I must apologise to the US of A for failing to mention their homebuilds in my last post! In my defense, it was late at night and I was tired. To add to list of homebuilds is of course the US godfather.. Joe Bousquet who has been sailing his homebuild “Try-Foil”  for some time and attending international regattas etc.

Then of course we have Chinzilla and the latest mothball one project which both appear to have gone well (although I remain cautious about mothball one’s wooden gantry, it scares me!)

One thing that is interesting to note though is that it isn’t just homebuilds that are prone to blowing up.. I of course refer to Felix’s blog post and the woes he encountered with a “production moth”. Yes it may be true that a homebuild may blow up on the race track but we don’t have the worries of blowing up in the market place. Bladerider was the first to suffer the “production moth curse” and now it seems there is another to add to the list.

During the build of my boat I kept badgering Mike Cooke to expand his operation and increase production. He was always quick to respond with a flat “No way” as he believed that with a development class like the moth, you just can’t do it without pouring serious amounts of cash into it. I couldn’t understand it at the time as the bright lights were blinding me. I know there are many a mothie out there who have dreamed of becoming the next big supplier of moths to feed the class (myself included!) but in reality the class is just not like any other class in the world.

In a way Amac has earned the right to dominate the class as he has put so many years into developing the boat and he clearly has developed a deep understanding of the mechanics of a moth. But even that won’t last forever as no doubt from some silent corner of the mothosphere, someone will kick start the next evolution. Let’s face it, even the Mach2 is being improved upon all the time even if in small chunks.

In the end it boils down to business models and I think that Amac has it nailed… keep it real and all will be well.If you start dreaming of world dominance then it could all end in tears.

As for me, I now dream that one day I’ll be like John Gilmour and building a tiny number of moths but would be more involved with the mechanics and how to make things easier for all moths with “bolt ons”.

In the meantime, let’s hope Felix, Assassin and all those customers’ situation will resolve itself and the nightmare will become a distant memory in the history of the moth class and all will remember what mothing is all about… “having-fun-without-a-worry-in-the-world-on-foils”…

I guess like the icelandic volcano, the mothoshphere was due for an eruption. Let’s hope we have a long wait until the next cycle.

COME ON HOME BUILDERS… NOW IS YOUR TIME…YOUR CLASS NEEDS YOU.