Get Yours…
http://www.mach2mothusa.com/
Jun 282011
Oct 192010
Have you ever wondered how much a sail pumps and moves? Here’s a great GoPro angle from Dalton, showing some uphill and downhill action. How’s that tiller? Watch that, and you get the impression that we’re all racing unicycles after stim-ing out at Starbucks.
Oct 152010
The truth is we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes… We’ve got a bunch of new stuff to play with, from new battens, to new luff curves, to new shaping profiles. Here’s a teaser of a round stringy one for ya’ll.
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 1st, Charlie Mckee in 2nd, and Matt Pistay in 3rd.
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 2nd, 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
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…
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
May 202010
Well… look what finally arrived…. Feeling left out? Drop me a line.
Apr 292010
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
Looking forward to Belmont
There’s this funny thing that happens… When there is a World Championship looming, it makes me want to go sailing.
Clearly I’m in no condition to line up in Belmont, but the hype gets me psyched. In fact, in the last days, I finally fixed a bunch of problems on the homebuild, and even got a nice coat of Intl. Orange on her. She definitely looks fast, if that counts for anything. It was a bit icy on the docks this morning. The chill in the air was a solid reminder that the best piece of equipment in my toolbox is my Exel 5.4.3 surf wetsuit.
Dalton is off, complete with a couple stock sails, and a couple tweaked ones. The changes were pretty mellow with some softer battens, a look at picking up the mid-leeches, and a few tweaks to try for more drive out of the upper third.
On my side, I hung onto the ultra-light D4 membrane, as it seemed perhaps a bit under-built to be a proper dependable option at Worlds. After sailing it today, however, I start to really like the sail, complete with the new sock, and regret perhaps not stuffing it into Dalton’s bags.
Wings may be the future, although I think wingmasts are perhaps more likely. I’m fully keen to see what the various knuckleheads bring to the “show-n-tell.” For this championship, my money is on a regular softsail combination. Part of me hopes I’m proven wrong, but I think it will take at least a few years to get a wing light, durable, and alive enough to work over the range.
Here’s a few pics from today…sailing for sailing’s sake. Marginal, sunny, cold, fun.
PS. and the best news… after sailing for 3 hrs, I came back in and the hull was bone dry!