Cowes 2011 update

[Mikko Oikari]

What happened to Dean/Going Lean?

[SamMace]

Originally Posted by Ciao

http://vimeo.com/28408999

A quick edit of the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes powerboat race clips taken on the 28th August 2011.

Thanks to Alasdair Auchincloss -This was his first time of filming a powerboat race! Some amazing footage!

What a fantastic montage ! Excellent stuff .. more More MORE !
Well done John M. and all organisers for what appears to me, as a distant and 'virtual' yet passionate spectator, to have been yet another amazing race weekend.
My beloved Cinzano and her crew did the tradition of the CTC proud with such a photo finish.
Magnificent !!!

[Zed]

Footage of some of the boats going to the muster area

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwrZeDF-Pls

[Cookee]

Originally Posted by Ciao

We are. The idea is to have it ready in time for Xmas Shopping!

If you would like to purchase an individual show reel of you boat competing in the Cowes Torquay Cowes - Please contact me.

I would go for that but it appears we were a bit elusive on the day?

[Ciao]

Originally Posted by Cookee

I would go for that but it appears we were a bit elusive on the day?

Cookee, Chris Davies texted me from the helicopter as he knew he had not seen you.

He asked where you were on the tracker - they wanted to get you on the way back......

[Cookee]

Originally Posted by Ciao

Cookee, Chris Davies texted me from the helicopter as he knew he had not seen you.

He asked where you were on the tracker - they wanted to get you on the way back......

Penalty of a slightly tardy start! - There's always RB12!

[Ciao]

http://www.allatsea.co.uk/latest-issue/paper-preview

[littlenige]

Norty! Who was that swearing - Disco??!! Was a tad close!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b0R2...eature=related

[Dunaruna]

Originally Posted by Jon Fuller

A big thanks to all at Cowes, a great event and nice to see so many A & B class boats, it really needs those big players to make it the spectacle it is.

Observations:

Lumpy oul race, especially around the headlands as you'd expect, but nothing like last year. Stiff breeze (an F5-6 I think) from the west, and nearing Poole bay/the Solent on the way home. thick black clouds, heavy rain and strong wind made the final 30 miles quite unpleasant... Always lovely to spot the finish boat & the Gurnard Ledge mark, a feeling of relief.
Our motors never missed a beat and the only problems were, bow tank control jammed leaving Torquay, so no fwd ballast for the home run, not funny! and Nick forgetting to delete previous files off the SD card in his GoPro camera, so it didn't capture all the race DOH!. Pretty minor issues really, so team Swipes are happy.

Pippa
Mike Bontoft has done a lovely job of refitting the ex 'Venturer' Buzzi 40 for Rob Gray, a real credit to them both. Mike continued his theme from last year of virtually hospitalising himself during the CTC, but this time, he took Johnny Caulcutt with him! Reckon he's into self harm or summat.

Bounty Hunter
..looked absolutely fantastic, so, so clean & shiney, Glen really deserves a finish at Cowes with all the hard work & wonga that's gone into BH, but a sheered jack shaft ended his fun near Portland Bill. Hopefully next year we'll see him running back up the Solent at the end of his 200 miles with everything singing.

E-Lites
The Sterling 34 looks fabulous in the flesh, when you see just how much Kev has done, virtually single handed it's nothing short of staggering, he must be exhausted. If they can get those smokey old clankers in the back reliable (no, I don't mean Kitten), I'm sure they'll be a force to contend with....Cookee, next time, read ALL the race bulletins!!)

Fury
Very very bad luck for Vee & 'Garth' in Fury, we passed them on the home journey with their engine hatch up near Anvil point (in some hefty swells!). They'd been 'right up there' before the gremlins appeared.

War Horse
Bad luck also for Tony Toll & Co in the monster Apache 41 with an MSD ignition unit on one of the Sterlings going south on them and putting the fire out (carry a spare next year silver man).

Fugitive
Francis & Stuart ran great in the Shakespeare, and enjoyed the comfort this time of Shockwave suspension seating, and I'm certain they'll be feeling the difference this morning, well done guys.

The two stars of CTC11 were of course Markus & Martin (Cinzano & Ocean Dragon) who finished just a few seconds apart after nearly 200 miles of racing, fantastic. Great performance for Martin after his disasters last year (and the year before).

The winning team stood proud & triumphant on the stage at prizegiving with Simon Wooden-top wearing his pink Wight Vodka baseball cap looking like a naughty schoolboy...just William.
They tried to steal the Harmsworth Trophy from the Squadron, but chief of trophy security (Martin Napier) spotted this and was hot on their tail with a Taser gun and order was quickly restored.

It was announced that the 2012 Cowes Festival will happen, with CTC. CPC, Classic class predicted log, and a Poker Run, and starts hopefully outside the Squadron!, yup, you heard that right, so lets hope.

A huge thanks to Mike Ring and crew for taking Angela out on the water for the day and even providing lunch. She loved it, even though it was in a Ring (and if that's not bad enough, it was a bloody rib! ).

Mike Ring made the trip over to Cowes on Saturday in Swipewipes looking after throttles, so now he knows what a real boat feels like I've no doubt we'll see some MAJOR improvements (stolen from the SB design book) being introduced on future Ringos..nothing short of industrial espionage!!

JF out.

Great Report JF.

Good to meet up with everyone and such a great time before / During & after the event, a great deal of time and effort went into the Bounty Hunter
this year and for the duration we ran the boat she was performing as she should, a pure joy to run and take part in these rare events.
We will be back for more next year and a large thank you to those who put this event on. Glenn & Crew "Bounty Hunter" B51 Cowes 2011

[Dunaruna]

The so, so clean and shiney bit (ITS MY JOB). Duna

[Martin The Talker]

Originally Posted by Dunaruna

Great Report JF.

Good to meet up with everyone and such a great time before / During & after the event, a great deal of time and effort went into the Bounty Hunter
this year and for the duration we ran the boat she was performing as she should, a pure joy to run and take part in these rare events.
We will be back for more next year and a large thank you to those who put this event on. Glenn & Crew "Bounty Hunter" B51 Cowes 2011

Glen - Bounty Hunter looked great at Cowes !
We all enjoy seeing it at races - Are you running at Weymouth later this month ?
Can't wait to see Bounty Hunter finish where it should - in a good position at the finish.
Good luck.
MN

[Dunaruna]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your kind comments on the BH, a few dedicated people in Florida and poole have put a great deal into the boat to get her in the condition she is today. Over the last couple of weeks the boat has been run in race condition with all preparation done prior to arriving in cowes on the thursday.
We had run the boat on numerous occasions and really enjoyed getting her prepared for this event.
The breakage we had prior to portland was I imagine due to running the boat with a slight heavy hand but thats the way it is we were running level and wanting to catch B41 & B25 who were just ahead by 300 yards.

The boat will be recieving more attention on the rigging side as mechanically
we have the V8s where we want them ( Awesome ) .

Weymouth is a possibility but will be last minute this time round.

Again thanks to everyone who makes running this boat in the UK waters a reality.. Glenn

[Norty]

Originally Posted by littlenige

Norty! Who was that swearing - Disco??!! Was a tad close!!

It was Disco. The Donzi had not allowed for the tide taking them east!! We had all the spectators on our port side.

[Ciao]

Some rushes of the Rob Gray owned Buzzi RIB Pipa, 3rd overall CTCwhich will be used in the 2011 Cowes Torquay Cowes film.

LINK

[Markus Hendricks]

Hello,
everybody
lately returned to Germany and half way back to normal life.
Simon Wood-Power has given a brief view of our run, so not much facts to add, but some emotions maybe?!

Let me start with the fact that before the race nobody would have known, whom to see as most likely winner.

We knew about the speed advantages of Dean Gibbs and the Langdons in their Fountains, also Fury was faster then us. The Buzzi Rib now in the hands of Rob Gray and his very expirienced crew was very well prepared and the brand new Cougar with same as our engines had a bit of all.

In the previous races many people proved that they could go fast in bad weather and few people know that Martin Lai was leading a while to Fabio Buzzi last year before his skegs went off.
Toni Tolls Apache 41 in the last Marathon Race proved its merits and had good speed, too.

Now to the race:
As Simon mentioned the run up the Solent to our starting area off Hurst gave us first stress by the narrowness of space due to a non race RIB that tried to squeeze between the Cougar and us and stayed always in our way.
Outherwise it was good to have some pictures of the Boats from the stable deck of the Red Jet and as a fleetrun, we still enjoyed the stunning looks to our sides.

Finally the start procedure was on and everybody blasted off as in a short sprint race. We managed to start well as shown from first short Filmfootage out of the Helikopter. You can see us behind the Langdons leaping forwards to them for a while.

Only Mr. Hendricks prefers to take it gentle until the pattern of the sea and the trimm match the actual boat weight distribution.
I need to develope a rythem that suits me.

I generally pefer to have some body leading the way at the beginning and then make my progress over the distance. Do not forget it was my fourth time in Lyme Bay on this race and as I sank first time my improvement of coming home save has exceeded to three out of four!

Some reason for slow upwind starting is the problem that Cinzano is when loaded with that much fuel quite heavy in the back and if we run propellers that will allow a decent speed when necessary, the punch for jumping headseas is not much at the early part of the race.

Knowing all this our strategy to hug the coast and stay in the calmer bits worked to give us a smooth ride and improved position.

You can see us coming from starboard towards Dean Gibbs Fountain and making good progress from two buoys to Portland in the Film mentioned before.

In fact the raceboats were all quite close still at Portland before we were heading into Lyme Bay. Our situation was that about four other boats were directly visible two of which following our small slope into the Bay two others more on a direct route. Dean since Portland being very close behind or to our sides made it 6 Boats in direct distance.

On the long stretch towards Berry head our setup of fuel and prop-ratio started to work better and we slowly made way towards the two most obvious roosters infront, being as we saw later the Chinese Pantera41 and the Phantom39 Fury.

From last year we knew of the upwind qualities of the Pantera, which looks to me like a copy of an Appache, as Tony Tolls, with added steps in the hull. It has much freeboard and the standing position of the drivers allows for good visibility for working out the best passages of the rougher seas.

They were well pushing Vee and Gareth both known for their fearless driving and no slow in the rough at all.

Nearer Berry Head we could close up to them as seas began to flatten and by the Berry Head Mark, we were directly behind Martin Lai.

Now I could raise the drives flatten the trimm plates and let Cinzano run.

We could pass Martin well with probably 10 MPH higher speed and soon went for Fury that had not much chance of seeing us coming in their very enclosed cockpit.

We stayed in their wake and foamy water to make us go even faster till we turned to their port side for clearly overtaking them before the turning mark at Torquay, too.

We saw speeds of mid eighty knots and after turning out to sea again it was up to 88knots on the GPS!
The turn at Torbay was an absolute wide and high speed move with us praying for Cinzano to stay nice on its radius and not hook or bounce dangerously.

As we noticed later and is visible on some pictures our Rooster Tail gave Fury some trouble in this sequence, but as they have a lot of P1 experience and the better turning boat they managed to stay well.
As the first to Torbay is quite an important detail of the race, we did not see the point in not have taken the opportunity and after all it is a race.

Down the Bay we could stay a while above eighty knots before sense and seastate made us slow down again.

I must confess it is easier to follow somebody then to lead the way, but as we knew our speed was superior there was no point in going to fast.
We were in actual fact leading the race for about 85 miles as the finish was in the Solent and the turning mark was much less then half the distance.
The tracker can not show this as it is reporting only in sequences of abaout a minute or more to its sattelites (no mobile phone based transmitting).

Lyme bay Back was good to handle and only near Portland seas became unpatterned and less comfy to run again.
In fact the closer to Cowes the worse the weather developed and much worse was the current changing the Seapattern.

Still we enjoyed the Sun when we rounded Portland and revving up in the calm directly behind was good fun too.

If we had had a depth sounder it would most probbaly have screamed at us for the shallow waters we have been in, but it was good to hear the echo of our engines and run fast for a while.

Out of this positive experience we did Anvil and the way into Poole Bay as close as possible, too.
I could virtually read the tourist information of smugglers using the coves left from the stone digging for their purposes.
Reminds me of seeing the optician for a new pair of reading glasses as Simon goes to close for me reading without them...

By now the Helicopter gave us a lot of audience and we could expect from that that nobody else was up front.

Well the way down to North Head we eased back slightly as our followers took the direct route and we seemed to have a save couple of length for heading into the Solent left.

Here we knew our speed would give us a good margine.

Only the Solent was not as flat and nice as we expected it to be and after I trimmed the drives out again and we were making superior speed we hit some strange wave or wash and had an unforeseen jump that was quite high.

As I hoped to have some distance covered I let Cincano slow down a bit for not mixing it up on the last mile and the heavy rain that started by then did not help either.

Well this was enough to see our Chinese chefs (Martin Lai is and his English Navigator Mr. Wiliams-Hawkes is a chef, too) turning up to my left side again.

So it was Speed wanted again and I trimmed the drives out, but let the Trimplates slightly down for stabilisation. It does take a while to reach supersonic (more then 80miles) again and it was quite close in the end.

We had a tough race, seaconditions not easy, somewhere between 2009 and 2010. For once I opted for a summers race not a british summers race, but no chance...

On Monday when we took Cinzano back to Drivers, it was real summerish and as tranquil as wanted but usually I do not like Mondays.
So maybe next year is fair weather. Then we have the pre RB12 race to be allocated and the Roundbritain in June plus a CTC probably not on bank holiday again though.

So lets see what happens.

We are planning Weymouth now and maybe doing 110mph in Coniston next?!?


Brgds
Markus Hendricks
Team Cinzano

[Martin The Talker]

A splendid summary of your race Markus !
Thank you, as usual, for sharing it with us all.
Congratulations on your win !

[Mark Wildey]

Originally Posted by Ciao

Some rushes of the Rob Gray owned Buzzi RIB Pipa, 3rd overall CTCwhich will be used in the 2011 Cowes Torquay Cowes film.

LINK

The FB40 looks brand new!!

Great footage of a really great boat.

[Jon Fuller]

I have to say, the new Cougar looks to run really really nice in that video. Looks really pitch stable & effortless. Lots to come from this I suspect.

Must be quite a while since SC has driven in the CTC?? what was the last time he did Class1 in the CTC?

Great job from all at Warsash .

JF

Originally Posted by Ciao

http://vimeo.com/28408999

A quick edit of the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes powerboat race clips taken on the 28th August 2011.

Thanks to Alasdair Auchincloss -This was his first time of filming a powerboat race! Some amazing footage!

[woottonwillis153]

IF the BPRC are contemplating in moving away from the traditional bank holiday weekend, remember that:-

a)The weekend following B/H weekend is the traditional Italian National Championships (surely we need the Italians here not there)

b) The weekend following that is the Belguim Offshore challange + Don Aronow Memorial marathon race

This same weekend its the yachties Little Britain Cup (biggest yacht regatta outside of Cowes week) at the Cowes Yacht Haven.

Time is running out after these dates, look at today's weather!!!

[cfun]

Thank you team Cinzano for your CTC race synopsis, always great to read the teams race experiences

I think I've had an idea what weekend next years ctc could take place my crystal ball tells me run it over the Sunday of the 1st weekend in September ... and if you should chose this date it must run on the return leg past Bournemouth and Boscombe piers before going on to Hurst and the finish line and then by some strange quirk I will guarantee to get over 1/4 million people lining the shoreline to cheer the boats back from Torquay