| "We came here to enjoy the event, the camaraderie and to test our boat and engines in the toughest possible conditions," explains Hannes. "We have been warmly welcomed wherever we have landed and, overall, it has been a good experience, although the organisation leaves something to be desired. The boat and engines have performed exceptionally well and, had it not been for water flooding into the engine on the 1. leg, we would be leading the event by some considerable margin. Nevertheless, we have made it to Lowestoft in 1 piece, competitive, winning stages and enjoying racing. Our support crew and the Isotta Fraschini mechanics are the unsung heroes of our achievements, travelling by road and ferry to all four countries of the British Isles, speaking very little English, arriving tired then working unselfishly day and night for the good of the team. In an event as long and as demanding as the RB, even with the best support crew in powerboating a team will encounter dramas which hopefully they can overcome, such as today’s loss of the navigational system and yesterday’s diesel flood of the cockpit. These types of problems we almost |
expect as experienced offshore endurance racers. What is much more difficult to swallow is the small minded attitude of the organisers in penalising us for our start in Inverness. This lacked respect and understanding. If the organisers were gearing their rules around run of the mill RIBs they should have told us before we paid our entry fee. We have a state-of-the-art high performance racing machine and, having spent hours to get to the start, we then suffered unnecessary delays at low speeds which were killing the boat. Our turbos were moving to meltdown which would have ended our race and we had to get round this by bursts of acceleration to keep everything in order. What would we gain from a quick getaway in a race of over 200 miles? Nothing. We did what we had to do out of necessity and the organisers, who congratulated me at the finish, then imposed a one hour penalty. We were very angry and felt like packing up and going home. We will not do that because we are here to race and try to beat our competitors on the water, not in the office. We also owe it to everyone associated with the team to successfully complete it |
