The UK fleet had been chasing this record all year and it is fantastic to tick this box in the UK before the season is out. Just when focus was waning and it looked like it was not going to happen this year it finally happened, almost by accident, in Lymington on 27th November. Here is Peter Barton’s account....
At 8.20am I was resigned to no sailing as the Lymington weather station was recording gusts up to 44kn. However, by 9.10am it was clear that the front and passed and the race was back on to make the 10.30am race start.
Breaking the 30kn barrier was not on my mind as the conditions appeared less than ideal. The sea had a small confused chop near the entrance to the Lymington River. The water was a cool 12’C and salty, both of which the techies say isn’t good for top speeds. With a cross-offshore breeze the gusts were particularly pronounced, perhaps a case of blast power being more key than refinement. I was racing, there was no dress rehearsal or repeated runs. There was one shot only and the focus was reaching the leeward mark, not a top speed. I had been watching the speedo at around 27kn during the run up and then a pointy gust hit, I committed to it and felt a pronounced acceleration. I have done a fair few 27s in the past but I knew this was faster.
My first experience of 30kn is that I felt very reliant on the control systems looking after me over the small chop. I am not sure I could have reacted fast enough to save it myself, whereas at say 22kn I might. The difficulty here is that slightly different foil control settings may be required at 30kn than at 24kn, due to he speed of water over the foils. However, you don’t really want to be re-tuning after that gust hits as it could already be too late! A minute earlier I had ‘bottled it’ as I reached 26kn and shortened my magic wand another 5cm, thereby reducing flying height and increasing gearing. Both of these might assist survival at the expense of speed, but then it is not much fun breaking through the 30kn barrier as your lifting foils also become airborne! The plot thickens, hopefully I might get used to it....
I am both delighted and honoured to be the founder member of the UK International Moth 30kn Club. I have already began drawing up a suitably unique constitution and the bar is fully stocked. All I need now is some more members!
Equipment: Mach2 Moth, KA 13.2 Sail.
Location: Western Solent just outside the Lymington river, near the RLym platform. During racing.
Wind: The gust was probably 23-27kn. Direction 295’. [Recorded at adjacent weather station: Mean 19kn and Max Gust 27kn (over the 10 minute period)]
Sea state: Small confused chop, 12’C water temp, salty.
Current: Slack high water.
Authenticity;
Velocitek Speed Puck GPS recorded speed over 30kn for 4s (the 30.61kn and 30.31kn below are adjacent), the unit is updated every 0.5s. The accuracy is to 0.2kn.
2 second run n°1 = 56.7km/h [30.61Knots] (31.5 m. in 2.0 s.)
2 second run n°2 = 56.13km/h [30.31Knots] (31.2 m. in 2.0 s.)
10 second run n°1 = 52.01km/h [28.08Knots] (144.5 m. in 10.0 s.)
10 second run n°2 = 50.73km/h [27.39Knots] (140.9 m. in 10.0 s.)
