Saturday dawned and we were welcomed with a fine sunny day and very calm waters, the boats were scrutineered and all was well and we spent most of the day relaxing and watching the days events. These events proved very entertaining when the organizers completely mucked up a ‘fun’ race and caused 30 boats to tear down the Estuary at 60mph (there was a 10pmh speed limit in force!) accompanied by jet skiers and pleasure boats all out for a relaxing day in the sun. Fascinating to watch but on a serious note could have caused a nasty accident. The “dash for cash” organized lost its “dash”, and the boat did a rolling start in the sea rather than starting with the drivers running down the beach! We should have known then!
Sunday dawned rather differently with dull overcast skies and an increasing wind…ummmmm same old story. Our briefing was at 9am where changes to the course were given out and discussed. If the wind was to get up the very long ‘A’ and ‘B’ laps would be removed and the course shortened. As it was, errors in the course had been made and we were advised of these and asked to come back for a 1pm briefing at which only one member of the team was requested to be there. This would confirm the final course…not helpful when the race starts at 2pm!
The boat was launched by crane as usual and we moored up and went back to the pits to relax. For some reason that day we were both nervous. Mike left me in the car to ‘chill’ whilst he went to the second briefing of the day and low and behold, the course had changed. The reason given was a lack of safety boats to cover the longest laps. I think they were testing our nerve! So the course was once again changed. Unbeknown to me at the time, the course was changed completely and not only had laps been taken out, buoys added and taken away but the course was also running the reverse way. First, lesson of the season…always attend any briefing whether you have to or not!
So off we all went to the start, Force 4-5 blowing and the sea becoming very interesting! Unfortunately the course had changed so many times everyone had got confused and there were suddenly two muster areas………….clue….only one was right! Fortunately we were right but a lot of the fleet wasn’t and a humorous 20 minutes was spent trying to get people in the right area. Then as we sat waiting just before the start I asked Mike to fill the bow tank to add ballast as I thought we were going towards Torquay and therefore in a big head on sea. He obeyed (he does that occasionally) and duly filled the bow tank. I then asked him what to head for; at which time pointed out that I was pointing in the wrong direction… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…. Panic set in and I just managed to turn the boat around before we started, completely forgetting that the bow tank was full and we were about to hit a big following sea (like a surf and no place for a full bow tank!).
So the yellow flag was finally raised, then the green and we were off. I suddenly realized the bow tank was full and shouted at Mike to empty it before we did a massive submarine into a big wave but this made us have a bad start and for a change we were behind the 4 litre batboats and our arch rival for the first time this season.
The sea was pretty big some waves 8-9 feet high and the boat was all over the place. Other boats were flying all over the place and frequently boats were vertical. Even the big 4 litre batboats were struggling and we were only managing speeds of about 60-65mph.
Unfortunately, after about a mile we managed to stuff the nose and the first of our problems hit, the rubber rub rail (designed to protect the boat when mooring) started to come off. I could see it flapping about but ignored it.
We then had a few more ‘airborne’ moments along with the others but we managed to keep our place in the race but things started to get worse. We then took a sharp bend at the bottom of the first lap and turned into some vicious head on sea. Even in a boat our size, there were moments when those waves looked awfully big and solid!
Some of the time I just wonder how high we were out of the water! It felt as though your spines were about to go through our heads every time we landed. All you could hear was ouch…ahh….ouch. Unfortunately it was also very windy and I often couldn’t hear Mike clearly on the intercom and we had a few panicky moments when I had absolutely no idea where we should be going and could just here Mike shouting in the back…stressful…I was in fact thinking I should be at home watching the omnibus edition of East Enders at this moment. I have to be desperate to think that!
We started the second lap and were starting to settle down although the boat was not pulling out of the waves well, in hindsight we should have used our rough weather props as these were just not ‘punchy’ enough and we were struggling to keep up with the leaders which proved incredibly frustrating.
Then the fun started, the rub rail slowly started to remove itself inch by inch then foot by foot. It then suddenly flew up, hitting me in the face (nice little back eye!) then wrapping it self around my waist. Mike shouted at me asking me if I needed to stop but hey….we’re racing you don’t stop in race! He agreed and we carried on for a few more seconds with the rub rail on my lap. Then it must have come off some more and suddenly dragged in the water, for all of a sudden this amazing weight was crushing my stomach and ribs…..OK, so we stopped at this point having gone through a moment of panic. Mike, thinking very quickly leapt out and tried to rip it off but it was just too heavy. We discovered how useful safety gear is on a boat! We always carry hefty diver’s knives on our lifejackets and fortunately Mike grabbed his and cut the rub rail off which finally released me. But not before two boats had overtaken us…..
So Mike clambered back into his seat and off we went, the adrenalin really going now as we tried to catch the others. However, with all the excitement we made a terrible mistake. We caught the other RIB’s who had overtaken us earlier and came to one of the altered marks, they for some reason had decided to pass to the right of a mark which we had been passing on the left. A moment of hesitation and we did what we always said we would never do, follow the other boats.
So to cut a long story short, we continued for just over one hour, hammering along in very rough seas, pummeling our bodies to pieces and quite frankly having a few moments which caused me to comment loudly. We got back to the pits to find we had been disqualified for going the wrong side of a mark. Very annoying since the organizers had changed the marks so many times.
Poor Mike was gutted but we were not the only ones to do this which held some comfort. Not only that but 11 boats did not even finish the race so even though we were disqualified, we did finish second and we finished in a very tough race and gained a load more experience. Now we just have to make sure we never do that again!!