At the last club sail Wednesday night a Mothie turned up again, the same one that spanked our a**** last year, very competent sailor and straight up on foils as soon as he was over the line. Last year in about 8 - 12 knots he simply sailed off into the distance, this year in about 15 - 20 knots he was no quicker than the F16's and in fact we kept a head of him through out the race. I think he retired when the wind got up to the 20 mark. The course was a squarish 4 bouy affair that we could only run the spinny on one leg so I thought he would do a horizon job again but it wasn't so. Interestingly the Nacro 20 was the boat to have and with the 2 big heavy crew were in their element.

Well, he was ahead of me for sure. I missed the start by a good 5 minutes, stepping the mast took longer than I thought

That's why you need a light, wind surfer thingey.

Dude, I restep my mast maybe twice a year. I can't imagine the nighmare of putting a sleeve sail on a 8.5m mast! Halyards are nice you know

Most all the Tikis have sleeves and halyards. The sleeve makes a very nice pocket to keep them in.

As a catsailor turned mothie, in 8-12 the moth is fully powered up and really few boats can match it in speed. On the times I sail against cats, they just can't hold the same pace. Have overtaken a Nacra 20 on a short downwind leg(about 0.6nm) when I even gave them a 200m headstart in 10 knots of breeze.

Once the breeze gets to 15 you really need to change a lot of gears to keep the boat in control. This involves adjusting ride-height on the fly between upwind and down. If this is non-adjustable, then set to fly to high upwind and you will be ventilating downwind which is slow and usually means lots of capsizing. Also the rigs become very overpowered and everything is on drum tight.

In 20+, it is another world. The boat just takes off as soon as you sheet in. You have no time to relax, no time to get yourself ready, it is just launches regardless of whether you want to go or not. When you have it under control it is amazingly quick. 25 knots downwind is easily achievable.