Moth Worlds 2022: Title for Dylan Fletcher

Post to add pending pics by Matias Capizzano from last day. Dylan Fletcher won the 2022 Worlds, in spite of a small fleet it was not a walk in the park the British sailor. Add the tricky conditions from first 3 days to the challenge and it was a regatta that required patience along performance and plenty of races in light to midrange winds in the last 3 days.

Dylan had to fight local youth Machi Contessi, who has been training in BA and Mar del Plata, his home town. Machi is also campaining 49er with his brother. Dad Vito, who participated in the Moth Worlds is an avid fanatic, supporting his sons and local sailing, the Contessi owns a yard in Mar del Plata.

I couldn’t attend during the week to the regatta due to work, first days almost no activity either, but had the chance on Sunday to chat a bit with Machi and saw a kid with much future, specially on a calm down to earth attitude, this for a young kid with chances to win a Moth Worlds.
Not a massive fleet in BA, ok, although Fletcher, Bruni, Funk and others in the top ten gave deserved prestige for the title. And as organize our F18 back in 2016, is good to visit South Am to promote your Class World Wide.
Congrats to the local Arg Moth sailors for the effort: Franco Greggi, Mario Segers, Juan Correa, Vito Contessi among them.

Dylan got a deserved Title and Machi an excellent drive to plan ahead and target more international Moth regattas in Europe.

On the Moth Class we always joke as having “little wheels” on the wand system, but it’s just a bit of fun between Mono vs Cat thing.

The Moth is the Foiling machine by excellence.

Still you need to get your game together in 8-9knots, early liftoff and also foiling tack transitions. An aspect which adds equipment & skills requirements, same when the breeze starts building.

In terms of platforms the latest Bieker, Aerocet and Manta present in BA race in another category from any Mach 2 fleet. Similar to a 2020 D3 vs a 2015 Exploder with Z10. No compete.
The Exploder Moth looks good and had an excellent debut at Garda last year, but in BA only one was present and wasn’t in the top places. Further development was done from Garda, so next season races in Europe will show current performance status.

One thing to note from data above is that new platforms are not cheap, from 30 to 50k, seeing the transition from the Mach 2 fleet we expect the Class to downsize costs in the future as many competitive alternatives are available and the R&D to reach some kind of incremental progress, as one thing is to improve from a 2015 Mach 2 platform and other is to launch in 2023 a new Moth that can kill an Aerocet/Bieker/Manta just like that. An scenario we don’t think is possible in the short term.

A great Class no doubt, Moths will continue to lead foiling development.

More pics by Matias Capizzano here

Moth Worlds site mothworlds.org/argentina/