses »

Jul 212010

REGATTA REPORT

The Pacific Northwest’s Moth Madness Regatta came and went this weekend, with Raptor Sails and Mach2 occupying the top three spots once again. It was good to see all those orange batten pockets out there on the river. This time it was Dalton Bergan in a convincing 1^st, Charlie Mckee in 2^nd, and Matt Pistay in 3^rd.

pic: Bill Symes MORE

Friday was a blowout. The fleet didn’t leave the beach during the day, due to nuking winds frothing the waters of the Columbia River Gorge. Well after the committee abandoned, most of the 15 competitors hit the water around dinnertime for a shakedown sail, as the wind eased and the sun sunk low over Bridge of the Gods.

On Saturday the winds were still pumping, yet the super amped fleet was able to survive a seven race series that would define the overall result. After discard, Dalton was left with straight bullets, with Charlie earning 2^nd, based on consistency, and Matt close at his heels. Honorable mention, in my opinion, goes to Adam Lowry for stepping up with a mere 7 points over the last four races. He is definitely one to watch going forward.

Sunday saw the return of the monster breeze. After milling around for a while, the fleet, which had come from all over the West, made the call to pack it up early and start heading home. Dalton commented in retrospect, that Sunday “might have been do-able,” but it sounds like it would have been a pretty scary scene, including lots of expensive broken carbon bits.

check the full results HERE

EXPLODING HOMEBUILDS

We had a couple of home-builds at the event, including mine, and one from Chris Maas, of Int. Canoe fame. Both of us thought it would be cool, if not educational, to send Dalton out to give us feedback on our setups. I was personally super curious to see what Dalton would have to say about all my homebrew madness.

During the sail-around on Friday night, Dalton went ahead and grabbed Chris’s rough proto boat first. The thing is pretty awesome. It consists of a plywood box for a hull, with continuous racks, and a bunch of innovative stuff, including a center mount wand, a super high aspect, low area rudder foil, and a dihedral mainfoil with two flaps. The rigging was also interesting with horizontally mounted levers taking the place of blocks and tackle. Altogether, it is an amazing brainstorm by a guy that builds Int. Canoes that look like pieces of candy. Dalton got it on the water, got it foiling, and nearly pulled off a jibe, despite the crazy rudder. Two seconds later, bang, the gantry ripped off the back of the boat. Bummer.

After a swim back to the beach, it was my turn. I had everything rigged up, and tossed Dalton in my boat. My last words uttered through a smirk were, “take it easy on my gantry… I’m not sure I trust that thing…” Apparently, that warning wasn’t enough. I ran to the car excited to hit the water myself, and struggled to strap on my soggy wetsuit, left since the day before. By the time I got back to the water’s edge, Dalton was swimming my boat in, whilst by rudder and gantry seemed to be floating off in another direction. Damn. Really??? I mean reallllllyyyyyy?????

Two gantries in under 30 minutes. Is that a new moth record? Sad thing… probably not.

Dan

Super Tramp

homebrew 13 Responses »

May 272010

I scraped together a few minutes in the last couple evenings to push the next version of the tramp along. That’s kind of how it goes when you’re a work-a-holic with a plotter in your basement. You just can’t escape.

Here I tried an updated pattern, tweaking some of the shortcomings from the first go. I added a hex-end floater with a stamped PU bladder , control line grommets, and sticky-back Aramid down the wingbar. On the surface, I went ahead with two jumbo strips of 3M nonskid. They are probably the heaviest component, but key for a kook like me. As well, I decided to try a few strips of PVC seam bead, wrapping around the wingbar at the ends.

What do you guys think?

click to enlarge…

Technora Tramp

homebrew 2 Responses »

May 222010

Normally, I don’t talk too much about my own moth building project, as I’m not really putting something special together. There’s really nothing innovative about the boat. In the end, my main motivation was lack of cash for a Mach 2. A friend gave me a roughed out hull form awhile back, and slowly I’ve been picking away at it between a million other projects. In the end, it’s been fun, but I’m starting to get pretty sick of boat work. haha. Anyway… today I just wanted to post a pic and show off the tramp I sewed up this morning. It still needs some details, like a few non-skid strips, and some holes for the cunni and vang tails, but it doesn’t look too bad on first rig. check it. -D

Boxes of LOVE

sails 2 Responses »

May 202010

Well… look what finally arrived…. Feeling left out? Drop me a line.

A Few More Pics from CN

sails No Responses »

Apr 292010

A Big Thanks...

sails No Responses »

Apr 282010

Thanks for the fast response everybody! The Moth class is amazingly well connected to the web. Out of our entire order and contact list, I received a reply and confirmation by email in under 24 hrs. As well, not one of you backed out on me, and you grouped up nicely to make the shipping cheaper and easier.

We are all set. I’m just pushing now to find the best deal on shipping. Most of you received the FedEx quote from me already, but as mentioned I am also having a friend in China work on quotes from EMS and DHL locally.

Here’s some last pics/questions from YOUR sails on the production line. These were taken just a few hours ago. …AND YES…. In case yr wondering, WE DID OPTED FOR LOGOS ON ONE SIDE ONLY TO SAVE WEIGHT. haha

Long Beach Moth All-Stars

events & results, photos & movies 1 Response »

Apr 222010

The US fleet descended on ABYC for the 2010 International Moth Invitational last weekend. The results are posted here. Bora continued his domination with a net of 10 points. Zach Maxam sailed to a solid 2nd, with Charlie in third. Dalton decided against making the trip to LB this time, catching up with boat-work and life after the big push leading up to worlds.

photo: Rich Roberts// ABYC.org

Head's up on HEADCAPS

CST, mast compatibility 13 Responses »

Apr 152010

Our Raptor Sails use a male headcap fitting with and integrated, rotating, collar. This allows me to reduce patching on the sock top and front edge of the luff, without creating wrinkles, or distortion. It also helps keep the LC true all the way through the head area. Further, the male headcap helps free the head to twist smoothly, by reducing some of the friction between sock top and mast. There’s no doubt that it’s a superior setup.

The only known issue is that the mass-market moth masts don’t tend to have a big enough hole in their stopper plugs to accommodate our headcap. There are two solutions, as discussed in previous posts. The first solution is to simply remove the mast top plug with the help of some vice grips, while just letting our plug sit on the raw top edge of the mast tube. This works OK. Perhaps a more precise solution is to drill out the plug that shipped with your mast to fit our plug.

Here is a little vid I took with the Mac cam that shows the result. In order to make this modification, you need a good drill press to keep things lined up. The best way is to drill a hole matching the outside diameter of the headcap in a flat board. Stuff the headcap in that hole to hold it true, and come back a second time with a bit matching the diameter of our male fitting and bore it out. You need to be fairly precise, as the remaining wall thickness, approx 2.5mm, doesn’t leave much room for error.

Bora Melgi Action

commentary No Responses »

Apr 132010

This one is not really moth related.

I hooked up with Bora for Charleston RW in the Melgi. Check the SA for details. It was a nice melding of the Raptor team. We (barely) grabbed first overall in the 31 boat fleet. Additionally we had a couple great moth brainstorming sessions in the evenings. There’s a moth regatta coming up in Long Beach this weekend, and everybody is stoked and looking forward to summer sailing and Belmont. I won’t be in LB, as I’ve got my sites set on the PSSR here in Seattle.

For those that ordered a sail. Everything looks on track for delivery. I’ll contact each of you in around two weeks when the sails are getting ready to x-factory.

Dan