First sail of restored Max Headroom
On Saturday 5th October I took Max to Grahamstown Lake near Newcastle, NSW. The lake is fresh water fed from both runoff and the Williams River and provides Newcastle with most of its water supply. No power boating or swimming is allowed, unless forced by a capsize that is!
Conditions could not have been more ideal for a first sail. Great sunshine, warm day and a moderate Nor'wester of 12 kts.
I was very happy with the boat, which has plenty of pace and I had a number of exciting reaches. Upwind performance is amazing. For a shakedown sail, it was ideal. Nothing broke (touches wood for next time), so I could not be happier for all the work I put in!
Here is a video taken from a head mounted camera. I apologise for the somewhat jerky motion so I'll remember to try to keep my head more still next time.
posted by Bruce Taylor @ 2:34 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Beautiful restoration! I see that you are also a Master Laser sailor. I'm interested in seeing how a scow Moth stacks up with a Laser, particularly in a breeze.
Great video of the initial splash down! She moves well despite the choppy conditions. Congrats!
Wish I'd found this blog sooner. I've recently moved to Newcastle from Sydney and have had several moths.
That's me during the 2006/2007 Nationals at Sunshine in the bottom picture (orange boat) here:
http://earwigoagin.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/aussie-scow-moth-pics.html
I could never do well in it over about 15-18kts, especially downwind. After one heavy race at the Nationals I commented that I couldn't stop it submarining downwind in heavy stuff and some old bloke, who knew the boat, said 'No, no one ever could'.
What was the origin of Max Headroom? Was it Lee Gray's boat most recently? Looks a bit like it. Lee had two boats, one clear finished and the other (Slartibartfast) was yellow I think. Slartibartfast went to regatta's while the clear boat was the club boat. She was very quick up-wind in it.
I'm pretty certain the red boat in the video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QMjcYCrvH8 is (was) John MacAteer's boat. John is Lee's husband.
We used to get a good fleet down at Seaforth/Northbridge for a few years there. Ian Sim was regular as clockwork in one of his two scows. He and a yellow club boat 'Chance' and a grey regatta boat 'Smith'. His son Andrew did a beautiful restoration of the famous Stunned Mullet and was the one to beat most days.
Jon
Hi Jon, Max Headroom was indeed Lee's boat. As you can tell from the early posts, it was originally clear finished, but somewhat damaged from salt osmosis, hence the decision paint. Lee also had another double-chined scow of a different design, also clear finished.
The red boat in the video is a carbon hull. The video was sent to me by the (then) current owner, David Adams. I can't say if it previously belonged to John MacAteer.
I saw Ian's boat at the Belmont Worlds in 2011. I think he was only one sailing a scow.
Max is somewhat easier to keep from nosediving on the downwinds as it has a good tuck in at the transom and the bow fins seem to help when carving the waves. However you do have to be vigilant and wherever possible use angles down the waves.
Can you explain the daggerboard arrangement? It looks like there are lines connected to the front and back of the board... I assume these are to adjust the fore-aft position?
The front line is actually a strong bungy cord which pulls the board forward when the rear line is released. The rear line is simply double ended for convenience and pulls the board back and down. The cb case has a knuckle that allows the board to pivot and be raked when off the wind or when there are upwind planing conditions (to reduce drag).
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