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Portuguese Grand Prix – Race 1
The four weeks leading
up to Portugal were torturous to say the least. Both engines had
to be removed to fix oil leaks which meant major work on Steve
Causley our mechanic’s part and you just never know whether it’s
all going to be working OK. Testing in the Solent gave us a bit
more reassurance and we made sure we put the boat through its
paces before returning back to shore. All seemed OK…..
We were racing in Cascais near Lisbon,
Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean. Having monitored the weather we
were bracing ourselves for some pretty rough waters (which
weirdly after Cowes I was looking forward to…I must remember to
go to a psychologist).
The build up to the race had been tense,
Ocean Dragon had it all to lose and were 30 points ahead of us,
we had it all to win and we were determined to do our very best
to secure the championships. Jolly Special was hoping we would
both muck up and let them retain their crown! This meant NO
errors on the course, so my driving had to be up to scratch,
Mike’s navigation and timing had to be bang on and Steve Causley
had to make sure that the engines were invincible. We could not
afford a break down. So the tension was very high in the pits on
Friday and Saturday morning.
It didn’t help when we went testing and one
engine gave us heart failure when it appeared to overheat and we
limped back with steam coming out from under the hatch. For
whatever reason this was a ‘red herring’ (excuse the pun) and
after going out again she ran very well.
I wasn’t too keen on the conditions, although
it appeared to be flat there was quite a swell which hit you
beam on, causing a fair degree of chining. It also meant that
each tight turn was heading into or against the swell so it was
quite tricky to drive in.
After a briefing, we went out to the muster
area, I could have sworn my heart was going to leave my chest as
it was beating so hard with nerves. Usually by the time we are
mustering I’m fine, but there was too much to go wrong and to
lose in this case.
I knew where I wanted to be on the start line
and as the yellow flag appeared on the start boat we jostled to
position with only Microlink between us and the start boat. This
was where I wanted to be and as the start boat got faster my
heart rate settled a bit and the Dragon lifted onto the plane
and I felt confident. We had a great start and when we hit the
first turn buoy we had Jolly Special to our side, Ocean Dragon
and Carpenter behind us but pushing hard with the rest of the
field not far behind.
The first turn buoy was tight but OK, the
tighter you took it, the harder the turn was to take because of
the force of the swell, so we drove accordingly Mike helping me
choose the line into the turn. We then headed back up the
course. This leg was OK, a bit of beam sea but nothing horrific.
A bounce off a red marker buoy (not literally) and then to the
part of the course I was not looking forward to. This consisted
of a 10 o clock turn straight into a large head of swell, which
lifted the boat airborne. The trick was to take the turn as
smoothly as possible before the swell took the boat and launched
it. If came into it in a mess it was much harder to get out of.
A short 500 metre leg and we had a very tight
3 o clock turn which if you got wrong you ended up hitting the
harbour wall (it wasn’t difficult to miss!) then another short
punch going with the swell to another turn buoy forcing us 10 o
clock to the left then yet another two buoys turning us right to
3 o’clock. It was how I imagine racing fast Transit vans to be!
This part of the course was fine if you were
on your own but if you were with another boat it was hell as
there was so little room for manoeuvre. First time round was
fine, we were right on Jolly’s tail but I decided to follow him
rather than fight, we didn’t need to beat him, just Ocean Dragon
to clinch the title. We took the two yellow markers, this was my
favourite turn and we were getting it spot on each time.
We continued like this for three more laps,
right on his tail. Pushing him hard had the desired effect, I
knew the additional pressure was going to get to them and sure
enough as we reached marker E he started to dive off to the
left. Mike shouted at me to hold my line that Jolly had gone
wrong. As usual I trusted his judgement and continued along.
Jolly was going further and further left, had he seen something
we hadn’t I thought? Mike told me to focus and continue on that
line. I could see Ocean Dragon and Carpenter hot on my tail so
just focussed on the turn and forgot about Jolly. I was stunned
to find he had almost missed the buoy and had to take a violent
turn to retrieve his mistake. That lost him the lead and we were
now firmly in front with clean water. For the first time I
relaxed and stopped panting (I do this when I am stressed, which
Mike finds hugely entertaining!). I knew that Jolly was
desperate to catch us and in the corner of my eye I saw him
gathering pace behind us with Ocean still in hot pursuit, they
were both driving like demons possessed and I vowed to myself
not to let them have the opportunity to catch us as it was too
much hard work to fight them off again!
We were now lapping the back markers. This
was fine but I did not want to lap anyone on the awkward turns
near the harbour wall, but as s*ds law dictates that’s exactly
where we lapped the first boat. I had a predicament…do I just
follow and wait for the worst of the turn to be over before I
overtook. If I did this I was giving Jolly and Ocean Dragon the
chance to catch me (NO WAY!), or do I just overtake and hope
he’s seen me?
We went for the latter, as I made this choice
we came into turn F and instantly we hit his wash which was bad,
this flung the boat upwards, sky = bad! I stuck my foot down
hard but now the boat was very bow up and we caught the large
swell at precisely the wrong moment and we literally went
vertical, so much so that we actually had to lean into the boat.
She seemed to hover for a moment and I slammed my foot down as
hard as I physically could to stop the inevitable stuff that
would follow…….but it didn’t come, she bounced out with the bow
just keeping out of the water by inches and off we went. One of
those breathtaking moments which I won’t forget for a good
while.
The boat we were taking was so slow that I
tried to take him on the outside, but he hadn’t seen us (despite
us nearly landing on him!) as I went to overtake him, the boat
headed directly for us, he had not seen us! I just slammed on
the throttle to get ahead and fortunately he just missed us,
fate was with us for sure…..I went back to panting again for a
short while after that!
More laps, and more laps but fortunately
nothing too bad, we just had to focus on keeping the boat far
ahead and finishing like that. No slacking and Mike was great at
keeping me driving as hard as I could.
Then came the next heart stopping moment, we
saw Fainplast the Evolution boat limping along, she was right on
the race line so Mike told me to stick to the line and we were
about to pass them quite closely……shouldn’t be an issue you’d
think. Sadly the Dragon is often strangely attracted to boats at
the wrong moment, she decided at the precise moment we were
passing Fainplast, to launch herself into the air off a big beam
wave. Twisting as she rose and very nearly landing on poor
Fainplast. I was pretty annoyed with her at that point!
With only a couple of laps to go we were
confident, we just had to muck up though and Jolly Special would
be all over us.
Next thing we could see was Evolution boat
Kerakoll who were having horrific problems with smoke billowing
out of her engines and literally obliterating the view. We
approached buoy E and I asked Mike where the turn buoy and we
literally could not see it! It was obscured by Kerakoll’s smoke
screen! Fortunately Mike’s navigation skills paid off and
suddenly the buoy appeared through the smoke and we passed
it……one more lap…
So fortunately nothing more eventful happened
and we finished far ahead of the others taking a great win.
Sadly for Ocean Dragon they had broken down which gave us a much
better lead going into the final race, now all we had to do was
finish, but that as it turned out was harder than we thought……
Portuguese Grand Prix
Race 2
Coming into race 2
should have been easier. We were now ahead of Ocean Dragon and
all we had to do was finish. But as always we had this nagging
doubt that it was always going to be difficult and in the world
of powerboat racing NOTHING is guaranteed.
So when we got to the second race I was
almost as nervous as the first which was a shame as it would
have been nice to relax a little! My blood pressure must have
sky high that weekend but Mike as usual was his chilled self.
We took the boat out in the morning for one
lap to get a feel for the shorter course. I was surprised at how
big the swell was. In some places it must have been over 3
metres, but rather than the steep waves of the Mediterranean and
the Solent, it was like driving the boat up a steep hill, very
strange indeed.
Once again I knew exactly where I wanted to
be at the start and thank goodness I stuck to my plan. The run
down to the first turn buoy was much shorter and it made a huge
difference. On the start we were right by the start boat but it
seemed to take an age for the flag to drop and the green to
appear. When it finally did, the first leg to the first mark was
very short and resulted in at least half the field of Evolution
and Supersport boats hitting the turn buoy at the same time.
That and the fact we were all turning into a very large swell
created chaos and there were boats everywhere, in the air,
turning, losing control on the turn, it was manic. Thank
goodness we had the outside line and managed to stay outside of
the chaos.
We turned hard and were ahead of the field
amongst the Evolution fleet with only Jolly Special ahead of us
but Carpenter and Ocean Dragon were hard on our heels.
The first lap was uneventful and we settled
into a good rhythm. The second lap was not so good, I was
feeling under pressure and tired from the first race (rubbish
excuse I know, its all that panting!) and consequently mucked
the turn up leaving both Jolly Special, Ocean Dragon and
Carpenter to take the turn ahead of us, we were fourth ..YUCK! I
knew that all we had to do was finish, was it sensible to fight
the teams for pride and just settle for a lesser place but take
the World title?
Mike yelled at me to sort it out and not let
them get the better of us. I put my foot down and tried to block
out the mistake I had made, it wasn’t too late to rectify
myself.
We then hit the return leg and came alongside
Ocean Dragon who were really taking no prisoners. We had to take
Buoy E on a glancing blow and had the inside line. Very sensibly
Ocean Dragon could see what we were doing and tried to block us
out, we came within inches of their hull and on hitting 85 mph I
opted out much to Mike’s disgust. I really could not see any
reason to come literally hull to hull when all we had to do was
finish. This created a bit of tension in the boat as Mike quite
rightly wanted me to hold the line but an accident at this speed
would have cost us the World Championship….and for no other
reason than pride, I was not prepared to take the chance.
I backed off slightly and went behind them
which firstly confused them and secondly gave us a good line for
the 10 o clock turn near the harbour wall. By now we had also
taken Carpenter so we were in much better shape.
Once again we were alongside and fighting
them hard. I got the outside line and we were about to take them
when their drive failed and they was forced off the course.
Now we just had Jolly Special to take and we
were catching them fast.
Again we did another lap, keeping the
pressure hard on Jolly Special and knowing that Carpenter were
not far behind. The easiest option would have been to cruise
around letting the others catch us but ensuring a finish, but I
knew we were better than that and to be fair, Mike’s
competitiveness ensured I drove better than that and raced hard.
It was very tense in the boat and wow was I panting, I was
exhausted and we hadn’t finished!
One thing I have to note at this stage was
the sea. A large swell was hitting us from the side and at one
point, ourselves, Jolly Special and Carpenter were alongside
each other, but the odd thing was that all three boats, although
travelling at well over 80mph were continually climbing the
swell. It was like climbing a never ending hill! It took a
couple of minutes before we had overtaken it, plopped over the
other side and continued on our way. I had never seen anything
like this before and that memory will stay for a long time!
Halfway into the race now, we were settling
into our stride. Jolly Special had also settled and we were
actually finding ourselves creeping up behind him, so much so
that when we reached the trickiest part of the course near the
harbour wall there was an opportunity to take him on the inside
line. I considered for a second, was it the right thing to do?
We didn’t need to do it we just needed to finish, but with Mike
pushing in the boat and the natural competitive spirit coming
out in both of us, we went for it. We got him on the corner but
forgot how much the swell was taking the boats. It was OK and we
were now level with Jolly Special and twisting around the course
at top speed. The boat was twisting and turning under the
pressure and at one point she was right over on her side. The
boat wanted to go anywhere but where it should.
Two things now made our lives very difficult.
The swell was huge, so much so that none of the two boats could
see the turn buoy, we were travelling blind. Not only that but
Jolly were keen not to let us pass them so drove at us. We then
also caught some spray so at that moment in time, we were
travelling blind, at a buoy we couldn’t see and I was waiting
for the impact of Jolly hitting us………..
I backed off, swapped my line and went the
other side of him. This had the effect of giving us a much
better turn into the two yellow buoys by the P1 Village and we
sling shot out of the turn by Jolly’s side. A narrow escape and
one hell of a sparring match and I was panting A LOT! But wow
was this exciting! I could now understand Mike’s reaction and
was throwing caution to the wind, we could get this and the
World Championship!
We had three more laps to go and every yard
we were catching Jolly. It felt good and I’d even stopped
panting!
Then, disaster struck, suddenly I felt the
boat hesitate, firstly for a split second, then a bit more and
after about two miles both engines were vastly down on revs and
we had to endure the agony of Jolly Special disappearing into
the distance.
Our hearts were in our mouths, the World
Championship title that seemed so much in our grasp now seemed
less secure…how could this possibly be happening?
The emotions at this point were extreme and I
won’t tell you the conversation in the boat. But we had to pull
ourselves together and work out what we had to do to get over
the finish line. We had two laps to go and it was possible on
one engine.
Mike checked the gauges, oil and water
pressure was fine, temperature was fine, what the hell was
wrong! I turned the starboard engine on and off to try to reset
it but to no avail and on my last attempt it nearly didn’t
restart. Doing this was too much of chance to take, if I let the
boat come off the plane we were finished. So I let her limp on.
By this time Chaudron passed us spectacularly
as did Carpenter and For One and we were lying fifth.
The annoying thing was that it was the
starboard (right hand) engine that was broken and it was a right
handed course. When you turn tight on a right hand turn the left
prop comes out of the water, that’s fine when you have both
engines functioning but not when the right hand one is down. The
net effect of not keeping the port side (left) prop in the water
was no forward momentum and we could have come off the plane and
that would have been it, game over. Now, far from racing turns,
we were limping along trying to keep the left hand prop in the
water, no mean feat when the turns were so tight.
Those two remaining laps were agony,
literally. The last half of the last lap was pure pain as the
engine on the left was beginning to suffer from the pressure of
all the hard work and also started to go down on revs. I had
visions of us getting out and pushing the boat over the finish
line. Finally, and after what seemed eternity we made it, and
what a relief!
At first we weren’t happy, we’d finished
fifth which was bad for us and we were concerned about what was
wrong with the boat. We limped back to the pontoons, fearing the
worse. Got out of the boat with the longest faces you have seen
and then someone said ‘you’re World Champions’! It suddenly
dawned on us that we had accomplished what we needed to and as a
result we had taken the world crown, not only that but we had
come second in the Portuguese Grand Prix. Fate had lent us a
huge helping hand and we’d made it!
Our poor pit crew were going through the same
agonies as us. In fact for them it must have been worse not
knowing what was happening. It one of the tensest race finishes
for us all….but worth it….we were now World Champions … WOW!
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