[QUOTE=OldMan;178742]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goinglean
I have just had a phone call from Justin explaining that the race is definately on... Fabio has entered 3 boats & there are 2 boats from Greece & 3 from the US
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Fabio "wants" to bring his three boats to Ireland but it depends - he is not 100% sure, more will be made clear after tomorrows P1 extraordinary meeting. There are no American boats now going to Ireland, well that's not strictly true, there might be a 50' Outer Limits powered by Yanmars but again that is not 100%.
However, all of the above WILL be coming to Cowes including Dry Martini.
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Just wanted to jump in and clear up some information here. We were originally invited to come over and bring three boats. Ghost Rider, Dry Martini and Benihana. We asked if it would be possible to leave the boats over there until Cowes. They said sure, no problem.
The Benihana was going to get new engines and drives, provided by a major manufacturer, in return for the expected press coverage from both races. We got a call telling us that the manufacturer was running behind in delivering orders in hand and they were selling the engines and drives we were promised. Hey, that's disappointing, but that is business, we understand.
Ghost Rider's owner had originally agreed because he was looking at the first dates that were published for the race. When he found out the dates had been changed, he called me from Europe and said that he had a conflict with the dates. He had just invested 40million euros into a new medical invention and was scheduled for a big showing to the medical community on that week. He was not going to be able to come.
Dry Martini originally had a restoration schedule based on Cowes. When I contacted the owner with the Ireland offer, he told me that he would try to push it and be ready. In the meantime, he also took on another historic restoration for Cowes and was caught between the two schedules. He informed me he would not make the Irish race, but would be there for Cowes.
These three boats could not come, due to no fault of the race organizers.
In the meantime, I asked a friend of mine if he was interested in going to Ireland as his boat was ready to go. He agreed and I informed the Irish that the original boats would not be coming, but we could bring another boat....not a historic one...if that was okay. They said yes.
This is all happening as we speak. The water test for the new boat is next Monday and Tuesday in Florida. It is a 50 foot Nor Tech, with triple Yanmar's and Arneson drives. Bobby Saccenti and myself, along with the owner of the boat would be crew.
Once the water test is done, we will load up our race gear and seal the boat with shrink wrap and take it to the port for shipping over. We very much want to do this. This may be the last hurrah for Bobby and me, as we are starting to get a little long in the tooth...(Sorry, Dag Pike) We are preparing to win. We have almost the max size engines for Class B and we feel that we have a strong chance to do this.
It has been very enjoyable to prepare this boat....... as when we had some questions with the Arneson drives, we simply called Howard Arneson who answered any and all questions and offered some suggestions. Bobby and I were there when Howard first showed up with his "new idea drives". So we all go a long way back.
Bobby and I have invitations to crew on boats for Cowes, but those boats are already over there. I cannot speak for the other boats on whether they will be there or not.
We hope the competitors will welcome us and we look forward to a great race with some good competition. Anything we can do to make the race happen as planned, you can count on us.