Banashark

[jokaboat]

Any news from cookee? Heard he retired off Torque but anyone know why? I assume John is a bit busy at the moment.

[ian h]

Heard that it was gearbox failure the same as Silverline,

But lets see what John has to say

[cookee101]

Both gearboxes are fine!

Our weekend went like this:

The dust has settled (or should that be spray?) and we have sorted out what happened and what we need to do.

First of all well done to the winners and especially for Martin Lai who has struggled with that boat from the start.

We drove the boat up by water from Salcombe on the Friday afternoon and had a very uneventful journey. It was good to see the wet pits fairly full of boats when we got there.

The measurement certificate difficulties have continued but they will eventually be sorted out properly once Guy Child (thank you Nicky and Guy) has come down with his measurement certificate - should have called it the BananaShark Cougar - it would have been a lot easier!

Once we had made it down the Solent to the Muster area (glad we had a biggish boat it was choppy going down there!) it was race time and we were looking forward to the race - Jeremy Gibson on the wheel, Graham Lawton on the Throttles and I was navigating with Adrian Everett from E-Lites providing moral support in the fourth seat.

We had problems getting the boat on the plane - our new faster bigger props would not spin up in the lumpy conditions (fine in testing in the flat) meant being at least 5 minutes behind at the start - a navigational error by myself meant we headed off to the Needles Fairway buoy - I had changed everything on the plotter for the new course to two buoys but for some reason it still sent us the wrong way, my fault I should have checked it better.

We caught six boats by Portland and were trailing Jon and Nick by around six miles - when we were approaching Portland we caught a big swell and landed a bit on the side and we think this may have been the start of the end for the trim ram on the Starboard side - we also had an alarm going off but as all of the temperatures and pressures were good we decided to carry on taking it easy at first and increasing speed as we reached the more sheltered waters nearer Torbay. Another couple of awkward landings must have damaged the trim ram further resulting in a very impressive rooster for my wife watching us from Berry Head and a bit of a list to Port!

We were also suffering from a loss of power as we had been running pretty much on one tank and we were getting a little air into the fuel system - with the damage and fuel issues we decided to retire the boat in Torquay instead of the middle of Lyme Bay - we had the boat back at BananaShark and cleaned off by 6pm!

A big thank you go to all of the team and especially Kitten for all of the late nights and our sponsors E-Lites who made the boat look fantastic in the pits (and paid for the fuel and entries!).

We are pleased with the way the boat performed with only the second set of props we have tried - none of the problems are a long term issue - we will turn the rams upside down and look at the size of the skeg, do a little plumbing and we'll be ready for RB12 - see you all at the start!

[jokaboat]

Glad there's nothing too much of a problem then Cookee. I heard that you headed off to the fairway buoy

Sounds like when it gets going the boat will be pretty competetive

[JORIDAPILOT]

Glad to hear everyone is OK and that the problems are relatively minor, and fixable.. Here's to the next race
Good Luck

[salamis]

Glad to hear that you, the boat and everyone onboard got home safe as I understand not all teams did with a couple of injuries happening because of the choppy seas.
Boat looks absolutely fabulous by the way, and with a little more testing and fiddling around should be a major competitor in RB12 esspecially when we hear Jon and Nick are at least 6 miles behind you, I assume their boat is still called Swipes 44.
Just seen website its 45 now.

[cookee101]

Look out for the boat from today in Torquay where we will be an official boat at the Class III B World Championships until Sunday - Come and say hi!

[ian h]

glad to hear all is sorted with the boat John,

good luck this week