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There is something gloriously cocksure about a man whose opening sortie into the fast-paced domain of Moth racing is a stab at the World Championships.
Chris Graham, 25, may have been sailing all his life, but according to those in the know, there are boats and then there are Moths.
So when Graham first got in one, or rather on one, in December and experienced first-hand just how hard it is, it’s difficult to figure out how today he is just two weeks away from competing on the biggest stage of all.
But Tuesday will find Graham and his training partner and fellow World Championship hopeful Glenn Raphael, 27, on a flight to the UK where their ultimate destination will be Weymouth, the venue of the July 5 competition.
There they will be reunited with their Moths, so named because of the insect-like look of the boat, which resembles a pair of wings with a windsurfing sail on the upper side and a hydrofoil on the lower.
Unexpected bugbite
So what inspired Graham, who in the past competed in junior European and World Championships in rather more conventional-looking craft, to take up Moth sailing?
“I read a report by a guy called Rohan Veal who was the world champion in 2006 and I was interested,” he says sitting in the shade at Mina Beach Sailing Club in Dubai. His angular boat, which he has just assembled, lies on its side near the shore.
“All the top dinghy guys in the world were doing it.”
The thing with a Moth, says Graham, is the sheer challenge. You can be a sailor all your life and still struggle to even get on a Moth. Steering is another matter entirely and the rookie Moth sailor must be prepared to get wet – a lot.
“They are just so hard to sail,” Graham explains. “I constantly got dunkings when I started – I still do every now and then. It takes so much time to get anywhere near good on them, but they are fast and they do look good.”
What makes them go fast is the same thing that makes them so tough to sail – the hydrofoil. When the boat is at speed, it’s body rises out of the water on the hydrofoil, meaning that with less surface area on the water the boat can go faster. It also makes it hard to balance.
“There is no boat in the water,” grins Graham, who is sponsored by Marine Tech Rigging while Raphael is sponsored by Multiplex. “So balance is pretty tricky and everything happens really, really quickly.”
So quickly, in fact, that while he was learning Graham managed to sail right onto one of the big, green channel markers or cardinals in the waters around the Dubai International Sailing Club (DIMC). His Moth still bears the scars from that high-speed encounter with the metal marker.
“It could have been pretty bad,” he admits. “I did a fair bit of damage.”
Moths cost around Dhs 70,000 to buy, but in addition to possessing bucket-loads of ‘cool factor’ (different types of Moths have different names including Bladerider and Prowler from Australia and Velociraptor, Aardvark and Mistress from the UK) Moth owners can customise their boats to suit their needs and style but under the rules are still able to race them.
Graham says the added dimensions involved in sailing one have seen the class take off all over the world.
Beyond drawn boundaries
“It is a developmental class,” he explains. “There are certain rules that you have to stick to but other than that, you can do what you want with your boat to make it go faster.
“For instance, I have made my boat ride higher than when it came from the factory and I have changed a few bits to make the response a bit faster.”
Graham, who works for Dubai-based marine hospitality company, ART Marine, when he is not tweaking his boat, has also lost weight in a bid to make him quicker on the water.
“I dropped a lot of body weight for the race, I went from 75 kg to 68 kg,” he says.
Organisers of the world championships expect around 100 Moths to compete for the trophy with entrants converging on Weymouth from all over the world.
So how well do newcomers to the class and UAE-based hopefuls Graham and Raphael think they can do in the decidedly cooler climes of the UK next month?
“We are getting to Weymouth early to have plenty of time to practise before the race,” says Graham. “There are some pretty experienced guys in the race and it will be hard. I would like to be the first guy over the line who hasn’t sailed in other Moth competitions before,” he stops and grins, glancing at Raphael who is busy readying his boat for the training session they are about to have. “That means I’ll have to beat Glenn.”
Both sailors are aiming for a top-15 place, which will be a remarkable achievement considering how new they are to the class.
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