I know everyone in the mothosphere is only looking towards the US at the moment. Unfortunately some of us Germans couldn’t be there and thus decided to go to Bad Zwischenahn for a weekend of fun.

Now that I am back on the road again thanks to the German department of transportation I picked up my boat on Thursday and planned to drive Thursday night to have a day of practice. Unfortunately I got an important business meeting set up for Thursday evening 7pm. By the time the meeting was over it was already 11pm and I decided to drive the 450km the next morning.

Being on the road again was fun. I really enjoy driving except for the people that don’t keep right and the dutch (sorry Koos). In addition I always turn up the music really loud and enjoy some drum’n'bass and some rock (see bottom of post for examples). As I like to go fast (I travel an average of around 160kmh with a moth on my car) I tie the boat with lots of tension belts (5+). This is how it looks like:

Anyhow I was the only one on Friday and after setting up my tent I went outside for a spin but only got onto foils once for 10m. It was still fun and when I went back on shore Sven just arrived and I had someone to chat to. Later Alex arrived with his uncle Frank and we had a nice evening.

The next day Harald and Manfred arrived so we were complete with 5 boats (4BR and one home built). The conditions for the first race where pretty poor but we decided to go ahead anyways with a complete lowriding race.

I screwed up my start as the ropes on my tramp ripped two minutes before start. I capsized the boat right away, took my spare rope that I always keep with me, fixed the issue and crossed the starting line a few minutes late. Harald, always really good lowriding was leading the field, tightly followed by Sven and Manfred while Alex was in fourth place. Unfortunately Harald went for the wrong buoy and thus lost his lead to Sven. My only goal was to catch up to Alex and I got closer and closer all the time. The race committee shortened the course so I had no time to lose. While Alex tried to get on foils and bore away I tried to go as high as possible. In the end I got into fourth place by about 10cm. No-one could tell who was first when crossing the line. I really got a kick out of chasing Alex.

The next race had some better conditions and I had a good start following Manfred foiling to the first buoy. On the broad reach I was chasing Alex once again and caught up to him quite fast. However I screwed up a bit, dropped down and couldn’t get up again. On the abaft course I got up on foils a few times and finally made my first foiling gybe without capsizing (I touched the water though). In the end I was in last place for this race, fourth was Harald, third was Alex, second Manfred and first Sven once again.

In the evening we used my iphone to check on the news about the world’s and were really impressed by Bora as he won both challenges. Really impressive. After something to eat and a few beer I joined the club’s summer party with Frank and had some fun.

Today started with an awesome breakfast at the club. Unfortunately there was no wind and we heard the stuff we always hear:
“you should have been here the day before the day before yesterday” and my favorite “usually it is not like this….”
Alex and I played some Frisbee and put together our tents before we finally decided not to race and packed our boats up. In the end I came in last, 4th was Alex, 3rd was Harald, 2nd Manfred and 1st Sven.

When prices were awarded the race committee made a promise to the mothies. If we come next year and if there is one single moth that hasn’t foiled during the regatta we will get a keg of beer. Hope we will find a lowrider willing to race for the event next year.

When we packed up the boats I realized once again that the moth is a development class. Everyone had a different way to transport the boat. Harald turns the whole boat upsite down and puts the wings on his car. He is always the fastest one, Manfred uses a trailer and is also really quick. Alex takes off the wingbars and puts everything in the car, Sven, the engineer he is, has special cut ropes, additional lights on the tramps and screws the trolley onto his roof racks – really sophisticated. I just use lots of ropes and straps, leave the frames on and head off.

Here are some pics of everyone but Sven (he escaped my iphone):

Alex and Frank

Manfred and Harald

and myself

All in all it was a nice event and I am really glad I went there to meet the folks and be at a regatta again. I decided to go to Kühlungsborn in 2 weeks and cannot wait. In the meantime I will be engaged in the worlds (it is called internet mothing) and wait for my Assassin to arrive.

Here are the promised examples of music I listen too when driving:

Kyuss – green machine

Chase Status – take me away

the observer all stars – rebel dance

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Yesterday I have received my driver’s license. It has been 7 awful weeks. It was the reason I didn’t go to the European’s and couldn’t go to Walchensee last weekend. Also I only sailed 2 times in the last 8 weeks. Sucks, doesn’t it?

But now I have to stop complaining. The Walchensee regatta seemed to be a big blast and there have been 12 entries in total. You can see the results here. I tried sailing last sunday (my brother had a day off and could drive me) but I think the picture explains what I did instead:

As I have missed this regatta I have signed up for Zwischenahn this weekend and I am really looking forward to my first moth regatta. However as it will only be the 3rd day of sailing in 2009 (4th when I count the Mach2 sail on Lochly’s boat) it is more about meeting the people and getting some practice.

There have also been some news about the Assassin. Jon Emonson will get his Assassin sometime next week and I have invited him to write about it on this blog. So you can expect more posts in the future.
My Assassin is due to be shipped beginning of September and I cannot wait. There will also be some Assassins at the world’s and I am really curious how they will perform.

I just uploaded the newest Assasin moth pics from Devin to foilermoth. Like always you can download them if you want to.

When I look at those pics I am craving even more for my Assassin.

Today I finally can make an announcement that hasn’t got something to do with my driver’s license. Most of you have probably already seen it but the new foilermoth website is up and running. The big benefit of owning studdex is that you can always rely on your staffs skills. So our webdesigner Cassian together with our polish developer Mariusz put in some extra hours and have set up the new foilermoth site. Here is a screenie:

The goal was to put enough information on there to make people that are new to the moth curious about this wonderful boat while also advertising my new job as an Assassin reseller for central Europe. In addition I also wanted to share more information about my sailing life and thus incorporated my private blog on foilermoth as well.

I still have got lots of plans for foilermoth.com and thus we will put out new features every time we can spare some time at studdex. One of the first features we added is a picture gallery. I have added all the pics from Kieler Woche 2008 and also added a download button so you can finally have them all. Also if you have got additional moth pics from regattas just send them to me and we will put them on http://foilermoth.com/pics.html so everyone can download them.

So check it out at www.foilermoth.com Feedback is highly appreciated

Not much sailing going on at the moment, as there is no wind in Berlin at the moment. It is incredible hot and humid and the leaves are not performing any action whatsoever. To male matters worse I got a call today from the Führerscheinstelle telling me that my later had arrived open and my driver’s license was NOT in the envelope anymore. (It took them 2 weeks to even tell me)

Now the situation is as follows: the 4 weeks without a license only start when the Führerscheinstelle has received my driver’s license and I am also not allowed to drive right now as I do not have a license. So now I have to order a new license, pay 85€ for it, pick it up, hand it to the Führerscheinstelle and wait for 4 more weeks till I can get it back. Thus by noq I expect to be without a license until middle of August. Awesome, isn’t it?

just like I predicted here are two very good posts about the Europeans. As always Fred has a great long post up (how does he find the time???). The second post is from Mike Cooke who did an amazing job with his Ninja.

now the Europeans are over and again it has been a regatta with lots of wind just as I like it. Unfortunately here in Berlin there is still no wind in sight, I actually planned to go sailing with my brother, as he has a day off, has got my car and a valid license. However the forecast says 3-4knots. Sometimes it seems all a bit unfair.

Ian Gotts, a future assassin owner, has sent me the results for the Europeans:

1st Arnaud Psarofaghis Switzerland, Mach 2, 8 points
2nd Simon Payne GBR, Mach 2, 8 points
3rd Eelco Boers Holland, Bladerider, 20 points
4th Mike Lennon GBR, Mach 2 ,27 points
5th Mike Cooke GBR, Ninja, 31 points

It is really impressive to see first and second place having the same amount of points, it must have been a very close race till the end. Also I am quite impressed with Mike Cooke on his Ninja – it must be a really good boat.

Here is the full results list

Here is a list of all the articles about the Europeans:

Eelco Boers
Joe Bousquet

I bet there will be more posts about the Europeans soon.

I am craiving to go mothing. But as I can’t I have made a “video”. Actually it is just a cool slideshow of known pictures made with animoto.

Have fun:

After my last post I have been thinking a lot about what to do with the Europeans. I have decided not to go as it would have been illegal to drive without a license and my lawyer André recommended not to do it. So I am staying in Berlin working and I am really pissed! I hate governments – all of them!

Hi Guys, the last week was really good company wise but a complete disaster for my moth life two bad things happened:

1. It looks like I cannot go to the Europeans!

Why? Because I need to hand my driver’s license to the f***ing german police. Why? Because in December I drove 155km/h on the German autobahn where I was only allowed to go 100km/h. To defend myself: it was 4:30 a.m and it was a three lane road with no cars in sight. Why did this come so unexpectedly? Well, I had 6 month to turn in my driver’s license but was told that I could pay 200€ instead and keep it. Now I advised the payment and got a call that I cannot keep the license as I would have needed to fill out a form within two weeks after receiving the original letter. (I was in Brazil at that time) The good news is that I will get my money back, the bad is that the police will turn up at my parents house (officially I never moved out, as I don’t want to do all the paperwork) and collect my driver’s license. I have got time till the 19th of June and will get it back on 19th of July.
Now I see five options:
a) hand in my license on time and drive without a license to Horsens
b) don’t turn in the license and see what happens
c) don’t go to Horsens (I hate this option)
d) convince the bitch at the Bußgeldstelle to stop being bureaucratic and just accept my payment
e) find someone who can drive (with) me from Berlin to Horsens (help anyone?)
But today things got even worse:

2. I didn’t sail today!

I went to the sailing club for the first time after moving to Berlin. I collected all stuff from different places (some stuff was at my boat, the sail was in my apartment while the mast was in the office) – as moving caused some trouble.
I arrived at the sailing club with a beautiful breeze and nice sunny weather, set up the moth and …forgot the foils!!!! So all I could do was a bit of maintenance on the boat and cry while everyone had fun. I decided to go to the office on today (Saturday) bow and leave early on Monday so I can still get two days of sailing done. This is what it looked like (I want your sympathy):