In the meantime I thought I take the time and show you some more details about the Assassin. The foils have been designed by Nick Holroyd who is involved with the Emirates Team New Zealand. The rudder is very radical in design with the vertical being aft the horizontal. My first one broke but after some reinforcements on the joint there haven’t been any complaints. The main foils jont is very unique as it connects on a wider area and features two screws. In addition the Assassin foils are a lot longer than the BRs.

The wand mechanism is very simple and direct. An axle runs over the bow and the pushrod is lying inside a channel to the center board. Here are some pics to explain all the bs I just wrote

Bladerider had lots of problems and decided to voluntarily wind up the company. It seems like many investors and suppliers lost large amounts in this process. In addition the bladerider.com.au website is down. The domain is owned by KA Sails and we will probably see Amac using it sometime in the future.

In the meantime Bladerider has been re-incorporated as Bladerider 2010 Ltd. This new company is probably going to sell the old boats they still have had in stock (with guarentee???). Unfortunately no information is available on this new entity – they don’t even have a website…

I am curious to find out more and to see what happens with BR till the worlds…

I am not sure if this website is trustworthy and if Bladerider is really bankrupt. I haven’t found any other evidence and the BR website doesn’t mention anything like this. However rumors that BR is in trouble have been circulating even before the 2009 worlds and you didn’t hear about many people ordering new Bladeriders.

Has anyone got more information?

PS.: Here is the link to the screenshot above

When I started it was a cold (but not too cold) sunny December day without any wind. First task was to unscrew the lid of the glass fibre travel box. Unfortunately the box was screwed with screws that had a square head. I knew of this in advance but couldn’t find one of those screwdrivers. Thus I had to unscrew everything with pliers. Then, finally, the box was open:

Now the happy unpacking started. I think I have never seen so much bubble wrap in one place After I had moved everything from inside the box to the outside I could finally start the assembly. Everything was marked and I didn’t use the manual much.

Next step was to get the wingbars and the tramps on and adding the rotating mast stump and the compression struts. After that I had to do a lot of rope work with the cunningham, vang and outhaul.

Unfortunately by now it already got really dark and it also started to snow. Thus I just left it as it was and put the cover on. Now I still need to go to the club again to put the foils together, attach the gantry and the wand. In addition I still have to do the minor tasks like tying the plugs to the centerboardcase so I don’t lose them (again), attaching the prodder and so on.

All in all I am happy that my Assassin is here and it is absolutely gorgeous. On the other hand I am mad as the lake started to freeze and I probably won’t be able to go sailing before March anyhow

After a long flight from Miami to Berlin over London I finally arrived in Berlin Tegel at 4pm. Lufthansa had informed me at 3am in the morning Miami time that my Assassin had arrived the day earlier. Thus I asked Lukas to pick me and the boat up to the airport and then bring it down to VSaW. After quite some time clearing customs and getting the paperwork done a forklifter delivered the box:

Unfortunately it was already dark so we just unloaded the box and left it at the Club.

On the one hand I am really excited to go down to the sailing club tomorrow and rigg the boat up. On the other hand I am upset, as my boat arrived 5 month late and now the weather forecast shows a snowstorm for the weekend and the water has 2°C. In addition it also gets dark at 4:15h.

I will keep you updated…

The next event was the regatta at the Schlei that Fred organized (after I pushed him to do so). You can find an article about it on Fred’s blog.  Unfortunately I received a call on Thursday that our dog had to be put to sleep. As my parents were not there I drove down to Olpe to take over this task. After 14 years of a good life it was time to say goodbye to Kaja. Here is a picture of her and me I just found again:

Thus I missed the last regatta of the season. It is time for winter now which means lots of wind and hopefully no ice on the water.

The other notable thing that could have happened is the delivery of my Assassin. Unfortunately that didn’t take place yet either. I expected the boat on time for Garda in the middle of September. Since then I have gotten numerous delivery dates but still the boat hasn’t been shipped.

As there is basically no communication going on I can just guess when the boat will arrive. Maybe I can put it under the tree for Christmas (2010?). The guys who know me are aware of my level of patience – it doesn’t exist. I feel reminded of the old Bladerider days when customers waited for 12 month for their boats

If you want some advice: if you are impatient get a Mach2, if you want to have a great boat that is very innovative and state of the art wait for an Assassin (maybe bridge the time till the Assassin arrives with a Mach2 !?)

Fortunately I stuck to the advice Adam May has given me in Kiel 2008:

With boats is the same as it is with women: never get rid of the old one until the new one is ready. I haven’t put my BR on the market yet and that makes waiting just a tiny bit easier.

My first thought when I got the package was that Holly must enjoy packing things up. The rudder was packaged very artistically like you can see here:

Like you can see the Holroyd rudder is actually one piece and it looks amazing. Devin already had a chance to sail with his as his was probably not delivered by BA. Here is what he thinks about it:
“6-8 knot of wind.  The rudder is amazing and so much stiffer the first jib I almost tossed myself off the boat. It takes about half the rudder movement.  I had a 18.3 ten second average and 19 knot top speed in maybe 8 knot of wind max.  It was light enough that I had trouble getting up on the foils, but was ripping once I was up. …  So I was ripping along at 18 knots with a 1 meter roster tail going behind the boat.  The rudder really is perfect.  Plus the work I did on the
main foil and control system, the  boat feels like a completely different boat. Looking forward to trying to tomorrow in some more breeze.  Nothing broke so I am really happy with how everything feels on the boat at the moment.”

I am packing up for Garda and cannot wait to try the new rudder there…

In addition to the new rudder something else happened: I picked up the new shirts I made to promote the Assassin and foilermoth.com. They were printed using screenprint and are really high quality. Here are a couple pictures of it:

Here you can see Cassian (our awesome designer who deserves all credit for studdex and foilermoth) trying on the first shirt:

If you want to have a shirt for yourself they cost € 25 (+ shipping when you don’t live in Germany). Just email me to felix@foilermoth.com

Anyhow, here are the pics:

I think the transom is really interesting as Harald has chosen a narrow design again like we have seen on many boats before the foilers came along. However it is not as radical as the Mistress was…