Hello everybody,
this is my first ever post on a forum, let alone this highly special one.
Not knowing to speed up Cinzano (yet) I at least found my way in.
Let me first thank all of you for the warm welcome Team Cinzano and its new sponsor (well even owner) and throttleman I happen to be.
Being foreign, worse, even German, I had a very good experience on this first triangle Powerboat race in my life.
My neighbour on the charity evening event told me of her experience that this will change, because only if after the race nobody smiles at you, then you know you won it.
As she is a mid 20 girl from Pompey and racing Thundercats, it is some interesting information.
Back to Cinzano.
As Mike informed you already, we had bunkered about 300 gallons, when we left the Hamble Gas station on Saturday. And even Ilmores do not drink that fast to reduce this significantly in a 45min. cruise to Poole.
Then we did not have time for one or two test laps before the race, because although we left the Club early on Sunday neither Tim, nor Eric obviously not me, found the marks and buoys quick enough. (Most were just being shipped out 15min. before the Race)
Therefore I decided to go for a slow start and a resonably matching boat to follow to for the beginning of the race.
I opted for 'The Bandit'.
Well, the first round we did on 09.4xmin. So there we lost our first Minute! The secound round was much better, but then 'The Bandit' caused us a troublesome turn, just where it has the least space!
The next three rounds were within secounds of each other, but do not forget the heavy rain, that kept visibility poor and that leads us to the next trouble: fishing pods.
They were always around, when you didnot wanted them. At least on two turning points they were right in our way of the strategycally preplanned longer but faster turning circles we were supposed to have done.
That meant we were forced to trimm in further to keep sudden steering momentum. So revs were sometimes down below 4.000 whereas we have seen more than 65 knots on the GPS on the long runs.
The Dogleg along the coast was not helpful either.
Did I mention that we decided not to drown the occasional close encountering smaller craft comming off the inner course circle?
Those we could easily have braked out at the varios corners coming in at our higher speed, if we had kept revs and trimm up to the very edge.
The result would have been to wash their boats with our rooster.
Would not have caused that much applause on this Forum?!
So there was much more potential for the boat and I have to thank Tim and Eric to have that much patience with my novice learning phase and let me do things less optimal yet.
I was satisfied for the outcome, even being drop dead slow compared to the historic data of former events.
Hope most questions left are answered hereby!
Team Cinzano