North American Musto Performance Skiff Championship and training, to be held in conjunction with the Swift Solo North Americans at Fort Desoto State Park in St. Petersberg Florida, April 12 – 20, 2008. The beautiful waters of Tampa Bay will play host to the largest concentration of single handed skiffs in North America to date. This is a lovely venue, with a great white sand beach for launching. Events include 4 days of training beforehand, as well as the regatta, numerous bbqs and dinners, and for the first time, we are featuring the match everyone has been waiting for, determining once and for all who is the fastest. Swift Solo and Musto Skiff sailors on bicycles on the lay day! So far we have 7 confirmed Mustos attending. Let’s try to make it 10! This will be the largest gathering of singlehanded skiffs seen to date in North America. I may have a (very) limited number of charter boats available for people who cannot bring their own. Contact Ron for more info >>>

5 Weekends of Elite Skiff training at Rutland by Tom Wright The musto skiff training has taken place for the past five weekends. Each weekend brought something different as we had wind conditions from 5knots to 30knots. The training brought all different ability skiff sailors. Over the past five weekends b14 and rs700 also attended.Each weekend involved different training exercises that had been cleverly design with a lot of time and thought by Richard and Kit. The exercise was then discussed with the race officers and mark layers. The exercises went from basic start routines with a quick race and a hook finish, to a compacted course with several gates to pass through up and down wind. The exercises brought great training, as many techniques were practices. There was all different types of starting exercise which focused on one major skill like holding station for 3 minutes, winning the flag, winning the committee boat and improving boat acceleration. Another greatly designed course was the river race. This practiced tacking and gybing but also great tactics to attack and defend against other boat. However most sailors struggled to find the river on a lake! The best of all was the downwind blast! More >>>

Dont miss the excellent top tips sheet from the event >>>

Happy New Year As it is new year it's also time to renew your membership of the MPSCA and order your T shirt Join/Renew Now >>>

2008 Class T Shirt Find out more & have your say here >>>

Musto Skiff DVD by World Champion - Richard Stenhouse - K16 taking control Olympian Richard Stenhouse presents K16 taking control The Musto Performance Skiff is a single handed, high performance sailing boat, with trapeze, main and kite, without the right techniques helming can be a bit of a handful. Richard shows how to bring the beast under control, so you don’t have to learn the hard way. Featuring all the boat handling skills he used to win the ISAF Musto Skiff world championships. Find Out More >>>

Skiff Training and Racing @ Rutland SC 16 skiffs arrived at Rutland for the fist of 5 weekends of training organised by Kit (MPS Inland Champion) and Richard (MPS World Champion) Stenhouse. Open to all Skiff sailors, visitors had travelled from as far as Lymington and Chester. More >>>

2007 Musto Skiff Survey - Supported by Ovington Boats
The 2007 MPS Survey is now closed and the results indicate that we have a great future ahead. Below are some key points from the survey, with a link to the full results at the bottom;

- 57% of the people who took the survey don't currently own a Musto Skiff
- 95 respondents who don't own a Musto Skiff plan to join the fleet in the next 12 months
- 0 is the number of the current owners are planning to leave the fleet
- The key events in 2008 (Worlds & UK Nationals) look set to have great turnouts - estimate over 70 boats
- There are a good spread of ages in the fleet
- The 70 - 90kgs range represents 78% of owners

To find out more view the full results >>>

Musto Skiff is now an ISAF International Class The MPSCA are delighted to announce that at the recent ISAF meeting in Portugal the Musto Skiff class has been upgraded to a full International ISAF class. Below is a snippet from the ISAF website. The Council approved two new member nations, Kyrgyzstan and Oman, increasing the number of ISAF MNAs to 125. The number of ISAF Classes has also increased. The Musto Skiff had its status upgraded from Recognized to an ISAF International Class. The RS Tera, O’pen Bic Sport, Ultimate 20, Laser SB3 and TP52 all become ISAF Recognized Classes. More >>>

2008 Worlds Website Up! With true Swiss efficacy the information for the 2008 worlds is now available. The worlds website is now up with lots of information for you to start planning your championships. This is a fantastic venue; don't miss this chance to sail in one of the most sought after European venues.
Read more >>>

Mast Head Floats - A cheap aid to training I used a mast top float for the first six months of sailing a skiff. I moved into the skiff from an RS400 having trapezed about 6 times before buying the boat. I had visited menorca sailing before and seen the floats that they used and felt that this may be a good idea to save myself and the boat from too much damage. I made myself a much smaller float than that used by the sailing schools. I used the smallest buoyancy bag I could find and made a webbing strap handle to attach it to the main halyard shackle. This was still a bit bigger than necessary but worked well. More >>>

The perfect Tactical xmas present for you Personally signed by the author RYA Tactics by Mark Rushall sheds a new light on the complexities of sailboat racing. No other sport requires the combination of so many elements – preparation, strategy, speed, tuning and most importantly tactics. However, it’s good tactics which can so often be that elusive missing skill. More >>>

Musto Skiff Inland Championships Although ‘windguru’ put off some, 20 boats turned up to contest the Musto Skiff Inlands, including 2 current World Champions and 1 National Champion, none of whom could win a race. Saturday’s racing started in a variable and patchy F2 breeze. Dan Vincent and Tim Chapman banged left, were first around the mark and stretched away in a private puff, although Chapman was later caught by the pack, Vincent stayed out in front to record a win, in front of Graeme Oliver. The Race Officer, Peter Saxton, did an excellent job and quickly turned around the racing for the Mustos, B14s, 49ers and Int 14s. Soon we were lining up for a second start, but this time joined by Nick Craig sailing his Musto for the very first time. Ominously for the fleet, he achieved all his goals in the first race by ... read more >>>

The Musto Skiff Learning Curve There can be very few people who step in a Musto Skiff , or any other singlehanded skiff, for the first time and find it easy. High performance dinghies are designed for speed and tend towards the unstable and overpowered corner of the dinghy design envelope. They are not easy. In order to race them or to even to really enjoy them most people will have first have to learn how to sail them. As long as new owners realise this and manage their expectations accordingly then learning to sail them will be a fantastically rewarding experience. Read more >>>

Life Member #3 Paul Manning has been elected through a 100% vote by the MPSCA Committee as a Life Member of the MPSCA in recognition of his contribution to the class. Paul's day to day involvement in the class/business has changed as a result of the sale of the project by Victor Boats to Ovington Boats and this seems a good time to recognise his contribution. Paul has worked tirelessly for the class and it members often going beyond the call of what many would think as reasonable. Read more >>>

Musto Skiffers at the Endeavour Trophy “Legendary Firefly sailor, Team racing star and Musto Performance Skiff owner Steve Tylecote has won the Endeavour Trophy at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club this weekend. Sailing with Toby Lewis, Steve has, after a number of attempts, won the UK’s most prestigious dinghy racing Trophy. The Endeavour Trophy is the champion of champion’s regatta awarded annually for the winner of a weekend event made up of invited class National or World Champion’s from the UK. It has been raced for 47 consecutive years, and the first winner was a young Keith Musto representing the Cadet class.Read more >>>

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