Saturday morning dawned and the sky was clear and it was very warm, it looked like we had a reprieve after all!
The pits were in the new Dolphin Quay marina complex off Poole Quay, which was great as it enabled us to have a pontoon to each boat. This is always much easier than the usual climbing across loads of boats to get to your own boat whilst balancing a helmet and lifejacket over one arm (one of these days I will lose my stuff over the side!).
The usual scrutineering was carried out and we had a briefing in the morning before the race start in the afternoon. As the day went on the wind dropped and we had perfect racing conditions.
Going out to the start we all travelled through Poole harbour and arrived at the muster area on time. Unfortunately, the start was delayed as the course was rearranged from the previous Pro Vee race.
There were about 40 boats all ready to go. The start at Poole is between the end of Bournemouth Pier and a Committee cruise boat. It’s quite narrow but normally we have a good run up and the boats are well distributed before they reach the start line. On this occasion things were different!
The sea was so slight that all the 2 litre boats, Open and Formula One RIBS were level with each other which meant that at least 20 boats were level as they headed towards the bottle neck. We got closer and closer and all the boats were closing in on each other. We were travelling inches away from the other boats all doing between 75-78 mph. It was a case of who dares wins which was interesting to say the least and I would say that the blood pressure must have been at the highest yet!! Mike kept warning me where the other boats were and I could swear that the boat must have breathed in to squeeze through the gaps!
Fortunately, our boat didn’t let us down and we held our line but we were all pretty bunched up. We continued like this on the first leg and all of us were jostling for position on the first few marks. I learnt how well the boat could turn and suddenly it felt like we were Go-Karting. It was fantastic fun as we all weaved in and out of each other but not so pleasant with spray everywhere restricting vision quite significantly. But hey, who wants to see where you’re going!
After the good start as we rounded one of the marks on the first lap the engine management system alarms started to go off again slowing the engines by putting them in default mode. Whilst this did not happen for too long it slowed us long enough to see our rival go into the distance, which was most frustrating. However this problem did not last too long and we continued to catch up on him lap by lap. Seeing him in the distance ensured that the foot was firmly on the throttle for most of the race!
Navigation was fairly easy although I did have an ‘interesting’ moment when Mike and I got our wires crossed. We were charging down the leg of the course near the end of the race going past Boscombe pier, when I just about shot past one of the marks on the wrong side (about 200 yards too wrong!). We suddenly realised and with Mike’s panicking voice ringing in my ears I launched the boat into one of the tightest turns I have ever done hoping we would not ‘hook’ and do a 180 turn! We just missed the back of a safety marker cruise boat (we would have come off worse!) and then got back on course but it was a bit of a hair-raising moment!
We continued along lapping various boats and hitting 80mph frequently, it was fantastic as the boat quite literally flew along. We came up to four 2 litre boats all sparring with each other, we just went straight through the middle of them on a turn… it felt great!
In the end we finished 2nd overall just 38 seconds behind the winner so the end result was great.