Foiling at last.....

Linton Jenkins at full force boats is an enthusiatic guy who is one of only two International Moth hydrofoil builders in the world, I'd entrusted him to fit one of his kits to my pride and joy. Now it was time to become a test pilot...

After all the problems people had been having, breaking things, not flying properly. I was a bit cynical about what I was just about to spend my cash on... Other times I was as excited as a school kid on christmas eve, bursting with anticipation.

Launching these boats is deeply a unpleasant experience, even in early september wading up to my neck in portland harbour was cold and hard work. The foils only go in from the bottom, so you have to capsize the boat and secure them in shallow water, then swim the boat out deep enough to right it.

BUT when you get away from the shore and the boat lifts out for the first time, it all becomes more than worth it. The acceleration is a big deal here, it just keeps accelerating even though you think it can't go any faster! At these speeds any slight steering has a massive effect on the boat, so at the start I was wildly oversteering. The forces involved almost threw me out of the boat (later on whilst gybing I actually lost my footing and the resulting "speed wobble" ungracefully ejected me from my ship at about a 1m altitude).

I can't really describe the actual feeling of flying, sure the boat was going fast, but the whole experience was so much more intense as the whole boat reacted in a different way. The extra third "flight" dimension was physically quite demanding as it forced you to move back and forth(fore and aft) to control the altitude, ie move back for lift and forward to bring her back down. Once you were roughly in the sweet spot there was a lot of upper body kinetics to keep pitch level. Leaving me with aching muscles for days after. I became completely immersed in the experience.

I will tell more of my experiences as I learn and progress, but here are a few photos that I have taken so far...

The foils at home.














The boat on the weymouth slipway.

The main foil close up















The rudder and the gantry

Reading Festival

Its been a long time since I posted, but thats because I've been out and about alot...

Reading Festival

Pure rock and roll from beginning to end. 23 bands in 3 days, thats only half the story. The things that really make an event special are the little things, the ones that stick in your mind for years. Here's one in particular...

On the first night at around 2am just as we were all relaxing round the fire, a huge jeering chanting crowd of 400 people gathered on the nearest metal walkway. One of our group immediately knew what was going on and jumped up exclaiming "Trolley Wars!" To which we all wandered over to take a closer look. It soon became apparent what Trolley Wars was all about, a simple yet brutal bloodsport. There were two shopping trolleys that were being used as chariots approximately 60ft apart, the baying crowd opened up a thin corridor down the centre no more than a metre wide. The trolley pushers at each end frantically trying to recruit "Drivers" by screaming at people "Get In The Trolley!!" often they would grab reluctant bystanders and just lift them in. As soon as a trolley had a driver off it would go charging as fast as it could be pushed towards the other trolley, no matter if there was a reciprocal driver or not. This when the crowd started a long ooooooooOOOOOOOOO until there was an almighty thud of the two chariots meeting head on, then the cheers and whooping sang out. This was all accompanied by a simple but effective chant, trolley .. trolley ...... trolley . trolley . trolley. I hung around for a while but after seeing too many idiots hurt themselves (the worst ones were when they thought it would be good idea to stand up in the trolley)