So on the Friday afternoon we both took the afternoon off work and towed the boat down to Torquay, not easy when you consider the whole rig is about 35 feet long!
Saturday morning was bright and breezy, this is the day where scrutineering takes place to ensure that your boat conforms to race regulations and ensures that you carry all the safety gear necessary from a VHF radio, to flares, an anchor etc. If you do not have the right equipment and certificates you are disqualified.
Mike also had the added pressure of taking a test to ensure that he was going to be a competent Co-Driver. This test has to be passed before you can have a race licence. As I expected, he passed this with flying colours!
Once this is all completed you are then allowed to spend the afternoon testing if you want, on a prelaid practice course. As it was Mike’s first race and first time navigating a boat in a race we decided to take the boat out so that he could get some bearings.
Although the wind was a bit brisk neither us nor the other teams anticipated the sea conditions! There were many holes out there and the occasional 8 foot roller which had us on the edge of our seats! Mike had a few problems with his visor misting up, and then the engines decided to stall! So after a very short time we decided to come in rather than risk any damage before the race the next day. I think we were all secretly hoping the conditions would improve before the next day as well!
So Sunday dawned and we both woke up at 6am, I was SO nervous. Everyone was watching both ours and Stuart Anthony’s boats and performances and we were all driving new boats, no one knew what to expect and the inevitable rumours were going around the pits as to whose boat would be the fastest! To add to this the boat builder, Mark Pascoe was also there and obviously wanted us to do well so the pressure was on.
Fortunately, the weather was being kind that day and the wind was only a Force 4. In the Torbay area itself the sea was great with a bit of chop but the longer legs over to Teignmouth (9 miles in length) were to be a bit rougher (read on!).
So at 2pm we were off to the muster area for a 2.30pm start, as soon as we were in the boat neither of us could wait, we were both sooo excited! At 2.34pm the yellow flag lowered the green flag went up and off we went, a fleet of 35 boats.
Wow, what a fantastic start, we were past all the fast 2 litre boats and level with the 4 litre batboats leaving everyone else in our wake literally!!!! It was so exhilarating and the engines just howled as they worked their hardest yet!
We got to the first turn where my lack of experience and a bit of ‘rustiness’ made me take the turn badly which gave Stuart Anthony the edge he needed to take us, but foot down hard we were off again on the longest lap of the course up to Teignmouth. Here we encountered the worst of the sea but the boat was phenomenal and absolutely nothing was stopping us, we were now once again level with Stuart and just behind the 4 litre batboats. Then unfortunately our first disaster struck.
We hit a big wave hard and suddenly the starboard engine had no power and was making a horrible grinding noise and was revving very hard….what the hell was wrong. I have to admit there was a lot of swearing going on. I went through a checklist in my head, stopped the engines and there we were bobbing about while boats passed us by, furiously trying to establish what was wrong. Then suddenly I realized, the gear lever had slipped down into neutral this meant that the engine was in neutral, hence the high revs but no power! So I shoved it back into forward gear and off we went, having lost about 5 minutes of very valuable time….I was furious!!!!!
So at this point the ‘red mist’ was set in and I thrashed the boat to its current limits, unfortunately in rough seas this is not a good idea and a few minutes later the next disaster struck. We hit several waves very hard and went skyward, there was then a loud bang and the boat lurched violently on one side then over to the other. I nearly came out of the console and thought I’d lost Mike (who was hanging in there!), then a piece of the boat came flying past my head. We slowed briefly although Mike encouragingly screamed at me to get going so we did but I knew something wasn’t right.
We carried on for 1 hour and 40 minutes and the boat was going so well I have never enjoyed myself so much in a race and driven so hard over some fairly big waves. Unfortunately the GPS system which helps us with navigation and gives us speed, let us know we were down on speed by about 15mph. Even on the wonderful flat legs where we could go flat out we were only reaching 70mph and we had no idea why. Even with this loss of speed however, we were cruising past 2 litre boats, and other class boats and for 2 laps had a wonderful cat and mouse fight with one of the RIBs from the Open class. We didn’t get overtaken by one boat and with Mike’s fantastic navigation no one was stopping us!
So we finally came in second. We were absolutely thrilled with this result and the way the boat had handled the different sea conditions, however we were disappointed by the loss of speed.
We drove back to the pits and wow were we tired! My right leg was aching like never before where I had had my foot firmly to floor on the throttle. My arms were shaking from the effort of driving such as powerful boat for such a period of time and Mike’s legs had gone to jelly where he had firmly wedged himself in using his foot rest!
We finally craned the boat out of the water and surveyed the damage. The front hatch from the front of the console had broken away leaving my legs and the steering exposed and must have produced a lot of drag where the wind was being funnelled into the front of the console, so this was a small reason for the lack of speed. However the main reason for our dramatic lack of speed then became very apparent. An anode (a 12 inch piece of metal alloy) had snapped away from the bottom of one of the outboards and smashed into both the propellers badly damaging one of them. It was a wonder we could control the boat never mind keep it going at a decent speed. The team was all very relieved that there was an answer to the speed loss!
The boat is now in for repairs and will be fixed before our race in Poole this coming weekend. In summary, Mike excelled himself and surprised everyone by navigating like someone who has been doing it all their lives’. We were thrilled with the performance of the boat despite the damage it encountered and our confidence is now very high.
Based on the performance at the beginning of the race, we will be a force to be reckoned with and very much looking forward to the next race!!