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The Belgian Grand Prix

8th September to 9th September 2007

Belgian Grand Prix - Race 1

Having never been to Zeebrugge but heard a lot about the conditions there, we were looking forward to some rough and challenging racing. We should be careful what we wish for in the future!

It started out very grey in Zeebrugge, the sea was grey, the sky grey and it all seemed a bit miserable. However, the Belgians really pulled out the stops for us and their professionalism and friendliness made up for the weather! Testing on Friday took the form of a quick whiz out on the course, getting fuel and whizzing back. It was pretty rough and we did not want to break anything just before the race!

With the conditions potentially staying the same we set the boat up for rough weather the following day. Again we tested in the morning to try a bit more of the set up, and again it was rough. It was with some nervousness we went to the start expecting the worse, only to find that the conditions had flattened out a fair bit, very lumpy on the North of course, furthest out, but better by the pier inshore.

Now that the starts are separate from Evolution it’s so much better. You have a chance to get a good line and it’s a pleasure to actually see where you’re going for a change! (ummm, no brakes, no visibility, 20 big boats all around…we must be mad!)

We waited for the Evolution class to start then it was our turn. For a change the startboat shot off quickly and I could not catch up! I was panicking as suddenly the green flag was up and we were behind. Fortunately, the outer leg was hard work, perhaps 6 feet in places and tricky to read which we excel in. As we got our speed up we took the gap between Roscioli Hotels and Buzzi Bullet and sped past, the boat behaving well.

We were in the lead. We had a long run to the first mark (F). We were going well until I got the turn totally wrong and ended up hurtling across the spectator fleet with Mike screaming at me to go LEFT LEFT LEFT!! Oops, I was not popular!

We were now increasing our lead but it was hard going. From ‘F’ we went towards the shore in a fairly lumpy following (surf) sea, which was great fun, the boat travelling well and hitting some good speeds. We took a great turn at the ‘G-G1’ turn gate and raced through the lap gate. Here the leg looked flat but was a bit beamy (waves hitting the side of the boat), we lurched from side to side a few times but nothing horrendous.

Taking the next turn worked well, a nice sweeping turn at maximum speed at ‘B’ helped us gain more ground on the pursuing boats.

I looked behind me and saw that whilst Roscioli was not that close, he was pushing us hard, one wrong turn, one moment of backing off too much and they would be there. We took the chicane for the first time which was great, better than it looked and we swept around the turns in the big swell really well. So now I had a good idea of the course, tricky on the northern side with some big old holes which could catch you out but fast nonetheless.

Several more laps went by, Roscioli there but not catching us. It’s so hard when you are in the lead. The pressure’s on and there’s no room for error…..well I thought so!

The ‘F’ turn kept on catching me out, I could not turn it well, we kept lurching hard to the left a couple of times really landing heavily and losing far too much speed. Each bad turn must have cost us time. I just leant on the throttles to get going again to make up for it.

After a few more OK laps we were heading towards the now infamous mark ‘F’ and, as we approached the mark, about half a mile out I shouted at Mike ‘where are the buoys I cannot see them’ (or words to that effect!). The next sentence scared the hell out of me ‘I don’t know I cannot see them!’. The grey sea and grey sky and sizeable sea conditions with small buoys meant it was hard to see them. We were desperately trying to pick them out from the “grey out” of the water and sky. That distance between us and Riscioli was going to reduce somewhat…where the hell were the marks! Suddenly Mike yelled at me ‘RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT’ and there they were about 50 yards to the right of us. I turned hard to right (which in that size sea was not a mean feat!) we lurched over hard (oops) and headed towards them. All the time on my mind…..Roscioli must be there catching us.

In a rush to make up for the mistake, I got a good turn and once again we were on track. As the boat lightened up as the fuel was being used she was becoming a bit of a handful, and each mistake, was painful. The beam sea is one of the hardest to drive in and I was feeling it. Concentration was hard too, when a race is intense it drains you and a couple of times I lost concentration and got the boat seriously out a shape! ‘For goodness sake sort it out’ I kept telling myself, ‘Roscioli will be there and then its going to be harder’. I looked across at Mike’s lap counters, one more lap to go, thank goodness! I backed off a little saving the boat, we were ahead enough to have a slight break. We sped through the finish but there was no chequered flag…where was it?

With the new format of the parade lap first, Mike had inadvertently counted this as a race lap incorrectly. We did not know this at the time but we’ve learnt over the years that you do not stop unless you can see the flag.

We carried on, much slower…who was wrong? Us or P1? We looked behind, were we being followed still, it was not easy to tell. I slowed and slowed and we had a quick discussion and decided we would just do one more lap in case. Thank goodness we did! After half a lap Mike yelled quick we’ve got it wrong and Roscioli’s catching us again! My heart fell like a stone, I was demob happy and now had to get into race mode again! Foot hard down I drove as hard as I could, Mike focussing hard on getting our lines right to minimise the course and get best advantage. It worked and we sped to the end in style to finally take that chequered flag!

I could not believe that we had won again, we were on a roll but it had been hard. The outer leg had thrown us about a lot and driving hard in seas you would rather take easy was hard on the three of us (boat included!). But we survived and with another win under our belts things were definitely looking up!

Belgian Grand Prix - Race 2

Sunday dawned grey again, our hotel looked over the course and we woke to huge seas and big white horses….a force 6-7 northerly in the North Sea, this could be our most challenging yet. We went to get fuel again, wow was it rough! Huge 4-5 metre seas which were really steep and solid. Not nice, and for the first time I can say I really was not looking forward to racing. One particularly memorable moment was when we came gently off a wave (at just 40mph!) we seemed to just fall for ages before we hit the bottom of a trough, I have NEVER fallen in such a deep hole in all our years racing. I was very nervous….

On the way back to the pits we came across Buzzi Bullet who’d gone out to have a look, we ran alongside him keeping ourselves company. When we got back to the pits we’d both seen each of us literally disappear in the enormous waves. This was going to be a challenge.

P1 sensibly erred on the side of caution; What’s the point of breaking the boats so close to the championship finale? They needed a race in Belgium and damage or worse to an entire fleet would have been a disaster. Safety wise, in those seas you could never have recovered someone from the water so a storm course was drawn up consisting of a smaller course with 8 laps and avoiding the worse of the conditions. We did our parade lap and it was OK. Big swells with waves on top and some big white horses made you focus hard.

We were mulling over in our heads how to run this. In theory rough is our favourite and what we excel in but this was a big beam sea with some enormous holes and I would go so far to say the most challenging yet. Not only that but choosing a strategy was key. If we went for an all out win we could end up not finishing, it was that dangerous, but we wanted more points to increase our lead relieving pressure for Portugal….what were we to do?

Off we went, green flag, foot down. Again an excellent start, but what was interesting is no one committed to the conditions. The fleet were being very cautious and sensibly weighing up the waves and getting into that all important rhythm, crucial to keep the boat together.

Eventually, we squeezed our way into the lead, not wittingly really and there was VoomVoom right there alongside us, SunLik Beer, and Buzzi Bullet almost level with us and Roscioli marginally behind with Sunseeker. What to do? Do I push early on for a lead or just go with the flow and save the boat….we chose the latter and thank goodness we did.

The leg to ‘F’ was hard and the waves were hitting the boat hard on its side, it was literally like hitting rocks. We lurched from side to side and were landing hard on the side of the boat. I was just hoping we would land the right side up! All the time we were smashing our heads on the side of the boat and I kept smashing my ribs against the side of the seat such was the sheer force of the impacts we were taking. We have some very interesting bruises!

We came to the dreaded ‘F’ mark and cautiously took the turn, hit a big wave on the side and yep, we were skyward again! We hadn’t even completed a lap yet and were beaten up! I was trimming the drives as fast as possible to get the bow up and out of the waves. In that size following (surf) sea you could bury the nose very quickly and submarine or bow steer badly losing control of the boat which when you are racing that close to your competitors is not a good thing.

We shot down towards the shore and Voom Voom was alongside us pushing very hard. Jeese this was going to be really hard! As we turned the mark and headed towards the pier along the shore I turned and there behind us were all the boats, we had all kept together, this was real racing in true offshore conditions, it was going to be merciless!

As we headed towards Mark ‘B’ the sea started to get large again and we were hitting hard. Every smash beat us up, first our heads then our bodies.

We got a few boat lengths ahead of Voom Voom but not much. I came up to the turn and tried to take it fast and wide, here you were turning against the sea into a big 3-4 metre head sea. No matter how hard I tried I could not keep the hull in the water and we lurched high on our side. Whack, another blow to the boat and us. I looked across to Voom Voom and they had done the same, they rocketed into the air and must have been ten feet in the air at least. I could not believe how hard this was going to be. Again I looked behind and although the others were starting to drop behind, Buzzi Bullet was now catching us both.

Normally, in these conditions we run our own race, we usually get in front and then take it easy. In fact normally the rough conditions create big gaps between the boats and it’s the case of survival of the fittest. Rarely do you get a true ‘race’ in seas like this with close tactical racing.

One of the main reasons is that the boats, despite their size and weight, fly incredibly high in those seas and it is very easy to ‘t-bone’ i.e. land on top of another boat which can cause serious injury or worse. You then worry about submarining in those big seas and finally if that’s not enough, there’s a chance that, if you get it completely wrong you can also overturn. But you have to put all this to the back of your mind, you are racing and if you don’t get over the fear factor you just won’t win. That’s the hard bit!

So on we drove on, I was giving myself a load of grief, I could not lose either Buzzi Bullet or Voom Voom, I knew if I really drove hard I could get them, but would we survive? To win you have to finish. We did not need to beat Voom Voom, just Roscioli who was way behind, was it worth smashing up the boat for a few extra points….yes!

So on we went, one minute Buzzi Bullet ahead, then us, then Voom Voom. We did another lap and came up to the ‘B’ buoy, I took another wide, fast turn, forgot to slow down enough and we hit a huge wave and over we went hard, harder and harder to the left, the sea getting very close to the side of my face. For a second everything slowed and I thought, that’s it we are going to go over. I felt for my regulator (oxygen) expecting the worse, this was it. What would it be like? It was weird how everything went into slow motion and we prepared for the worse.

Fortunately, we must have a guardian angel, the boat fell so hard and I swear beyond the point of return, but another wave must have hit us on the left at exactly the right time and thrown us back over to the right. We sprang back in the air and lurched hard to the other side and settled. I don’t mind admitting that scared me. Voom Voom saw what happened and were ready to stop and help, it was that close.

This was within the first 3 laps and we had another 5 to go, I was really not enjoying this one bit. Then we hit a stroke of luck in an unwitting way. We came to mark ‘F’, again all in a line Voom Voom, Buzzi Bullet and us. We were on the outside, went to turn in and there was Voom Voom right in our way going straight ahead instead of turning! How we missed them I will never know particularly as we didn’t have any props in the water so no steering and of course, no brakes. He took us with him and once again we disappeared into the spectator fleet rather spectacularly. We scattered the poor spectators in their boats, Mike shouted directions as we tried to avoid the flurry of scampering boats. Some of those boats must have got some amazing close up shots of both boats as both Voom Voom and us bashed on by within a few feet of them.

I was mad, Voom Voom had cost us a lot of distance and now Buzzi Bullet had a good lead. I now drove like a woman possessed. We were nearly halfway through the race, not up there in the front. Fortunately, very quickly we both caught Buzzi Bullet and we were back to normal with the boats up together again. This was hard, hard work!

Then we came up to the scary ‘B’ buoy, I was very nervous as we approached. We were now also being pushed into a very tight turn with both Buzzi Bullet and Voom Voom on our outside. Mike said you are going to have to take this turn very tight and get inside Voom Voom. I slowed right down to about 50mph, every sense telling me not to slow but I had to. We took a fantastic turn steered through the big head sea and suddenly we were nearly ahead again! Now I’d figured how to take those turns…it worked!

We headed out north again, but suddenly Buzzi had dropped back, must have broken something? And we were once again in familiar territory alongside Voom Voom. This was great, racing alongside, leaving the water at the same time and glancing across at each other, for a few seconds it was really enjoyable! Poor Buzzi though, to have got so far and then had their race ruined by a broken throttle cable, I felt for them.

Then BANG BANG and again we were out of shape all over the place, and a sharp reminder not to relax. The annoying thing about this race was that you could not get into a good rhythm and there was no restbite. The waves were coming at all angles and the minute you were settled and going well, another would get you and take you skyward and out of shape.

For two more laps we fought like two demented teams! Voom Voom pushing us very hard, each boat taking the lead then losing it, blocking on the turns and playing tactics, this was amazing, fast racing style in a Force 6 wind with massive waves. I questioned our sanity for a second!

Finally we had two more laps to go, I prayed we had the lap numbers right this time. I was now thinking about the boat, one of the engines was down on revs a lot and she was getting harder and harder to handle, the weaker engine unbalancing the boat very badly and perhaps something else wasn’t right? I settled a bit and said to Mike, ‘lets save the boat, we don’t need this win at the expense of the boat’. Mike sensibly agreed and just said don’t lose him. So we took it a bit more carefully letting Voom Voom take the lead.

Then I thought about it, those extra 20 points could be very useful in a few weeks, hell lets see what we can do, we only had one more lap to go, so surely it was now or never and the sea was easing a bit.

I floored it and again we started to catch Voom Voom. We’d gone wide then tactically taken them on the inside at the ‘F’ buoy before and I knew they would not let us do that again. But I went for it just in case. They fended us off by turning hard left, but to their cost we had a good wide approach and took the turn spot on. Sadly for them their boat lurched forward and bow steered causing them to hook hard to the left and they missed the buoy completely, literally by inches. I felt for them, one tiny mistake and if I drove hard now the race was ours, they had driven like demons. It just goes to show how there is absolutely no room for error.

As we flew down the last leg and across the finish line I have never been so pleased to see a chequered flag! Mentally and physically that was one tough race for all of us. Buzzi Bullet, Voom Voom and ourselves had driven the race of our lives, but it was another double win for us! However, at what cost, how was the boat? There was a terrible noise from one of the engines but we’d finished, that was the most important thing, quite how I do not know! Just saving the boat for those last crucial laps before our last assault had been a wise move, with the damage we could well have not finished.

I have to mention a young lady and her father who came all the way over from the UK to support the British teams, we didn’t get their names. We cannot tell you how great it felt to see a Union Jack flying from the pier proudly, whoever you were, thank you!

Now it is the turn of the mechanics and team to be heroes The boat suffered some damage to the hull and the engines, as did everyone, we all had our horror stories to tell. It did, however, explain the unbalanced nature of the boat in the last few laps as the hull had delaminated slightly where we had hit something. One of the engines had blown a gasket which also explained a lot and we had a pretty spectacular oil leak just to add to the mix.

We are now very fortunate in that we are now 110 points ahead, but experience tells us that this is not over yet by a long way…..

For the Saturday endurance race, we ran the start lap covering a distance of 5.37nm followed by 9 laps of the full lap (shown opposite) each of which was 8.24nm for a total race length of 79.48nm.

For the Sunday sprint race, we covered the start lap followed by 6 laps of the slightly shorter lap (shown below) of 4.32nm for a total race length of 46.56nm.

Due to the weather, the course was shortened on Sunday, so that we no longer went to marks C and D (top right on the diagram below), but instead went from marks B to X (bottom right to top left) with a course length of 44nm. The turns at marks B and X as a result were very tight, and in a big beam sea, made for some very interesting airborne moments!

All the marks on the course were either laid yellow or red pillar buoys. The Muster area (marked "M" on the charts) was near the harbour wall (top right on the chart)

The numbers in the black boxes show the bearing (direction) we have to race in.

The numbers in the brown circles show the direction we have to turn to at each laid mark, in terms of numbers on a clock face. So, the number 9 in the brown circle at the top right of the picture at Mark C means that we had to turn left to 9 o’clock.

The red arrows show the direction of the course which was clockwise for each of the laps.

The chequered box represents the lap line in front of the main pier and spectators.