Moth on Foils: 31.1 knots (35.8 mph)

From Rohan Veal's website( www.rohanveal.com ):
"Oh so different, but oh so fast!"
Mon 18Sept
" We got on for the photo shoot on the Bladerider on Saturday in glorious conditions, 5-10 knots,flat water,and clear sky. The boat sailed exceptionally well and the most notable difference compared to any other foiler Moth that I have sailed was how irrelevant it was to sit in the correct position on the wing bar.It didn't matter if you moved your weight around or made rudder wing adjustments as the wand corrected height automatically. It was quite amazing and so different,certainly easy to get used to."

[Chris Ostlind]

This means, what, exactly? The dude is now an employee of the firm. What do you expect him to say?.... "This bugger sucks! Give me back my old ride!"

Come on Lord, post something of merit. Not just Veal's paid, hype-smithing.

When Ilett drives one and has nice things to say, then it actually means something. You could have at least written one of your famous, "Inside the world of Moth foilers", letters to John and gotten his feedback before slamming this predjudicial advertising enchilada up on the windshield.

Heres an interesting bit of comment on the Bladerider by David Cox in Sailing for Southern Africa Sept 06:

Production Foiler Moths.
"The Foiler Moths have been covered in this column over the last few years. Now, from trying to prove themselves, the problem has become 'how to produce enough of them'.
Sailmaker Andrew McDougall teamed up with Melbourne businessman Michael McAuley and set out to design the fastest Moth possible to be put into large scale production. John Ilet's Prowler Moth, which obtained the four top places at the 2005 Worlds, was the obvious starting place.
Starting with the hull, McDougal reduced the freeboard and introduced wider stern sections. The added buoyancy is a great help in tacking in difficult conditions.
The boat has been named the Bladerider and the first boat is about to come out of the mould in China, where the building is to be done. Initial production is set at 400 boats. There is a campaign in place to lobby ISAF to make the Bladerider an Olympic Class from 2012 onwards. There is a demand for these first boats from Europe, North America, Asia, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, and yes, South Africa."

[Dan S]

Originally Posted by Doug Lord

The boat has been named the Bladerider and the first boat is about to come out of the mould in China, where the building is to be done. Initial production is set at 400 boats. There is a campaign in place to lobby ISAF to make the Bladerider an Olympic Class from 2012 onwards.

They don’t even have a boat in the water yet, and they are already trying to make it an Olympic class; a little over zealous don’t you think?

John Ilett, THE pioneer of race winning bi-foiler design has his own take on the Bladerider publicity:
*
*
"The whole Bladerider thing is so much hype. So many improvements yet they were labelled improvements before they hit the water. Maybe every improvement should really read as experiment. And so many experiments in one boat at one time.
*
So lets change numerous features of a Proven design (complicated boat) and go straight into production with no prototypes or testing of any boats, tooling or methods etc. Should people really believe that it will not have significant teething problems which will basically be discovered by selling them to the customers anyway.
*
Most production composite products have a development period/team at least to prove the product and methods to themselves before getting too serious about big volume.
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When I met with the KA investors*earlier this year (re working together) production*was said to start of with*16 per month (only 192 per year) as of August. I read that they have apparently sold 25 yet will only have 12 finished by Christmas. That's a massive 1 per week or 52 a year. Do you think they are having some difficulties?
*
John Ilett "
*

[Chris Ostlind]

So, has it come to this?

Doug Lord is now considered the official clearinghouse of duplicitous information by the foiling trade. What a strange twist of events for our Mr. Lord. He has gone from Foiling Spewmeister Extraordinaire to Foiling Antagonista to a roll-over dupe in less than one year and I'll bet he doesn't even know why.

Ilett and the Bladerider folks are now locked in a beach level wrestling match for boat supremacy in the International Moth foiling arena and both of them are feeding Mr. Lord "inside" info because they know he will post it as soon as his hot hands get hold of it. No thinking involved, here, folks. Mr. Lord just wants to get in on what he considers to be the inside dope on the foiling craze that he so totally loves.

And so, you have an unwitting guy who wishes to be involved at the crest of the announcment process, jamming everything he can onto the BD Forum pages in an effort to continue to justify his long held position. That being that foilers are about to bust into the clear and become the next amazing success story... something akin to the long held position of the Hobie 16 catamaran.

John Ilett is a good guy who wishes to protect his hard won position in the foiling business. Who can blame him for that? Bladerider hasn't posted one single, even marginal, report of how the boat can sail from an unfettered and un-paid source. Yet, here they are pushing so-called reports through Mr. Lord in an attempt to pump sales of an untried product.

Curious marketing strategy.

Who'd have known that Mr. Lord would be the amplifier to the foiling trade's monologue. Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that he was coming down hard on the boys with the foils due to frustration over their not marketing the product in the fashion he deemed appropriate?

I get the stuff from Ilett, he's the real deal with little to apologize for and many impressive performance driven results under his belt. I don't get the Bladerider spew until they can produce that which is still a cloud of vapor. Rohan's cryptic filing notwithstanding.

No hostility towards Mr. Lord at all. He's simply the Fall Guy who is operating outside the realm with no paycheck involved.

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by Chris Ostlind

No hostility towards Mr. Lord at all. He's simply the Fall Guy who is operating outside the realm with no paycheck involved.

Maybe not. You don't know if John Ilett gave anyone permission to post his words on a public forum. It could be someone sent an e-mail of questions and JI answered the e-mail, then had his words broadcast without his explicit permission. On the other hand, you could be correct. We won't know without JI telling us how this came about.

As for the Blade, it would be interesting to hear from the manufacturer (not from some self-appointed third party) things like:

Why they had a boat at the worlds but didn't race?

Has the boat lined up with the Prowlers and what were the results?

Is there truth to the fact that the IOC has no intent to add their boat to the Olympics, despite any hype?

How many boats have been built, how many are backordered, with what production schedule for the forseeable future?

The comments from Rohan Veal came directly from his website which is public and open to all. The comments from John Ilett were sent to me and are up with his explicit permission.
I think the developments in the Class are interesting but I thought that ,perhaps,Rohans comments about the Bladerider were quite subjective and thought that John's comments were a good reality check.
One thing has to be remembered here: John is the pioneer; he developed the Prowler which the Bladerider guys admit using as a starting point and which has an outstanding record.
Rohan developed the technique of windward heel with the foiler Moth which was a great advance.
Both have contributed enormously to the sailing revolution that has been started by the foiler Moth and continues with the foiling 18- another pioneering effort of Fastacraft and John Ilett.
There is not going to be any "slug fest" because both companies have much to contribute!
And both started in the same place.....
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I've dealt with John Ilett since 2000 or 2001 and have 2 sets of his foils-one a custom one off-and a custom daggerboard. His workmanship is superb! He started a revolution that many others are begining to try to cash in on-it's HOW they go about it that's going to make all the difference.
Words are entirely secondary to the facts developed on the water-right now John Ilett has a commanding advantage in any comparisons with hard and fast results. I hope they both do well-the potential market is certainly big enough.
This revolution is no longer just about the Moth it is about an extraordinary technology-originated unquestionably by John Ilett- being applied to new boats all the time leading to profound changes in sailing from dinghies to ocean racers. It's about a revolutionary technology in the earliest stages of development with the original players still dominant but it isn't always going to be that way.

[Chris Ostlind]

There is not going to be any "slug fest" because both companies have much to contribute!
And both started in the same place.....

OK, Doug, let's call it a patty-cake get together, then, if that makes you happy. When two companies are hitting the same market with extremely similar products and the marketplace is very, very small... then one of them is going to take it in the shorts... eventually.

There's money and livelihoods involved in the enterprise and one of the companies did all the R&D to establish the market position. If, for some reason, you don't see that being a struggle of rather huge proportions to the players involved, then perhaps you can share with us just what it will be?

BTW, gang, I got the same letter from John Ilett in the mail this morning that Doug posted so quickly. In that letter, John comes across as more than a little miffed about the whole enterprise being spun-up by the guys at Bladerider. His rather poignant questions are directed to the haste by which the product is being hustled under current production plans. His position is easily understood as the principal manufacturer of thoroughly tested and World Class viable boats of this genre.

Not only does Bladerider represent a major hit to his existing production flow, it represents a product that could be under intense pressure to achieve market share well before it is ready to deserve the position. If that happens, then the whole, fledgling foiling market will likely suffer greatly when it needs the damage the least. This potential doesn't just reflect on Bladerider and whatever may come out of their design expertise. It reflects on the whole foil market place as bad word of mouth can knock the wind out of a prospective buyer's enthusiasm and cause them to question the entire foiling genre, not just the Bladerider.

As product intros go, this is a very big play in a little tested marketplace. Money has a weird way of making people do strange things that they may not have done under other, less tenuous, circumstances.

Doug, I really wish you understood that process better. It appears that you are being swept-up in the frenzy with little recognition for the realities of launching a difficult product into a somewhat saturated and declining marketplace.

These guys are sharpening their swords for battle right now and if they are not, as you surmise, then one of them are in for a huge shock to their business awareness cycle. I believe they are going to pull out the stops to protect their investments and it makes perfect sense when you read the passages from John's letter from this morning in the way he has positioned his opening arguments.

Just ask yourself what you would be doing if you were one of these characters. If the answer is, "nothing.. as I don't feel they are out to harm me", then go directly to jail, do not pass GO and certainly do not collect the $200. If you said to yourself, "these SOB's are gonna knock me off and I need to get my act together or go out sputtering like a kid" then you get to live another business day in the Foiling Moth World.

If this isn't true, then why did Veal switch to the new product when it wasn't even in the public domain yet, hadn't won a single race, hadn't placed anywhere in the recent Worlds and had not (as far as I know) been raced, head to head against one of Ilett's boats?

Money, Doug...Money. It's the coin of the realm when it comes to business combat. Not being able to grasp that is a huge disadvantage.

We interupt the regularly scheduled program to bring you the latest US Moth news including an interview with Simon Payne the new World Champion:
USMMCA News Letters
Address:http://www.mothboat.com/USMMCA/newsletters.htm Changed:6:21 PM on Tuesday, September 26, 2006
=======================
Fairly interesting discussion on SA about US Moths and foils & CT249's take on US Sailing:
US Modern Moth - Sailing Anarchy Forums
Address:http://www.sailinganarchy.com/forums...d=884408&st=0&

[frosh]

My understanding from a posting on the forum authored by himself in 2004, Mr Lord admitted that at the age of 10 he put his ear to a big block marine diesel exhaust pipe.
I have no idea why; and then his dad turned the engine over, it had a massive backfire, and blew his brains clean out the other ear.
This, I would have thought would preclude him from being an " oracle" for any manufacturer, period.

[CT 249]

Guys.....Do the regular personal attacks on Doug help the public image of those of us who do not agree with all his views? It's one thing for us to bite back when attacked, but maybe we should do no more.

Anyway, it's nice that he admits that people's comments about performance can be subjective, and that both sides of a story should be represented......which is all that we have been trying to say in general on this subject.

[Dan S]

Originally Posted by CT 249

Guys.....Do the regular personal attacks on Doug help the public image of those of us who do not agree with all his views? It's one thing for us to bite back when attacked, but maybe we should do no more.

I don’t think anyone would attack Doug, if we could duct tape his mouth shut. One can only Hope. Think about it; 95% of his posts are some kind of technology hype, hopefully the forum has plenty of bandwidth available, or Doug is costing someone a pretty penny.

To put to rest any rumors of some ridiculous "slugfest" it should be noted that this interview was recommended by Rohan Veal, former World Champion on his webstie today!
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Simon Payne is the new Moth World Champion; here are some of his comments excerpted from the Mothballs Interview:
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The Boat
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"Personally I think I had the optimum equipment for the job,the Prowler is the best boat and is almost unbreakable.The foils are the best across all wind ranges plus you get great support."
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Technical
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Asked about if he considerd removing foils in light air & when they become a drag:
"No, not really ,you can disconnect the cable[wand to mainfoil flap], but there is always a chance you can get back into it by catching the odd gust. Anyway I'm not really sure that I'm that much slower than the low riders, just a bit perhaps but not much."
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Sailing a Foiler
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--"I'm now seeing really good sailors from all over ordering Moths because they are so much fun and I think that's very healthy."
--"For me the only downside of of foiling is that I couldn't sail another dinghy without it feeling....well....dull."
-- From a development perspective I think we'll tidy up the air flow and hence reduce drag but as a class we are the most photographed,seemingly the most aspirational,most rewarding and just plain fun boat you can sail."
================================
The Interview is here:
USMMCA News Letters
Address:http://www.mothboat.com/USMMCA/newsletters.htm Changed:6:21 PM on Tuesday, September 26, 2006

[casavecchia]

The greatest asset of the Bladerider is the fact that it is (or it will be) an off-the-shelf product.
This attracts not only perspective buyers but perspective dealers also.
I am receiving enquiries of would be importers or sellers, this didn’t happen before the Bladerider appeared on the sailing scene.
Marco.