Threesome

The Mach 2 had run away to Spain, Carbon Footprint was feeling sad and lonely. She was sitting all by herself in the dinghy park in her pajamas... eating ice cream straight from the tub... playing Gloria Gaynor on repeat... It is into sad moments such as this that bizarre twists of fate have a habit of occurring, and so it was that an offer that she could not refuse miraculously appeared. An offer so exciting that it did not feature in her wildest dreams as surely there is no way it could happen... Her heart skipped a beat, could it be real? Could he really mean her? Did he know how she had been secretly admiring him from afar? What could have set her heart alight like this? Was it the offer of dinner with Brad Pitt? (He is coming to the South West to film some Cornish zombies after all). No, far more exciting, she was going out with not one but two handsome young men.

The Swiss foiling team who, (so narrowly), beat Carbon Footprint in speed week have kept apace with sailing design trends and have put a wing on their foiler, Mirabaud LX. They were bringing it to Cowes week and they had invited yours truly onboard! That is definitely an offer a girl could not refuse.

So it was that I made the trip over to Cowes and found myself sailing with not one but two handsome, if not slightly crazy, Swiss gentleman. For those of you not familiar with Mirabaud LX picture this; 10m of 3 man, spaceframe, wing sailing, foiling awesomeness. It is as though designer Thomas Jundt has taken all the best bits of sailing technology and put them together in one extreme machine and the result is this:

Check out www.mirabaudlx.com for all the technical details.

I climbed onboard in the clothes I had just stepped off the ferry in, there was no time to change and the boys said it was fine, I wouldn’t get wet - really?! JP handed me the mainsheet, it appeared my job was trimming the wing, just like the mainsheet on the Moth apparently. Should I just take this moment to point out that I have now sailed more wing sailed boats than most of the America’s cup sailors - if you want any pointers boys... It was as much fun as I had dreamt and more! You get two gentlemen to help you and Mirabaud LX is surprisingly stable, foiling along the Solent through chop that would have upset many a Moth, without even spilling the beers kindly provided by the sponsors. That said we did manage to capsize, oops. As the boys promised, even a little excursion to the dagger board did not involve getting wet, how very civilised. The press briefing was as much showboating as possible - that is my kind of sailing. Buzzing the Royal Yacht Squadron during Cowes week is definitely showboating that Carbon Footprint would approve of!

It was a great day with the perfect conditions for wing foiling, thanks so much to Thomas, Antoine and Eric for letting me play with their very cool toy and ensuring I kept my hair dry!

Now it’s just the offer of dinner from the lovely Brad that Carbon Footprint has to dream about!

It's all about trust

A number of you may have been worried about how Carbon Footprint was feeling about my exploits with the Mach 2. She was particularly touched by those of you who in fact contacted me to express this concern. Fear not, she has never been far from my mind and will be justly rewarded for her support and trust in my foray into Mach 2 world with a new round of upgrades. A bunch of flowers may not go far enough to make up for working late with the secretary but a new ride height control, better wand system and the promise of a trip to Australia more than make up for a brief fling with a Mach 2!

Trust is a two way thing and just as Adam trusted me to take his boat to Silvaplana he was also to have to trust me once more. Ok, so not strictly a two way thing, more an everything my way thing, but what is a girl to do? Many of you may be asking yourselves what could require more trust than your girlfriend spending a week in foreign lands with your Mach 2? Had I secured a job oiling up the six packs of Calvin Klein models mid photoshoot? Had the call come in from George Cloony that he needed a partner for the upcoming Oscars ceremony? No, this was going to require trust on a far deeper level...

It had been meticulously designed, slaved over in the workshop, ok so the Boat Yard at Beer did a lot of the work, (saving me from endless sanding, I owe you boys big time!), it is a world first, a milestone in Moth sailing history, sailed only twice before in the capable hands of Adam May. Yes, I was about to become only the second person to go Mothing with a wing sail!!! I was pretty nervous to say the least, breaking it was clearly going to mean more than washing up duty for a month and lets face it a wipeout is never far away when I’m Moth sailing. I least I knew I could trust the Mach 2.

I got on, righted the wing, so far so good. Carbon Footprint had taken Adam out of instruction giving range, I was on my own and I was scared. OK, this can’t be that hard, what do I know about wings? The have them on airplanes, you ‘put the flaps down to take off’. What do I know about foiling? ‘Bear away, shut your eyes and think of England’. I did both these things, and trusted in the Mach 2.... We started slowly at first, would we lift off before the end of the runway? Trust in the laws of physics... The apparent wind generated, we accelerated, the apparent wind generated, we accelerated, the apparent wind generated, you get the picture..... oh my word!!! Before I knew what was happening, or could open my eyes and attend to important matters like steering, we were approaching the psychological 20 kt barrier, and the far more physical barrier of the harbour wall.

Since I am writing this I clearly survived the experience as did Adam’s wing, phase one of destruction testing ‘Let girlfriend loose with it’, well and truly passed. Adam may have a few design upgrades in mind, all I have to say is that it’s going to look so good in pink.