Ratickle
Founding Member / Super Moderator
Awesome sequence....
Headlines
Cowes-Torquay Race 2012
- Thread starter Ratickle
- Start date
Awesome sequence....
Cookee
Charter Member, Competitor
I was the Throttleman in Team E-Lites BananaShark and got to the turn in 4th place overall with a total of 520 hp (twin 260 Yanmars) which show you don't need big HP to do well in big seas! We lost a blade off a prop not long after and did the second half of the race at 30 mph but we still finished! Longer story when I have more time ..............
Anchored
New member
Attachments
Ben
New member
A couple of videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71xk22zSyHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mITYTlIP0lw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71xk22zSyHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mITYTlIP0lw
Last edited by a moderator:
will smith phantom
New member
FLYING FISH
New member
CTC
Conditions for the race were described as moderate seas.The previous 2 years were even rougher.The attached pic shows a 40ft Fountain during the 2010 race in a tasty following sea.
A good 15ft wave height maybe!!!!
Only once has this race not run,and that was when a full gale was forecast.
Conditions for the race were described as moderate seas.The previous 2 years were even rougher.The attached pic shows a 40ft Fountain during the 2010 race in a tasty following sea.
A good 15ft wave height maybe!!!!
Only once has this race not run,and that was when a full gale was forecast.
Attachments
Cookee
Charter Member, Competitor
That must be around the first mark called "Two Buoys", they are there to protect that little fella from being run over apparently. Looks quite sinister doesn't it?
Anchored
New member
Attachments
Now there's a name that could cause some chatter!
Same guy that owns the Quad-FPT-diesel OL 52.
Cookee
Charter Member, Competitor
Here you go ................
What a weekend!
A big thanks to everyone involved whether in or out of the boat.
The weekend went quite smoothly (remind me never to drink red wine in the Duke of York ever again), the customary weather briefing at the pits on the morning of the race told us that it wasn’t going to be too bad and the western end of the course may even be flat!
The convoy to the muster area was painfully slow at times but we made it out of the Solent without getting tangled up with the many spectator boats littering the way up there not to mention the yacht race that we caught up near Hurst Castle!
We had a good start on the outside of the start line and had a short fight with Swipewipes and My Pleasure but the sea was quite big and it was a long way to go so we kept up a steady pace until we were clear of Portland and we could get into some slightly better water. Unfortunately for Swipewipes they had picked up some poor fuel, so we will never know if our tactic of heading more northerly rather than directly across Lyme Bay would have seen us overtake them, but we were flying and saw speeds of 68 mph before turning in fourth place overall and first in class at Teignmouth. Before we could get to the Exmouth mark and start our run for Cowes Hercules Sagemann came past us – no surprise as they were an A class boat with massive twin petrol engines totalling 1850 hp, the mystery is why were they behind us to start with, the answer of course is they had inferior navigation skills!
After less than five miles we were forced to slow down due to a massive vibration which turned out to be a loss of one of the blades of one of the propellers, unfortunate as we were definitely not only in a great position for the class win but also first diesel boat home and a place in the top five overall – a spectacular performance for a boat in the smallest class! We were limited to just over 30mph for the return trip across Lyme Bay and back up to Cowes so we started the long haul back to the finish, whilst underway we received a text message from our ground crew (thanks Dave!) to say that our competition for the class win had pulled into Weymouth and another boat in our class was going in the same direction at just 5 knots – we could still do well if we kept our speed up high enough to be qualified as a finisher! It goes without saying that the mood in the boat was lifted as things were looking very rosy indeed. It only seemed like ten minutes had passed when we had another text saying that the boat that had pulled into Weymouth (Gordon in My Pleasure) had rejoined the race and was going flat out, this of course meant that we might not win our class but we still had hope – as it turned out Gordon had only topped up with fuel so his only issue was a high fuel consumption although we only found that out later. We eventually crossed the finish line in just under 5 hours just 11 minutes behind the class winner. Apart from the medals for each of the crew we were surprised and very honoured by being awarded the John Mace Perpetual Challenge Award for design which was received by John on behalf of the design team of the brilliant BananaShark Stirling. A very difficult and emotional race but the result we can take away from the weekend is improved performance and a bright future for the crew and the boat.
Bring on 2013 and the Cowes to Monte Carlo Venture Cup!
The part of the prop embedded in the back of the boat!
Similar threads
