Mothballed at Moth Worlds

Published on July 22nd, 2014

Hampshire, UK (July 22, 2014) – Today was originally scheduled as a lay-day at the International Moth World Championship, and in the end, that’s exactly what happened, via a series of postponements.

With Qualifying complete, the Finals now split the fleet into Gold and Silver divisions. Racing was originally scheduled to start at 10am, then midday, then 1pm and finally 4pm. The abandonment flag was finally raised at 15:40 as only 5 knots was being registered in the bay from a wide range of directions.

The frustration amongst the sailors who basked in the Mediterranean conditions was made worse by the fact that a beautiful northerly was blowing out of Chichester harbour which a few sailors decided to use for a blast up and down the channel. Sadly there’s not enough space in the harbour to race 138 Moths.

Principal Race Officer, Tim Hancock, talked about the difficulties of running racing in these conditions, “It is hard, particularly with the Moth class as it’s not a great boat when you’re sitting around in no wind. Fortunately when they do get going, they go quick. So, we keep talking to the sailors, we try and use our own intuitions as sailors ourselves to set the course and think about what the sailors would like to do. We need 6 knots consistently to get the Moths racing nicely, so we try to be ready for that, prepare early, get the teams ready, get the course down as quickly as we can so as to get the racing underway as soon as possible.”

As Simon Hiscocks put it while the fleet were under postponement, “It never is normally like this here – it usually rains when there’s no wind.”

The forecast is looking more promising for Wednesday with 9-15 knot North Easterly for the morning.

The World Championship takes place on July 19-25.

Qualifying scores are included with Final scores to determine Regatta rank. Brits Robert Greenhalgh and Chris Rashley are tied atop the current results.

Event website: www.mothworlds.org/hayling

Report by Mark Jardine, YachtsandYachting.com. Photo by Tom Gruitt, YachtsandYachting.com.