After a full day of sorting everything out including aligning the foils, the new bateau is finally ready for it’s maiden flight. The name “Ninjario”came about after a passing comment from Simon Reynolds who after the London dinghy show asked me… “so when is ninjario going to be ready?” I’m really pleased with it as I was thinking of names for ages but couldn’t come up with anything!

So time to reflect on the whole experience of building a boat..Before this I’d never built anything of substance let alone out of carbon and epoxy so it really was a trial by fire. The biggest thing I noticed was that the build itself was pretty straightforward but the finishing seems to have taken forever. This was due to the myriad of components that go in to making the final package. Logistically it’s pretty tought too.. trying to juggle ordering and paying for stuff as you go along. Thanks to a few slow paying clients, things took longer to come through than anticipated but we got there in the end.

I say “we” because the other thing I learned was that building a moth on your own is a waste of time. You will probably make so many mistakes and take so many wrong turns that in the end it would pay to buy a boat! I was really fortunate to have had so much help in all areas and I want to thank the following people for all of their support and assistance and willingness to help out:

Mike Cooke – Gets top award for Mr. Patience.. fielding numerous calls and endless questions not to mention passing on vital knowledge on how to do it right in the first place. Cheers Mike!

Graham Eeles – The king of carbon composites and exceptional teacher who helped to demystify the dark art of carbon and epoxy who mentored me from the supermistress project to date. Thanks Graham.

Jordi and Javi – The future of the international moth is in their hands. You both have a huge amount of talent between you.. I hope you go far in the years to come. Thanks to both of you for your help with laminating.

Jonnie Hutchcroft – Dude, huge thanks for helping wherever possible from a spare pair of hands through to all the splicing and ropework. Many a time your encouragement was a great help when I doubted I’d get to the end.

My wife for her un ending support in light of the fact that I spent the best part of 4 months in the garage surrounded by carbon and resins and I haven’t touched the house we moved in to just under a year ago. I promise I’ll refocus my efforts!

Another thing I have learned… It’s seriously unhealthy building boats… I’m not talking about exposure to hazardous materials… I’m talking about the fact that all my muscles have turned to jelly! I realise that I now have only 5 weeks to get in shape for the nationals followed by the euros in Silvaplana in August. I’ve spent so much time working on the boat that I’ve done pretty much no exercise. Jonnie keeps laughing at my “budda” belly. I’ve now got to put the same effort I did in to building the boat in to getting myself in shape and equally importantly.. time on the water.. (I’ve sailed once this year!)

I realise that there is a load of modifications coming no doubt but the main thing is the boat is ready to go and with any luck, tomorrow will be the launch window (weather dependent). Whaterver happens, Ninjario is heading down to it;s new home at the yacht club.

Talking of mods, I modified the wand unit slightly to include an aluminium may stick as the retractable system won’t really work properly without one.

So would I do it again? Absolutely! I’m going to get back in to the water again as I’ve really missed it, and then start planning the next boat. I want to do this one from scratch so that means designing it, making the molds and then building it but that is a little way off! First up, I want to make a carbon kiteboard now and get back in to that as well for when there is too much wind to go foiling.

Well that’s about it from Ninjaville.. Thanks to everyone for reading and posting comments. From here on it’s a shift in concentration to boat handling and fitness so that brings the Ninjaville build story to close. The next post will be an epilogue and then it’s back to blogging about sailing and fettling.

It’s adios from me and Ninjario!