Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Lepidoptera Aquatica




Shots by Thierry Martinez of Rohan Veal sailing the Bladerider X8 International Moth.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful shots. Wow

Anonymous said...

I think the correct genus and species would be the Australian Ichneumenoptera chrysophanes, (subspecies litoralis, of course). Ichneumenoptera chrysophanes is in the family Sesiidae or "clearwing moths".

Mallard said...

Amazing photos! That would just be... mind-boggling... to be on when it gets up and starts flying!!! Thanx!

Anonymous said...

I've raced in mixed fleets with these things on the water. They have truely taken sailing to a new level (literally). Their combination of silence and speed make them a gracful and elegant craft.

The only problem is when they tack, plop back into the water, stop, and slowly build up speed to foil again. As a response to this the top guys are developing the "Gack" - a gybe upwind that allows them to maintain the foiling. This same technique was employed by the old square rigged ships that James Cook used to discover Australia and much more. Really a case of the old meeting the new.

RS

Tillerman said...

Thanks rock steady. I've never seen a foiler moth in real life -- only via videos and photos on the Internet. I wrote here some while ago about the upwind gybe - actually it was an answer to a quiz I set and several readers came up with reasons why other classes of boats occasionally gybe while sailing upwind.

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