Sailor Guide

While the gear guides are cool and of course Moth Sailors are "Gear Heads" when you really get down to it, I think the lineup for this years World Championships is what the class should be talking about. While maybe small in numbers the list is pretty impressive in quality, quick Google search came up with the following:

Scott	Babbage	2006 29er World Champ, 2nd Moth Worlds
Dalton	Bergan	2006 49er NA Champ	2005 49er NA Championship 2nd
Anthony	Boscolo	2008 29er US Champ	1996 US Double Handed Champion, Bemis Trophy
Sean	Couvreux	2001 Rolex Olympic Classes 49er 2nd
Rob	Gough	2009 Victorian State Champs, 2nd
Bora	Gulari	2008 NA Champion	2008 PCC Champion
Kevin	Hall	2005 Finn US Champion, Olympian
Hans	Henken	2008 29er Euros Bronze
Morgan	Larson	2007 49er NA Champion, 3x 3rd Worlds
Andrew	McDougall	2008 World Championships 2nd
Charlie	McKee	2001 49er World Champion, Bronze Olympics
Jonathan	McKee	2001 49er World Champion, Gold Olympics
Nigel	Oswald	2000 UK National Champion
Nathan	Outteridge	2008 49er World Champion, 2009 too
Simon	Payne	2006 World Champion, 5x Euro Champ
George	Peet	2005/2006 Volvo Ocean Race
Arnaud	Psarofaghis	2008 European Champion, 2009 too
Chris	Steele	2007 Optimist World Champion
Rohan	Veal	2005 World Champion, 2007 too
Tim	Wadlow	49er Olympian, 2nd 2007 49er NA's

Surely there are people with great sailing achievements I forgot or whom I have not met yet.

See everyone at the regatta.

Pimp your ride

The following sails are available:

• Production V6- Best for CST 351, 352 and 353 or Standard Bladerider mast. Used ONCE for 10 minutes- make offer.
  
• Production V8- Best for CST 352 or 353 or Southern Spar. Used 10 times, cloth in great shape, luff sleeve a little tattered, but I can fix- make offer.
  
• Production V10- Best for CST 354+ or Southern Phat Boy. Brand New
  
• Development Sail v7AP. Slightly deeper sail, suitable for larger sailor and best on softer mast- used twice, make offer.
  

Also available in time for the Worlds are:

• North Sails Narrow Mast Cams (Compatible with North, KA or Bladerider sails)
• North Padded Spectra Hiking Straps (For that "Locked in" feeling with your machine)
• North Carbon Batten Sets at 400g
• Carbon Shrouds- gucci!

Please inquire with me at: chris at design dot northsails dot com

Another Championship

TNZ sailor Kevin Hall winning the Oregon State Champs in the gorge- photo credit to Pacific Fog

Been too busy to blog over the last couple weeks with North Sails Design services finishing some Virtual Wind Tunnel and VPP studies for the 100' Alfa Romero, VPP/CFD development for a canting keel 80'er in build at McConaghy Boats and load annalyisis for a 90' Cat. Hopefully my lack of blogging does not get me kicked out of the Moth Class!

The US Fleet just finished a tune up regatta in the Gorge. The West Coast fleet has been getting pretty impressive where half the racers were former olympic sailing team memebers. Kevin Hall used his North Sail with Southern Mast in the 1st half of the regatta to devistating effect. Adam Lowry also used the V10 mainsail to great effect and posted a 5th (Did I mention Adam is 6'6" and 89kg).

Nice Video, also from Pacific Fog of the racing- check out Kevin motor by everyone off the line.

Southern Spars Kit

Big week this week, got my new Southern Spars mast and boom. These are some seriously nice pieces of equipment. The mast sets up perfectly with the V10 mainsail and should be good with the V8 too. The main difference between the Southern Rig and the CST rigs is a slightly smoother taper which makes for a stiffer tip. This allows for the mainsail to blade off very smoothly in the head rather than the traditional head dumping open which we have all become accustomed too.

Below are some pictures:

V10 Mainsail with moderate downhaul on Southern Rig and Boom

V10 mainsail with high downhaul and vang on Southern Mast and Boom

Oval boom is 25% stiffer making vang changes more effective

Vang cleanly ends internally for less windage

Normally I hate metal fittings on race boats, but the hounds attachment on the Southern Rig is very sexy, a well engineered stainless fitting for minimum windage, maximum reliablity and comparable weight to a carbon end

Spreader attachment fitting- very small, very strong, very light

Mast joint with recessed set screw

Sweet package!

If you would like more info on the Southern Spars, please feel free to drop me a note at:

chris at design dot northsails dot com .

Pricing for the rigging is as follows:

Mast 1550 NZD 871 USD 662 Euro 594 GBP
Boom 920 NZD 517 USD 393 Euro 352 GBP
EC6 shrouds 756 NZD 425 USD 323 Euro 290 GBP

(Headstay, Shrouds, Backstay) Shrouds and loops are 28g vs 120g for standard wire rigging. Carbon rigging is 2mm diameter vs about 3mm for wire.

If you are interested in a sail, please visit:

http://www.bladerider.com.au/

http://www.northsailsod.com/

Silver Bullet?

Moth front and center at North's Headquarters

Great start for the North Sail's International Moth program. Our V7 and V8 designs have been used in only three championships to date. In each of these three events only one sailor has used the North Sail for the entire event. However, in each of these events the lone sailor with a North Sail convincingly won the regatta:

2009 Australian Championships- 1st Place Nathan Outteridge (North Sails V7 MH)

2009 US Midwinter Championships- 1st Place Chris Williams (North Sails V7 MH)

2009 Victorian State Championships- 1st Place Rohan Veal (North Sails V8)

This past weekend at the Vic States Rohan raced with the new V8 design. Rob Gough from Tasmania also used a North V8 in the first two races, taking a 1st and a 2nd with the sail before heading back to Tasmania. Both Rohan and Rob were using new Bladerider VRX's which have been immaculately constructed. Rohan was using Bladerider spars and Rob was racing with a CST 353 mast.

These two new V8 sails were having a slight problem keeping the cams rotated, we are looking at a couple different details to solve this problem (Changing battens stiffness, stronger luff sleeve material and revised orientation, batten angles, etc). I am sure both Rob and Rohan would have been even faster with sails that had better cam rotation. Once the sails are 100% we will be starting our first production run of about 50 units.

The first batch of Southern Spars masts and booms have been shipped out. A few of these rigs will be tested in Hawaii as well as the first North Sails V10 design.

Winning equation for everyone to think about: Bladerider + North Sail = Silver Bullet

What's on YOUR mast?

Southern Spars

MemBrain Model of Southern Moth Rig

I always enjoy working with Sparmakers, it was one of my favorite parts of the AC design and luckily a very large part of North Sails Design Services work.

One of the things I find fascinating with mast analysis is that simulations can be checked with hand calculations pretty easily. This is something which is not possible with sail design, maybe this is one of the reasons that sail design still is very much a mix of art and science where mastmaking, while still a very creative process, is a pure engineering exercise.

Working with Southern Spars is always great, they have more engineers in-house than most of the other mastmakers combined (I don't think that is an exaggeration)! So there are always new tricks to learn. As everyone will soon know (Or should have figured out by reading the sail selection chart) the new Southern Rigs are a little stiffer than most other moth rigs.

Right now we are developing the V6 and V10 designs. North Sails Cape Town has built a lot of test sails so far for the Moth, so it was important to try to model the Southern Rig carefully to get the luff curve perfect in order to keep our prices affordable. Therefore a lot of homework was done to hopefully get the V6 and V10 designs perfect on the 1st couple prototypes.

The above graph is the measured deflection and predicted deflection of the CST 351 tubes. This test was required to calculate the EI's (Stiffness and Stiffness distribution) of the most common skinny mast.

Two Southern Spars tubes are being offered, the Standard P1 tube and the Phat Boy tube for sailors above 85kg or so. The theory is that larger sailors apply more force through greater Righting Moment and therefore force masts to bend more than a smaller sailor.

Therefore it is possible to design two different stiffness masts which will bend the same if a more powerful sailor is using the stiffer mast. This is critical for North Sails because by understanding this relationship we can make a mainsail design which should work for both rigs as long as sailors choose a rig which is appropriate for their size and fitness. This also gives larger sailors a more level playing field as they will not loose as much power through added mastbend than the average mothie.

The chart above shows the total mast deflection of a CST 351, Southern Spars P1 and Southern Spars Phat Boy rigs. Also shown is the Southern Phat boy rig with an additional 10% more downhaul which is a good measure of the added mastbend the stronger sailors can exert on the mast (Mostly through side bend) than the average mothie.

Side Bend of spars modeled in MemBrain

Fore/Aft predicted bends

Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in a Southern Spar for your Moth and I will put you in contact with your closest Southern dealer. Prices and info on the Southern Spars Element C6 micro carbon rigging to follow...

Moth Midwinters

Just back this week from the Moth Midwinters (20 hour drive down and 30 hour ride back home through a snow storm). We had a small fleet (Only 3 Boats) but had a great three days practice before the regatta where we all were able to try some new things. Most importantly for myself, I was able to try the V7MH design which is the same sail that Nathan won the Australian Nationals with. The sail setup great on my CST 352 rig, but I am looking forward to giving it a try on the Southern Spar as soon as it arrives.

In other news, the 1st batch of V8 sails left for AUS, although they just missed delivery for the Adelaide International Regatta. Hopefully we will have news to report on the new designs next week. We will then go straight into production of the V6 and V10 designs.

Also note that there are two V7 AP designs left for sale. Please drop me a note if you are interested. One sail is unused and the other only used three times. These would be good sails for larger or stronger sailors with a standard bladerider rig, Fastacraft Mast, C-Tech or a CST 351 mast.

Details will be announced for the Volvo Ocean Race Moth Expedition regatta in Boston next week. Posibility of a dozen boats making it the biggest event on the East Coast to date.

Enjoy the pictures from testing before the midwinters. As always, hospitality in New Orleans was once again amazing. Next years regatta will be Feb 17-20th.

Sail Model Guide

Overlay of the V6, V8 & V10 mainsail designs, note similar mold shape

In the latest Mothcast Bruce McLeod and Luka Damic raised the point that the new North Sails V-Series of models is a bit confusing (Thanks for pointing this out!). Obviously our intention was not to confuse the market, so I have tried to clarify things for potential customers. (By the way, if anyone ever has questions, please feel free to send me an email: chris at design dot northsails dot com.)

Concept- As stated before our concept and North Sail's philosophy is always to offer only the highest quality and fastest sails possible. After months of research and testing, we concluded that due to the range in rig stiffness and sailor sizes that a single sail design will never be able to compete against sails which are more optimized for a specific mast. Furthermore we we did not want to force our clients to buy a mast to match our sail design (Similar to what is done with windsurf sails).

Therefore we identified a range of luff curves for the various moth masts and then modified the sail designs to suite these masts. The V6 design therefore has 10mm more luff curve than the V8 and the V8 has 10mm more luff curve than the V10 design.

By tailoring a design to a specific range of mast stiffness we can then adjust the head width and sail shape. For example, a stiffer mast can support more girth in the top easier- which is easy to accomplish with the area saved by taking out a little luff curve.

See the image below to understand the effect of luff curve on the head width:

Similarly a sail design optimized for a softer mast needs to be slightly finer in the molded shape in the front to prevent the sail from being too draft forward in lighter conditions. This effect can be seen in the image below:

Further optimization- In a perfect world our lighter clients will sail with slightly softer masts than our heavier clients. Therefore lighter sailors would end up using the V6 design and heavier sailors using the V10 design. However, as one can see in the images, the sails are not radically different from each other. A rider who wants to have a more customized quiver of designs may end up with a V10 design for lighter conditions and a V8 sail or stronger winds. This would allow the V10 sail to setup with less downhaul in light winds for a given sail depth. We will continue testing these concepts as time goes by and can help our clients decide what is the best designs for their needs.

Over the next couple weeks we will be testing different mast/sail combos and we will give our suggested setup once we have more data.

Cloth Matters

X-ply monofilm (left) vs. ODL04 (right) used in the V-Series North Moth Sails

Instron Testing ODL04 at nearly 100kg

Instron Testing X-Ply (Fill test shown, warp, fill and bias are tested)

In sailmaking the shape and design of a sail are very closely related to the cloth used in a sail. Likewise the performance of a sail has a lot to do with the cloth it is made from, which is why we feel it is important to use cloth that costs 3 times more than film.

Below are the results from tests this week of standard X-ply monofilm vs. ODL04 Technora used in the V-series Moth Sails. It is not surprising to us that the ODL04 is 1.39 times more resistant to stretch in the warp at 1% strain even though it only weighs 56% the weight of monofilm. With sailcloth the old saying, you get what you pay for is very true.

ODL04 1mil film results.

Smaller Stretch numbers are better, larger Loat at 1% strain are better

X-Ply test graphs

Sail Sale

North Sails and Bladerider are offering a sail sale to introduce the North V8 Moth mainsail. Buy two mainsails with the carbon batten upgrade and receive 20% off retail (Team up with a buddy and save some cash)! Contact your nearest North Sails loft or click here.

The big question lately is, "What is the different about the North mainsail?" The original concept of the North Sail was to have a powerful design which made tacking, gybeing, starting, etc easier. However, over the last several iterations of the design, the shape has evolved to a sail which has greater top end speed potential through flatter sections and good takeoff power with an improved twist profile. As you can see in the image below, the sail is straighter in the back for low drag when foiling and has a tight mid leech for improved upwind pointing and early foiling.


North Sails philosophy has been simple for the past 50 years. Build the highest quality, best engineered and fastest sail shapes available- no shortcuts and no compromises. The V8 mainsail design is no exception to the North Sails philosophy with only the best material used on the body of the sail (1mil Dimension Polyant Technora Scrim), low friction Dimension Polyant Square Weave Dacron bias cut luff sleeve, RBS Epoxy or Tapered Carbon Fiber battens, shroud chafe protection, internal downhaul webs, adjustable head loop, tell tales, etc. The result is a very light, sail which is easy to use and has incredible top end speeds.

We also have a list of about 10 early test sails which are for sale for anyone who is interested. Mostly deeper sails which would be suitable for heavier sailors or lighter venues when just getting up is the key to winning and high top ends speeds are not necessary. E-mail me if interested- chris(at)design.northsails.com, or phone- 1-203-907-9323