Finding Moksha: RIP Superfly!

Here's a story that most of you reading will have no interest in whatsoever. But because I can, I am going to write it anyway.

I guess the highlight of the story, by which I mean if this was a movie, this is the one scene you don't want to miss is best summed up by the following quote from sailinganarchy.com during there regatta coverage of the Mumm 30 World Championships in Newport, Rhode Island, USA circa 2008.
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.............All that being said, we are still in decent spirits and we are better off than a broken rig or a severely holed boat.

Which brings me to Superfly...

These guys have tried so hard and overcome so much to get to this point, today was just heart breaking. at the start of race 2, Mescalzone tacked to port, tried to duck, but something went wrong and they couldn't bear off in time and t-boned the Aussies something fierce. No worries, the guys from Superfly are still in great spirits and trying their best to make a bad situation the best they can.

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Basically, our team had got together early in the year with the aim of doing something at the World's in Newport. That something ended up being the last thing anyone would want, but more on that later.

Myself and Josh (who actually requested this story) went to New York for a few days before the rest of the team came over. I won't say how our flight was - actually I will, it was terrible, China Airlines flights which went from Brisbane - Sydney - Taiwan - Alaska - New York. For those playing at home, grab an atlas and look at that flight path and prove to me there is a more indirect flight in the world!

The week was great, all the sites that New York has we encountered, but flying a helicopter around Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty was definitely the highlight. Along with grabbing a NY Rangers game at Madison Square Garden, and hanging out with a heap of mad dogs at the exclusive Soho House and throughout the Tribeca District our week was a pretty good time to be alive.

This trip was 2.5 years ago and one memory that really stands out is the DREADED weight limit the Mumm 30 class has. Basically at top level regattas there is a maximum that the crew's combined weight can't exceed. Our situation led to us all having to lose weight with one of our heavier guys dropping in excess of 10kg's (I got down to 71kg, which is pretty rank considering I am still lean and currently weigh 76kg).

Meeting the rest of the guys at JFK Airport, picking up our hire bus and driving from NY to RI proved quite interesting at times, with the call "straight arm, straight road" often being used when the unfamiliarity of driving on the wrong side of the road really kicked in.

Our plan was to settle in to our home for the next 2 weeks, and finally have a look at our boat and set it up for the regatta - This was fine. Finding a few dodgy blocks and soft spot in the deck mean a few repairs and fitting refit - that was fine. What wasn't fine was the fact that in the process of craning our mast into the boat, a dodgy knot meant we lost the rig onto the concrete and ended up snapping a critical component of the rig - so critical in fact, that it meant we could not go sailing and finding a compatible spare part meant we lost 2 days of time.

Finally getting that fixed was all well and good, but it also meant that we had lost a lot of time and our first time in sailing the boat was sailing out to the start of the first race, this was also the first time of seeing the course. Actually we cut it so fine that we were still setting the boat up on the way out and we got to the start line with less than 3 minutes to go (you should usually get there at least an hour before for set up and practice).

Im not sure what happened over the next 20 minutes but I do remember coming into the first rounding mark in second place and looking behind us to see and America's Cup winning tactician, a couple of Olympic Medallists, plus plenty of World Champions and other top ranked professionals and thinking "Shit, how are we gonna keep this". Eventually the breeze kicked in more and with every increase in pressure, an untuned rig meant it felt like running a 100m final in concrete boots. Finishing that race around 6th ended up being one of the only highlights of our regatta.

The next day was a terrible day of racing for us, and day 3 brought us some better results to see us going into day 4 around the 13th spot mark. Waking up to an absolute gale on day 5 led most boats to believe racing would be abandoned for the day, however the nature of the regatta and quality of the fleet meant the race must go on, a stance that would ultimately end our regatta. The first race of the day lead to a few fun and wild rides, especially downwind, where due to the late stage of the regatta, meant a high risk high reward strategy for a lot of boats. More like high consequences, as boats lost control in wind speeds that often sneaked over 40 knots.

The next start was a great one for us, in a good position to windward of the fleet it was happy days! Until the Italian team "Mascalzone Latino" tried to duck behind us and ended up T-Boning us mid-ship, this caused severe damage to the boat, so much so that there was a risk of her sinking. In the end, that was the last time we sailed Superfly, as the insurance company wrote her off and our campaign was over. The Italians, as as result, threw away their winning position in the regatta and ended up 3rd overall.

We all drowned our sorrows in Newport and a few days later found ourselves in Taipei for some RnR.

We eventually got a new boat - she is called Italian Job - I'm not sure where that name comes from.

My very first day in Italy was three months ago, I went into a shopping centre and walked into a sports store to get some socks, only to find a massive display for the Mascalzone Latino Team, including their shirts, sailing gear, and a poster of the very boat that killed ours. Definitely a weird experience.

I probably would have never posted this blog as it was so long ago, but Josh requested it so here it is.

I'm pretty sure most of you will not have got this far into the story, but I really don't care ha.

If you did make it, listen to this song as a reward.