Goddard (2004) summed up our sailing experiences recently with the statement "Our apologies for the lack of content recently, unfortunately fourth year has been taking up most of our time and there hasn’t been much content to put up, or time to put it up". Sorry, i have just been writing my literature review. We (minus Nick) have been sailing reasonably reguklarly since Al launched the Leprechaun for the first time. I will try to sum it up to the best of my ability. July 24, 2004: Took my boat ('Bitch Make Me a Sandwich' until I get a better name) for its first sail. I should have really saidn something about it earlier. Al did mention that I collected it off him and broght it over. The main reason why it took me so long to sail it was the rudder box was an aluminium monstrocity. A pair of wide cheeks with a pivoting(!) rudder held in by one big stainless bolt. Al reconed it was ready to go but there was so much slop in the box and it pivoted! Even before school began at the start of the year Nick and I started making a proper (drop) box for it. We laid up the box around the rudder just in time for the first years watch us final years trying to leaver the box off the rudder. Our mould release of sticky tape and gladwrap obviously didn't cut it. It took a week before we gave up on getting it off in one piece and another three to cut it off. By which stage our final year design project was taking up heaps of time. The long and the short of it was it took months to finish this small job, but on this date I actuall took it for a sail. 5-8knots at Beauty Point Tasmania. The boat is easy to rig. Handles nice on the water. Capsized thrice. Doesn't leak much. A good entry level boat for me. Played with Al a bit. Nick stayed dry and took photos and desperately avoided going for a sail in a B14. Must be one of those oneDesign phobias. August 15, 2004: AMC Openday. Stress Less was on display. We got to play with Binsy's sailing simulator all day. August 20, 2004: For our Yacht Design subject Giles decided it was necessary for us all to learn to sail. We went down to hobart to sail the Elliot 5.9s at Royal Tasmanian Yacht Club. I won my first race as skipper. Such fun, easy to sail boats. Real easy kite work. September 5, 2004: Sail again without nick again. Similar conditions. Al and I sailed around a small course for a while. Good fun. Easy day. I had added 100mm to my mast length and improved the mast step which made tacking so much easier. September 12, 2004: Another training day. Jon took his B14 out with Guy (obviously not mothies and now worthy of descriptions yet...). Wind was crap. 180degree windshifts with 10+ knots made it lots of work. I was exhasuted and dehydrated wthin 30mins and came back in for a breather. Then went out again only to have the Jesus stick (tiller extension) to break within the next 20 mins. By this stage the wind had settled down so it was a very slow, frustrating sail back holding the tiller. I got overtaken by a sabot adn there was nothing I could do! At least I didn't loose the stick. September 27-29, 2004: Vanessa :) and Heather came down for the AMC Ball. the following morning Lundi cooked us pancakes, then we headed to Hobart. A bit of a rock climb at a gym down there. Dinner at an Italian Restrarunt. Saw Farenheight 9/11. Stayed at a hostel. Took three Elliots out again. good fun again but wind died in the afternoon. Drove up Mt Wellington. Vanessa went home :( September 30, 2004: I am now a afiliate member of the B14 association on board Miss Conception. I will be understudying Guy, crew for the states later this year (during exams!) October 2, 2004: Kat and Renae (two first years living in college with Nick and me) agreed to give me dreadlocks! How cool is that! Am I the first mothie with hell knotty dreads? I would like to think so. It doesn't deserve its own gallery so look here [in_progress][blury][blury2][back][starboard][in use(movie)]. October 3, 2004: Port Dalyrimple Yacht Club's Openning Day. A bit of a cataclasmic start to the season. Plenty of wind 12-22, very gusty but much more consistant direction. Strong enough to blow me over with me sitting on the wing and no sheet. The sail past was scary but I nailed a heart stopping gybe in amongst corsairs, lasers and NS14s. Al was the first casulty. I saw him screaming up behind me, looked away to makesure I wasn't going to run into anything expensive and heard a loud crack and an explitive. Looked back and saw Al with broken wings. String between rearbeam snaps->Rear beam dodgy weld breaks->Wing mount on hull breaks->Stbd longitudinal beam bends and shatters connection to front beams. He took his rig off and got towed back in two pieces (not before the rescuer's suggestion to sail back on the other wing. I'm sure he will write more after his thesis is done. Next on the list a sports boat brand new mast broke before the eyes of the mast manufacture (lucky we didn't take him up on his offer for a $700 Alum mast for Stress Less -f001). A B14 deck and hull split along the seam and came back very low in the water. It took 5mins to drain. The final disaster Jon lost a tiller extension. I sailed around one lap of the 4 lap course. Heaps of wind around the top mark. I sailed above it 5 times and rounded it once. I also found I could sail up wind with the tiller extension trailing behind the boat. I had enough control just playing the main. Admittibly I couldn't point but it was so much easier on my arms in the wind that day. I wasn't cold once. Weather has been great recently. We have plenty of photos to gallerize and upload dating back to the nationals. We are lazy but atleast we are sailing again. Markla

Our apologies for the lack of content recently, unfortunately fourth year has been taking up most of our time and there hasn’t been much content to put up, or time to put it up. But here’s a brief rundown of what’s happened since the last post. We have three boats in tassie, How? I here you ask. Well Stress Less is one. The second is marks boat. At the end of last year Al sold his wide boat, and acquired a different wide skiff for mark, and stored it until Feb when mark took it across on the roof of his car. The third is another stress less design, with a few alterations mostly decided on the fly. This is Al’s new boat which was constructed during the space between coming back from the nationals and going back to tassie in Feb. This was a rather short timeframe, especially while working during the day to pay for it, and for this reason the finish is not quite as good as would have been liked. However although the hull was finished the mast and sail took a while to arrive, and the time to fit the boat out was hard to find. Repairs to Stress Less have nearly been finished, hopefully there will be no more breakages now. They should have been finished some time back however again suffered from lack of time. Marks boat could have been on the water some time back also, however the rudder box was not very good and a new one has been constructed. So now with Al’s boat now on the water hopefully when it warms up a bit we can all get out for a sail at once. Ok yesterday Al’s boat hit the water it was a bit windy but good weather to really test the boat properly. Seeing he hadn’t been in a moth for 6 months he didn’t do to bad, however it was a bit tricky getting out and he spent lots of time in the water. Water temp was approx 9 degrees and the air temp wasn’t much more. Thus testing was short, hands froze up very quickly and when he got in he was slurring his words. The boat creaked and groaned a bit but nothing broke. Only problem was some cracks formed in the foredeck at the deck join (easily fixed, forgot to reinforce that), and the forward wing beam mounts allowed excessive movement, which will be fixed with a small alteration. We probably wont go out again for a while as it’s just too cold, it was fairly stupid to go out yesterday, but it needed to be done. Need to work out how to keep hands warm before the season starts and then we should get out hopefully every week. Getting back into it Al

Well we have been to nationals and we now know what that's like. We didn't do exceptionally well, but at least we were there and we improved during our stay. Al drove up to Queensland from Melbourne towing both Stress Less and his wide boat(now sold) all the way. Al sailed the unreliable Stress Less to finish 3 Races of 10 In windy conditions. Nick sailed a almost as unreliable boat he borrowed and dubbed Moth.er Of God, and Mark sailed a Europe he borrowed and Nick’s Herron, with Vanessa. See the Design page for info on what broke, and see the Results page for Al’s Regatta Report. We need more practice Al

An early start of 0800 hours hit us on Saturday morning, Al was amazed that Mark and Nick made it on time for once, but looked forward to a good days sailing as the breeze was up. Arriving at Beauty Point around 0930 it didn’t take long for as to get into gear and get boats rigged. We were soon greeted by many small sailors and sabot parents turning up for a pre-season sabot training day. It was probably blowing about 20 knots with gusts to 25, and thus it was a pretty good day for the moth to get out and go fast. Mark was up first for a blast in the new boat and Al stepped aside for once and let Nick take out his boat first. Hitting the water about 1100 with many onlookers, nick sailed out first reasonably quickly followed by mark in the new boat. It didn’t take long and Nick was in the water, Mark managed to sail out past the end of the pontoon and then hit the water. Mark somehow managed to dodge the moored boats and drift between them on his long ride too the shore. While mark was drifting, Nick had a good sail for about 45 mins, including 2 or 3 pitchpoles, and then came in very cold, wet and tired. Al then made a quick change and jumped in his boat minus a pair of Booties he’d managed to leave in the laundry sink drying from last week. Nick tried to warm up quickly and then went on mark watch. Al took his boat straight out into the thick of it, with waves of up to a meter it was a pretty hairy ride. With a Capsize or 2 in gusts, a quick take and a giant reach down to where Mark was still drifting. On the way down to see Mark there was at least one pitchpole and probably another few times in the water(pitchpoling is interesting, once its going to go, theirs not much you can do to stop it). Once Al found Mark, the boat was on it’s side(funny that!) and mark was trying to put the bolt back in the end of the boom, he’d removed it to try and get water out of the mast. Al sailed back round and dropped his boat, then started wading to give mark a hand. Mark picked a very rocky spot to stop and Al has some really good cuts on his feet from it(their still throbbing, at least one probably should have had stitches). One of the PD rescue boats came down and Al and Mark pulled the rig off and mark headed back looking like a drowned rat, again. Supplied with Marks XS booties (Al usually wears L), Al headed back under his own power, even though another boat had come over to offer him a tow. Al had a pretty good sail back up to the club, with not too much time spent in the water. Once he got back he did some quick passes of the pontoon where nick took some video. Al then came in to heat up his feet and remove them from the tiny little booties. After some lunch Al headed back out, Mark and Nick went out in a rescue boat to give the NS14’s some coaching. The Vang on Al’s boat then gave up(a quick repair made earlier), so he went back in. An NS lost its mast and then everyone seemed to come back in. So we packed up and went home we think the first time we’ve left before dark. Suz’s Cocktail party awaited us upon return, and although Al faired well in the boat, he didn’t do so well later that night. But a Good night was had by all. Next Sail was hopefully to be this Friday/Saturday, however looks like the winds going to be up around 30-50 knots, so we'll only head off if it looks like being a bit lighter. New photos and Video Soon. . Getting Better Al

We've finished a major assignment submission after many hours of lost sleep sitting in the computer lab. I don't think I've recovered yet, although it was still ok to repair boat on Friday arvo and sail on Saturday. It's official, it goes like a rocket. With a gusty and variable breeze from 10-20 knots (including a minor squall) we tested the new mods/repairs on Saturday. The tiller was replaced as were the tramp-gunwhale attachments while more permanent mountings for the mainsheet were installed. The tramp-gunwhale attachments and mainsheet mountings worked like a gem, but the new tiller was bent yet again. Not many problems with the boat this time, it went fast but hummed a little bit (we suspect it's the T-foil with square edges), and while the new tramp attachments didn't break, they did wear the outer casing of the lacing a bit. We'll smooth the inside edges of the attachments a little more and just work around it, hopefully the core will be more abrasion resistant. We've uploaded some videos of the first launching of the boat, lot's of swimming and not much moving, but there is a little bit... your awesome-ness Nick

We are presently in the computer labs at 4am finishing a hella boring statistics assignment. Nick has just announced that he will brutally attack our statistic's lecturer if he marks us wrong on question five he will "mess him up!" but only if he escapes Mark and Luke "messing him up!" for convincing us that nick is right when he obviously wasn't because now nick and lecturer are "getting messed up!. Luke is watching fugitive hairs escape nick's head. Back to the F-Test of Launceston and Hobart females. Is there any variation in their mean anxiety levels? Nick hopes so. Also today, assuming it isn't raining, we are going to fix some of the broken things on the boat. Cheer MarkLa

Another sailing day under our belt, this time without losing a tyre. The start of the day looked bad for moth sailing with rain and no wind, but by the time we were rigged it was a perfect 5 knot northerly with maybe 10 knot patches throughout the day. Sure it was cold but we didn't care, it was the best day we have had for months. Before hitting the water we had a slight problem with the sheeting system...it was breaking the transom! After jury rigging a mainsheet to the tramp attachments, Mark hit the water with more success than last session (staying upright and moving while trying to do so). While this was going on, Al was doing some boat handling practice inshore around some mooring bouys. Next Al took the new boat for a burl while I took the wide boat for a warm-up. This was great as it was the best sail I've had in a moth with boat handling I can certainly work with. Al was having a blast in the new boat but the wind was a little too light at the time (< 5 knots by this stage) to have a great practice session. Next Mark was going out in the wide boat with me in the new boat. I was a little nervous about taking it out and waited for Mark to leave before jumping on board. To my utter surprise launching went without a hitch, until I realised that the tiller was almost broken from the days use. The tack back was pulled off without even thinking about it (my first tack in the new boat that worked) and stability was coming easily as I was more worried about the tiller breaking. After returning the damaged boat to shore Al and I went to coach Mark from shore. A tacking drill was instigated for him and was performed without capsize. Decisions made from yesterdays sailing are: - More permanent mainsheet system will be installed to the same design as every other moth in the world. This worked like a gem. - Repairs must be made before next session including - Tiller - Transom cracks - Tramp/gunwhale attachment repairs - New rivet for downhaul cleat (it has somehow slipped, hopefully not through corrosion) - Centreboard case guide re-attached - With a few more training sessions we should all be able to beat the local lasers. - Boat handling is our main focus. - Register boat. Cheer Nick

Exams are now ovr and so is our midyear holiday. Al spent it working for Blue Waters Marine dude, Nick pirated movies and slept, and Vanessa visited Mark who stayed in Tassie. But now Nick and Al are back and Vanessa has gone home and now Fridays have been declared sailing day!! w00t!! The start of the fun for the day was a good old fashioned tyre hunt! 15km out of Lonny the left wheel jetisoned and disappeared in search of goon. Mark later found it in one of tassie's fine vinyards. We continued on Beauty Point minus five wheel nuts checking servos for spares. We found some off a some daggy mag in Beconsfield. Mark's turn first and rerighted it over and over until my arms hurt but I did make it move in a circle riding on its windward wing and mainsheet running on autopilot so to speak. Nick was next and took the boat way out into the bay. He says it was cold. He says it was a lot easier to sail. He says it showed promise. He also says it was a dog to steer and has decided he will single handedly do some mods. Al (previously sailing his steed) changed with nick on the water. He says it was good. He also says he was happy to get the boat moving just in time. He didn't say he drifted along way downwind and managed to get it sailing only metres from some nasty looking rocks. But when he did get it moving he was going great upwind. A fun day for all and we will be going again on friday. Cheer MarkLa

Back by popular demand, the Moth Crew! After a long absence due to study (and slackness), we have finally gotten around to updating the webpage with our latest photos and news. There are photos of the final stages of construction (mainly the wings and appendages), of the original launch that did not go according to plan (we broke it because we cut a corner in construction), and the real launch (with not enough wind). We haven't had a chance to get on the water since due to weather (tassie is cold, I know that's no excuse but common!), school, repairs, and slackness. We broke the foredeck when we pulled rig tension on at the original launching. The beams rotated forward and pushed against the foredeck. Apparently this was a problem with the early skiffs. Problem fixed now with an end-grain balsa cored fibreglass attachment mounted to the foredeck (that can be seen in the photos) and a mounting on the deck for the bottom of the forward wing. It didn't show signs of breaking after numerous capsizes and a heavy vang test on the launch day. Launch day was a hassle because there was enough wind, almost too much, but to get to it you had to sail out of the lee of the bank which is about 200-300m in very little wind. What made it more difficult was a lack of bouyancy in the wings (now corrected with $2 chickenfeed pool noodles), and wing bars that filled with water. We are still learning the ways of the masters. Anyway, we're really happy with it so far, we only wish we had warmer winters so we could get some practise in before racing it. We are going through exams at the moment so please have pity on us... Cheer Nick

Last update was a while ago and things are now happening thick and fast. What has happened since the last update? (in rough crono. order) The foils were laminated with the uni glass and cloth and clamped as they cured to try to get them straighter. The hull was undercoated in single pack International Paint using rollers. Pinholes that we found were filled with a mix of undercoat and fairing powder U bolts fabricated from stainless steel threaded rod. Oversided holes drilled in hull for U bolts, filled and redrilled. Foils were faired, T foil glued/glassed to rudder and undercoated. Gunnels up were painted in blue! Foils were painted at the same time. Two coats of single pack International Paint applied. Day off to let paint cure goodly. More holes filled with topcoat and filler. Hull masked and painted in yellow! Three coats applied. Another day off to let paint cure goodly. Mark discovers Railroad Tycoon II:Gold. Old Nick sniggers and snorts like Sonya. Start experimenting with fittings. Tramps ordered Al breaks his mast, his sunglasses, Mark's 12 cradle and a Boag's Premium Light bottle. Long list of things left to do and buy written up - one page each 12 foot skiff sanded back a bit Nylon bushings made for lower bottom of centreboard case Transverse wing tubes machined down to fit longitudinal tubes Glass layed up around transverse tubes, first step in building side wing joints Watch short aircraft crash videos on nick's neighbours computer till late last night. Arrive at 9am class (nick was late) very irritable. Update web page. Cheer Markla

This afternoon we managed to find time to make the trampoline attachment points on gunwhale. They consist of kevlar fibres completely resined on to deck and onto the underside of the flare with a small gap to allow the rope to pass through. We also picked up some uni-directional S-Glass for a good price and used it to reinforce our centreboard and rudder with a layer of standard E-Glass clothe over the top. I will fair them tomorrow if I have enough time. We have taken a heap of new photos with a friends digi-cam and Mark is uploading them atm. Good to hear that the nationals are going to Lake Cootharaba. Since Mark and I live so close we will definitely be making every effort to race. Lake Cootharaba is a great venue for racing with usually good winds and a good atmosphere. Since we are poor uni students we will probably be camping and launching the boat from the campsites beach. Nick

Al is back as of last friday. That friday was also mark's birthday - hurah, hurah! We now own (and have almost payed for) all of the fittings and a 7.92m^2 monofilm sail that looks very groovy. Nick has not been allowed to sleep with it despite incessant pleading. Yesterday being our first day of Uni for third year we decided to start building again. The AMC have now kindly loaned us a key to the model test basin - a big room with a big swimming pool with big independant wave makers where middle aged academics can play boaties and call it research not that there is anything wrong with playing boaties. We are allowed to continue to build the thingy in there until Al moves into a new house with a suitable garage. Today's job was to build the wing mounts. They were done reasonable well despite the bog going off in the pot once but they will be solid. LET IT BE KNOWN that mark declares them good. Incidentally the AMC's web page doesn't yet realize it has a model test basin, the only reference to it is a 2000 newsletter saying it has been commisioned. Markla

We couldn't limit the top 5 to only 5 so we extended it to eight...any requests would be most welcome (your taste is probably better than ours (yeah right! our taste is tops bro!) ). We will try our best to limit it to 10 though. heh just like we tried to limit it to 5... Nick

Well we haven't been putting much stuff up during the break, but well, to be honest I don't know that anyone has been checking. Not A whole lot is new hoping to get some more things happening soon, before we get back to uni. Check the results page to see how Alan went in the Vic States. Al

Yes, we have been taught how to weld, somewhat anyway. Our back beam was welded together by Rod, one of the guys that taught us how to weld. He's a top bloke. It looks great and hasn't broken like the last attempt with fibreglass did. We have been fairing the hull for weeks now and it's getting frustrating not being able to get it perfect. It is at the stage where there are a 2-3 flat spots about the size of a hand. These are barely visible with a ruler held against them. PS. Do not use planked foam for construction. In hindsight we should've used full sheets that don't require as much fairing. Markla

Haven't had many updates in a fare while, we have been busy with work, and havn't been finding much time for the moth, however today, while Mark and Nick are off Living it up in sunny Brisbane, our mast arrived here in cold little Luansceston. Yep The mast arrived today, and I'm about to go and put it on the roof and take it home, mark and nick both went home for the week and so fare I've been finishing off the faring which we've been doing for some time now, unfortunatly over the weekend I ran out of filler but I finally got some more today so I'll be able to continue. I would like to have it fare by the time the guys get back, but we'll see how we go, it should be close though. Al

Well, we have a reasonably light boat, we put it on the scales on thursday and the hull is only 12.5kg this is a good weight and should still be on track for the final hull to be only about 15kg. We spent most of yesterday and last night biulding the cradle for the boat, it's come up really well and should be practical. Open day today and we have both Al's moth and the new moth which has now been dubbed "A Special Kind of Stupid", They're both on display at the moment and we're having O so much fun telling everyone about the project and why they should come and study engineering at AMC. Infortunatly the most reacent photos are yet to be put up, should be some more durring the week, but there are some on the film in my camera now, so we won't se them for a bit. Al

The foredeck is now glued on. It was a struggle trying to hold down but I think we succeeded. It required sticky tape, clamps and two lengths of rope. It has a bit of residual stress in it from bending it into shape so I hope it doesn't go POP as soon as the ropes are released. The Fourth Year Ocean Vehical Designs were presented on the weekend and very good. However it was quite disappointing to see no moths (or proas) amongst them. Come on! They are commercial vessels- somewhat...sort of... Well its the thought that counts. Markla

This afternoon we sanded the deck ready for filling and fibreglassing. This involved sanding the sides to the correct width and making sure both sides were farely even. The patches of bog used to hold the foam to the mould were also sanded flat and any major defects in the joins were faired. Next we will fibreglass the deck transversely with 2 layers of 170gsm glass, wrapping it around the gunwhale to form a good join without extra fibreglass tape. Breakage Predictions Mark - something on the mainsheet attachment points Nick - deck join to centreboard case, there's no reinforcing under leading or trailing edge Al - unknown Excuse the spelling on the last news item. BTW can I have one of these for Christmas Santa ...pplleeeeeeeaaaaaaassssssseee... Nick the Seedy Old(very) Man(child)

We have seen the inside of the hull for the last time. Today the was glued on. For the last couple of days we have been preparing the hull for this very day. We have sanded the hull surface back to its final edge. Whe it is time to trim the edge of the deck, this will be the line to cut to. Then each of the frames and knees have been sanded so the deck sits down nicely. Final radiuses were added to the internal structure. The surfaces to be glued were sanded and the whole boat was finally swept and vacumned. The gluing went smoothly. More of Keina's weights and a bunch of clamps from the A.M.C. were used to hold it down while it set. Al checked it out two days later and it had set nicely. There are no edges popping up at the whole thing doesn't twist much. That night Rhubarb played at the UniBar. They played well dispite having one memeber in the Launceston hospital and another recently out of it but the venue was hopeless. I was three rows from the front and all I could see was the lead singer's head. I could see no more of the band. The stage they were playing on can't have been more than 30cm high. The Hoon was good though and 'Nessa got her first dose of after-hoon pizza. She went home on saturday and mark is sad :(. Markla

The installation of the bulkhead went smoothly and it looks good. We realised the bulkhead would warp the case so we remedied that with same small bracing pieces at the fore and aft edges of the case. We also glassed the inside of the foredeck after realising it would be the safer option (we had considered not glassing it at all to reduce weight). Nick

We have glassed the centreboard case into position and it all went very smoothly. This arvo we will make sure the case is perfectly vertical and then install the bulkhead around it. Nick

We have prepared the hull for the centreboard case. It involved removing the inside glass laminate about 1cm wider than the case, then removing the foam beneath that down to the outside laminate. Then we widened the inside glass laminate by about 5-6mm and faired the foam between the laminates to a nice angle. Filler and glass was then applied to the whole area so we now have about 7 layers of glass underneath the centreboard case and no foam. If we don't do this right we will have a leaking boat so wish us luck... Nick

Everything seems to be progressing very quickly now. All of the bulkheads have now been laminated and mostly faired to shape. The transom, 'crew weight' and front tank bulkheads have all been glued in. We have popped the fordeck off its mould and it is surprisingly stiff for the single lamination. We are considering not laminating the inside for a weight saving. It may just have a few small strips of glass along the centerline, and the foam will be sealed with filler and resin. We also popped the cockpit off its mould but not before adding a couple of extra strips of foam for a bit of reinforcing between bulkheads. We have decided on a rectangular (rather than foil shape) centerboard case. This is because we don't have a foil to mould off yet, and it leaves our options open to experiment with other foil shapes. A plug was built for the case using some scrap MDF from the frames and two pizza box lids. It was quite a struggle to get the glass off the plug and required an assortment of tools including a screw driver, bush saw, hammer, blocks of wood, Drew Bryant, rope and a fence post. A mast is being ordered today and the world is at peace. Markla

Yesterday we have assembled the foredeck mould. Last night we fitted the foam to the mould. It is the most complicated curves we have done so far and the foam was rather uncooperative. The biggest trouble was the complicated curvature in the side profile view. We used as many clamps on the side profile as we did on the hull! It looked like a pincushion. This morning (still the same day) we redid the deck. It looks much better. Current underestimates: 107g Cloth. 1 metre left! Resin Filler Al got back to day. We have all got our results now. Everybody is happy. Vanessa cleaned up with the best results amongst us :) Finally the Grand Winner of the Most Number of Spelling Errors on Existing News Items on this Website on in the June 8 entry is... Mark!! with three errors in one entry. I am stoked! My mother always said I had awful spelling. Her first comment on the web page was: Hello Mark It's not so much the taste and tone of this web site that offends and shocks - but the spelling !!!! And to think how much I invested in your hedukayshun.... Love Mum Markla

While Mark and Vanessa were in Hobart, I spent my days building frames and preparing the buggered deck and inside of the hull for fibreglassing. Hopefully we will get around to finishing them off tonight... Nick

This morning (4am!!! Mark was tired and grumpy) we popped the boat off the plug. It is not overly stiff lacking the inside lamination. There is also a lot of fairing of the inside with all of the gluing we did to keep the foam on the mould. Late the night before we masked the hull and made a set of cradles. The polyester smelt great (not - 'nessa) - mark was flying for hours afterwards 8) . They turned out alright but are rather soft. Mark the Stoner

As of last night at about midnight, we have a full hull surface, it looks pretty good, and won't need much, if any, fairing. We finished laying up the foam very late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, unfortunately when we pulled all the clamps out, it jumped off the mould, so we faired it anyway, and then put glue between the foam and the mould and clamped it back down. A few hours later after putting the inside layer of glass on the cockpit we got back to it and got both of the glass laminates on the hull surface. The 107g fibre glass looks great when wetted out but it didn't stick down too well to the foam, it was fine over another layer of glass. Al

The plug is now fully faired.(Our knuckles are scratched) The -Torture Boards(TM)- (miraculous sanding contraptions) have done their job and the plug is now ready for foam. A 'quick' visit to the labs to update the webpage and plot out the shapes for the internal foam pieces. Then we'll pull the cockpit off the mould and see what happens. (Fingers crossed) Markla

VANESSA ARRIVES!!! Mark is happy :) (The rest of us are happy too cause Mark is now distracted) Sanding of the plug in the morning. Laying up of the foam for the cockpit in the afternoon. Then I see Star Wars! Mark the Dork (haha)

A long drive out to somewhere called Meander (mèan-dër:I think) and there was nothing there, except TIMBER-WORLD! It has a whole range of activities to satisfy the whole family including playing in the muddy soil ripped up by forklifts, lifting Al's car with a forklift, stealing the "Portable Timber Cabins®" with forklifts. The only thing fun there were the forklifts. But we got our wood and the world was at peace. Back at home we fitted all of the stringers to the frames, and with some persuasion from some training weights, the mould was straightened. All of the stringers are now on and ready to sand. A Timber World Portable Cabin - Truly Tasmanian. Markla

Mark moves! We also collected the foam, glass, resin and filler. It was rather disastrous - the foam broke into several pieces and we were left running all over the road to Al's place trying to collect it all. PS. Don't transport your foam on the roof-rack on the windiest day of the year. Markla

Nick moves to Alan's house in preparation for moth building. Still one assignment left. Markla

Exams finished. No moth stuff just celebration! Alan drank too much and wanted to fall asleep on the bitumen of a carpark, then a garden. After a 'rapid detox' on the way to Tuckie's car we whisked him home. He was later found him passed out on the toilet. What a night! Markla

After a fun maths test we went to Alan's house to stand the frames. The boat looks cool! It was fantastic to see what it really looks like. I think we have a winner! Everything fits together perfectly and we think it is the right length. It is very contrasting next to Alan's ole' (like Nick - "I'm livin' in the 70's") moth. We can't wait to get stuck into it. We took a truck load of photos today but they won't be downloaded till tomorrow. They should be posted tomorrow along with this cool animated image of the boat building it self. Now isn't that a dream... Markla

The University of Tasmania - School of Architecture Router did its thing and ripped through our design. Many thanks to them and Robin Green! It looks like a big jigsaw. It was even approved by the Random Approva! You can see him strutting his stuff in as soon as the galleries are up and going. Markla

The final cut files are done! After yet another stringer change and a near-fatal (not quite) discovery that Maxsurf wasn't deducting our skin thickness. Well we didn't think it was. Either way we have now corrected it so it will either be right or we will end a thinner Moth than we were planning which isn't such a bad thing. After that was completed we were bouncing back and forward between the computer labs and the architecture building trying to make the cut file work. Eventually it was all working and we are set to cut tomorrow afternoon. Now I will need to start studying for the exam that preceeds it. We ended up making that of the cut files rather compact. Check it out Markla

A real Moth free day? I am trying again. Markla

Thank's again to Doggy and Jacko. Our current goon bag count now stands at a whole two! Markla Our final design has been rendered using Rhino after exporting the files from Maxsurf. This is our first use of Rhino and it wasn't too difficult although we believe it could be a little more intuitive. The sail isn't the right size (9.4 square metres), it was a last minute addition. Check the pictures out here. Nick

The glass order was placed today. Nick and My lungs are still frozen after riding there. At the same time we were lucky enough to meet the Tasmanian representative for West Systems Epoxy. He showed us some tricks about using the epoxy especially dealing with it in the Tassie winter: At these temperatures the resin and hardener get extremely viscous - too viscous to mix them properly. Before using them put them in a box with a heater. Definitely use a "tent" with a heater while it is curing. He suggested hoops with clear plastic over the top so you can still see the job. Make sure the all of the components from the job are at the same temperature. A very easy and convenient method of measuring the resin and hardener is using a flat sided container with a stick with equal divisions down the side. Markla

Today was supposed to be a Moth free day - a holiday from it all. We had a rather miserable mechanics exam and the only stuff we were hoping to do on it today was drop in a fibreglass order. As easy as that! But we let our mind drift into securing the foam planks to the mould. Bad Mistake! We talked to an experienced boat building friend who convinced us we needed to go to a large number of stringers again. He suggested getting timber from a timber mill. Nick was volunteered to phone them while Al and I went to start the new (third) cut outs. With Delays in finding our the available timber we decided to design and finalise our wings. We started drawing then up in 3D Autocad to give good cut shapes for our final tubes. We gave up at 2am. It is almost done but we were in the Australian Maritime College computer labs for over 9 hours straight. Al and I now have square eyes and a desperate hunger. The moral of the story - don't even think about moths on your moth free days. Markla

Is this the world's first Maxi Moth? Yes it is a real boat - somewhat. This picture has recently appeared on the world Moth association web site. Well if it isn't a Moth then what is it? Nick realised first. Email us if you can work it out. Look for your self here. Markla

The design work is now complete. We all sat around a computer and started to move the design about until it became a mongrel, somewhat a monster, of all of our individual ideas and Jon Sayers' response. Our final canoe body has the following particulars with 110kg displacement and zero trim: Waterline Length 3350mm Waterline Beam 266mm Waterline Transom Width 100mm Whether this is best design we could have done or we are sick of arguing with each other is open to question, but we are all happy and it looks mad. If this thing had teeth it could kill. It looks nothing less than evil! With that complete we turned our attention to the cut files. Again using the Australian Maritime College's MaxSurf package and using the CAD skills we have learnt in our classes we produced frames without outs for stringers, ready for the University of Tasmania CNC Router.

Markla

	Exam Week Plans! Saturday: Finalise Design and Make Cut Files for mould Tuesday: Buy MDF and Stringer (oh, and a fluid dynamics exam) Thursday: Cut the mould frames (and a mechanics exam if we feel like it)
	Markla

	Our first renders have been produced! These are to support the sponsorship document and have a generic mast, wings and sail. You can view them here..
	Markla

Our current design was emailed to Jon Sayer, a very experienced and successful yacht designer at All Yacht Spars in Brisbane. Jon and Alan Carwardine modified our original plans in the follow ways: Changing from a planing hullform to a streamlined displacement As with the above, the transom was narrowed to 100mm - just wide enough for the rudder pintles. Rocker was greatly reduced. The transom is not intended to be above the water. Markla

	Our first design work. Each of us started playing in the Australian Maritime College's MaxSurf Package working to an estimated displacement of 110kg. Each design was reviewed then Nick's was modified to include everyone's personal modifications. It didn't look too bad...so we thought - except for Nick's gay-lesbian-seagull wing things. View it here
	Markla

After a rather mediocre day sailing corsairs we wanted something with a hell of a lot more power. We debated a few concepts between a few different skiffs and cats. Alan at this stage had his Moth so we considered that also. After some reading about the class we decided that its development style was ideal for our naval architecture aspirations We decided to build three identical Moths for exciting match racing and effective training. They would be very narrow skiffs (less than 30cm waterline widths) based upon the current winning designs with the possibility of adding hydrofoils. At this stage we started seeking sponsors considering initially the Australian Maritime College and composite shops.

Markla