Is it a plane?   During a very rough race in Belgium, we turned a corner at full tilt going from a big beam sea, into a big head sea. The picture and video say it all! Needless to say we decided on a different cornering strategy after this spectacular airborne moment.     Click here to see video footage of this incident from both inside and outside the cockpit!

Children, Animals and Powerboat Racers!   If you think things always go right for powerboat racers, click on the links below to see some of the lighter moments from the German Grand Prix in Travemunde in 2007 (May take a couple of minutes to load): German team "Searex" not quite seeing eye to eye in the cockpit British team "Sunseeker Challenger" hook as seen from the onboard camera Chinese team "Sun Lik Beer" don't quite get the turning manoeuvre right!

5 Blades or 4?   A question that many racers ask themselves when choosing a new propeller for their boat. We found out first hand during the 2007 German Grand Prix what it feels like to lose a blade from a prop during a race. We were not sure if we hit something, of if this was simply metal fatigue. Whatever the cause of the breakage, we were still able to run the boat at 90% of it's normal speed despite the vibrations! No we will have to check everything in the drives and engines to ensure we haven't caused any further damage.

What Kill Cord? Great video from Manel Avella of him racing in an International Offshore race when he hooks the boat and throws out his navigator. Unfortunately his navigator was not wearing his kill cord, and so Manel having recovered, drives off completely unaware that his navigator is no longer in the boat! Click on picture to see movie: Windows Movie File (1Mbyte)

Losing your head! During the second race at Cowes this year, Chaudron managed a spectacular "stuff" in the rough seas. The boat disappeared under the water with such force that it ripped the helmets from Aaron and Audrien's heads. Unfortunately for them, one of the helmets was washed over the back of the boat, forcing them to retire. Thankfully neither was hurt. Click on the picture to watch the events unfold!

Sad End On Friday in Gallipoli during testing, Thuraya, the historic CUV with Lamborghini engines caught fire and was almost completely destroyed. Luckily Adriano Panatta and his crew all escaped safely. Despite the fact that the team have built a new boat for the Cowes race, Panatta is adamant the boat will be returned to it's former glory!

Testing Times! On the Sunday morning in Anzio, many of the teams went out again to test after repairing their boats from the extremely rough racing the day before. Unfortunately, whilst testing, Fainplast managed to turn over whilst negotiating the tight turn near to the harbour entrance. Luckily, Marco, Ernesto and Luigi all escaped safely and apart from the water damage to the engines and electrics, the structure of the boat and hull all appeared to be ok. We do not know yet if the boat will be repaired in time to race in Germany.

Ripped off! After winning our maiden race in Malta in the new Dragon Powerboat, we took the boat out of the water to be weighed only to discover we had used more that just fuel! One of the lifting strakes on the back step of the boat had been ripped off completely! We can only assume we hit something! Thanks to Charlie Ciantar and Noel Seychell for their help in getting the repairs done in time for the Sunday race.

Drowned Bat! At the recent national race in Fairlie, Scotland V24 boat "Bat out of Hell" managed to live up to it's name and turn through the lap gate too fast. The result was the wing digging into the water which resulted in the boat flipping over spectacularly. Thankfully Cliff Smith and Mark Bridges emerged wet but without injury, although the same can't be said for the boat.

Ouch - That had to hurt! Stuffing is probably one of the things that racers fear the most when travelling at speed, particularly 70+ mph as you can see in this clip. The boat, a Phantom 19 racing at Cowes in 2000 was driven by Ian Sanderson. Neither the boat or the crew were a pretty sight afterwards!   Click on picture see movie: Flash file (1Mbyte)

Up ... up and away in a Class 1 Boat! Some great coverage from both inside and outside the cockpit of a class one boat as Steve Curtis closes the door on his competition! Click on picture or to see movie:   Windows movie file (2.5Mbytes) Requires Windows Media Player

Taking a bath! Having run the whole season without the bow tank working, we finally got it fixed in time for Poole. Unfortunately it wasn't emptying quite as quickly as I had hoped, and as we rounded the Lightwave buoy and headed back towards Bournemouth Pier we took a bit of a bath! Hard to believe a 30ft RIB will stick its nose under (even if you do get it wrong!)

OOPS!!!!! At the recent national race in Exmouth, we had flat seas and no wind which resulted in very high speed racing. Unusually 4 boats turned over during the race. Thankfully all the crews emerged without injury, although their pride took a beating. Although three of the boats turned over because they entered a turn too fast and with too much trim, the boat above hit "something" under water on the start line resulting in the boat turning over. One of the hidden dangers of racing offshore!

Up Periscope! We often talk about how rough or not the races are that we compete in. The picture to the left was taken during our race at Ramsgate this year. As you can see, the V24 boat pictured has gone pretty much completely under water as it battled through the rough seas.  These were probably some of the roughest conditions we have encountered making both driving and navigating a real challenge. Racing at its best!! You can find more pictures at www.gingerpix.com of this race.

Have we finished? In our last national race of the season in Gibraltar, disaster struck as our batteries disintegrated resulting in the shut down of one of our engines. Luckily we had completed 70% of the course and so qualified for points in the race. However, in my haste to raise the retirement flag and get assistance from the safety boats to get off the racing line, I forgot to mention this to Jackie before disconnecting my comms! As you can imagine, when I raised the flag, the language coming from Jackie was somewhat blue until I was able to reassure her that we had completed 70% of the course. They say a picture paints 1,000 words! (See race reports)

Rubbing Off! At the Exmouth Grand Prix in July, the rough seas resulted in the Rub rail being literally ripped off the front on the boat. You can see in this picture that the rub rail has started to peel off backwards as we continued to race. It was an agonizing decision as to whether we stopped and removed it (losing our position in the race), or continued to race hoping it would not peel back any further! The decision was finally made for us when the whole thing weighing about 50Kg landed in Jackie’s lap! We ended up having to stop anyway, and cut the rub rail from the boat using the diver’s knives that luckily we carry for safety reasons. The morale of this incident was to cut it off as soon as possible, as the rub rail dragging in the water undoubtedly lost us speed anyway! (See race reports)