As the season gathers pace with a charity race, a circumnavigation of Ireland, a Superstock weekend and an event formerly known as P1, John Cooke brings us a timely round-up of the action so far . . .

The Royal Motor Yacht Club (based in astranomically expensive Sandbanks near Poole) has been running the Cancer Research race for many years. It began as a reaction to the sad loss of one of its members to the disease and it has grown into an annual UK favourite.
It always attracts boats that aren’t regularly seen on the National race circuit and this year was no exception. Bounty Hunter, a 39-foot Cigarette started well but wasn’t able to complete the race due to mechanical problems. James Sydneham in the B28 Mannerfelt (that was converted to from outboards to inboard V8) was another casualty - all of which left Vee Gangavian in his first race with his new Phantom 39 to come home as the easy winner.
To be fair, even if the other boats had been performing at their best, they would have struggled to stay with Vee and co-pilot, Gareth Williams. With twin 700 Ilmores driving a pair of ASD8 Arneson drives, they were flying. In fact at the close of play, Terry and Mick Mills in the brilliantly named It Wasn’t Us! were the only crew not to be lapped by the winning boat.

The race boats formerly known as . . .
The Supersport and Evolution boats that were formally known as P1 (I’m going to have to think of another name for that lot) had their race in Yalta in the Ukraine and, apart from some engine problems, the racing was great. Daniel Cramphorn and Kim Collins had a catastrophic drive failure, which threw them about the cockpit of their Donzi so violently that Daniel ended up with a broken wrist – I am assured he is having the latest laser treatment and will be ready to race in Malta. Meanwhile, the Italians, who have always done well in this class, had a one-two in the premier Evolution class and a first in the SuperSports class.

As for our own Shelley Jory (now crewing for Patrick Huybreghts in Spirit of Belgium), she came home in second place. It was Patrick who had the strongest reaction to the news that P1 was leaving the class to its own devices - hardly surprising, given that he had spent half a million Euros of his sponsor’s money on a boat that he may not have been able to race.

Galway glitterati
Galway has hosted the second round of the new SuperStock championship. It saw Mercury 300 XS motors fitted to the premier class and a smaller 150 class retaining Honda outboards. Their first race in Penzance in Cornwall was certainly a great success, with fantastic weather bringing out around 12,000 spectators over the weekend. I’m not sure how many of those 12,000 were red-blooded young men wanting to see the fuel girls on stage and how many were there to watch the racing, but either way, it made for a great atmosphere and a fine venue for the complimentary music festival.

Rupert Pugh who very kindly took me out for a spin in his 300 Class boat, has pretty much dominated both the Penzance and Galway races in Heights of Abraham. He puts it all down to exhaustive propeller testing but it still takes tremendous skill to finish in front.

The other boat showing well at this stage of the season is the Salcombe-based craft of Evans Heritage Developments, driven by Haydn Evans and Johnny Twelvetrees. With consistent podium positions, they are well poised to pounce on Rupert if any reliability problems begin to emerge.

Round Ireland gets underway
The main event for Galway is of course the race around Ireland. This started on 07 June and, while the boats go racing, Galway is having a free eight-day festival that promises a great deal. They are expecting 150,000 people to attend the party, with 500 performers on hand, generating around ten million Euros for the local economy.

As we went to press, the historic Cinzano 558 (which now sports the prefix ‘B’ due to some fickle new regulation) is leading comfortably after a day of racing. The boats are on the way to Bangor from Killybegs and it looks like Hugo Montgomery-Swann and Galway-born adventurer, Enda O’Coineen have suffered problems for the second day in a row. Enda is a bit overqualified for the race as he has crossed the Atlantic several times (once in a 15-foot inflatable with a sail and a motor). In any case, either they have stopped at Burtonport for repairs or else they fancied an unscripted beer. The tracker isn’t yet making it clear . . .
Next month: the Round Ireland round-up, the Le Mans 24-hour race and a look forward to the Marathon Class World Cup in Cowes.