Round Britain sum up

[ciao!]

Simon could not believe how many hours you worked! 'elf an safety would have had a field day!

Thanks for coming on board in the last few weeks and doing such a great job!

 

[cfun]

Known Gordon along long time he's a great guy...and he didn't drop buzzi's boat like the 84' guy did, well done Gordon pity I had to follow it through a computer

 

[verytricky]

...and he didn't drop buzzi's boat like the 84' guy did,

No - Buzzi did that all by himself.....

 

[cfun]

Would be interesting to hear the story's from some of the teams that had more than their share of the problems on the RB like Cinzano, Challenger/Blastoff, garmin/hunton etc

 

[the bandit]

Would be interesting to hear the story's from some of the teams that had more than their share of the problems on the RB like Cinzano, Challenger/Blastoff, garmin/hunton etc

To sum up from the bandit team

Leg 1 navigation and someone in the boat who thought that trim tabs would make the boat go faster

Leg 2 4.3 ton boat looking more like a petrol tanker on a 3.5 ton trailer

Leg 3 Third into Bangor

Leg 4 Ran out of fuel in the header tank after 30 mins running behind Silverline and the big rib finished on 1 engine

Leg 5 After 2 hours and 18 mins header tank ran dry we were racing with the goldfish boys and the 38 sunseeker. Had to wait for the header tank to refill and cruise back ran out again 2 mile from finish. Had to phone gareth to explain how th bleed an engine

Leg 6 we replaced the fule pumps but that was our down fall when taking the boat out at Edinburgh one of the crew drifted over the mud bank. 20 odd mins the following day we cooked an engine the helicopter thought we had stuffed the boat. Returned to Port and gave away 60 gallons of fuel to the crane drivers just to get the weight down on the trailer

Leg 7 we flushed the system but cooked the motor after 25 mins again so ran on 1 engine for 5 and half hours

Leg 8 I drove the trailer home.

 

[cfun]

Hi Barry, that sounds like an interesting set of circumstances unfortunate or otherwise, leg 3 sounds like a hands waving in the air moment plus a few congratulating beers after, leg 5 sounds like fun for a short while then went down the pan leg 6 that's nearly £350 worth of petrol down the swanny...ouch Leg 7 Do Merc except warranty's on one slightly thrashed and cooked round Britain engine!!! at least you made 1st in class and in JK's list 30th overall

Now all ye need to do is earn a fortune in the meantime in order to enter the CTC, hopefully see you in Cowes

 

[Matt]

Please explain - I thought the crane driver over balanced it.

Who's gonna get the blame for him hitting the barrier this time?

No - Buzzi did that all by himself.....

 

[Gordon McMath]

The Marina & Port authoritys who's property we invaded were absolutely fantastic,they bent over backwards to give us every assistance,thanks guys & girls it really was appreciated,and as for the hours worked,i strongly deny working over an eight hour day,and we all took regular breaks in line with all European working time directives

 

[Gordon McMath]

Oh and IMHO the crane operator simply over lifted in 1984 and the rest is history,very lucky that the crane did not continue to fall and guillotine the hull with its jib.

 

[SplitPin]

Rb84

If Buzzi's man hadn't tried to swing the boat round while it was on the crane there wouldn't have been a problem.
The boat had already been refuelled for the last leg. As the boat was swung, the extra weight from the fuel altered the CoG when the boat was brought nose on to the crane resulting in the accident.
Very Lucky no injuries.

 

[Gordon McMath]

Swinging the boat round would not have altered the overall weight of the boat,or the C of G once the boat was clear of the ground.

 

[the bandit]

Refueling the locals in Edinburgh

 

[ciao!]

The Bandit Teddy did every leg, by helicopter, truck, car etc. Finally got to Portsmouth courtesy of Blue FPT!

 

[the bandit]

Looking at all the pictures that's just about the best one.

The little boy who owned that teddy had the best day back at school on tue. Teachers even said to Carl (the dad) what a great time all the kids had following us around the UK. geography will never be the same.

Looks like the boat will take a trip to watford in the next couple of weeks

 

[ciao!]

Great picture and great story, just remember TP wondering about, mobile locked to his ear, B & H in mouth, Scotch in hand, and bellowing down the phone, "Fabio, this teddy needs to get to Portsmouth on Blue FPT!"

 

[2-XS-IF]

Well, what a week! In fact, what a few months.


Portsmouth > Plymouth

We managed an average speed of about 10mph more than the next boat in class and were quite happy. (until 3 days later when we got the 30 min penalty)

Jon Fuller

Going through the time sheets today and came across Portsmouth to Plymouth times. Also came across the revised Portsmouth to Plymouth times showing protests in red. You can clearly see that we are not marked in red (because we did not protest). I find it difficult to understand how they penalised us for going through the exclusion zone and how we were supposed to know that we had done this, when on the evening of the 21st our Marine Track still had us sitting in Portsmouth. With only 12 hours in which to put our appeal in, we were non the wiser. We were never told we had been given a penalty and we only found out a few days afterwards when we noticed that our time had changed from 3hrs 7 mins to 3 hrs 37 mins, well past the 12 hours appeal time. We were told at meetings before the start of the first day that Marine track was not going to be used to monitor our positions, only for safety purposes. There should also be a procedure for formally advising drivers that they had received a penalty instead of relying on us finding out ourselves. If there is such a procedure in place, we were never formally told. When we did eventually find out (by ourselves) that we had a penalty, we did then try and appeal but were told that we had missed the deadline. Both Blue FPT and Seafarer appealed in time and had their penalty withdrawn. Blue FPT ran inshore of us and were let off so clearly running offshore to FPT means that we should have been let off too. The penalty time did not affect our final position in RB4 but it does put a blight on the fantastic time we made from Portsmouth to Plymouth. We believed that Blue FPT must have had a mechanical problem because we running along side of them for the last 20 miles, but they didn't - we just made a cracking time!

 

[2-XS-IF]

.

At a point 109 miles from the finish, I 'dabbed' the port tab switch to level her up and the port engine faltered - EEEEK! What was that? Another test, and it was confirmed, we appeared to have charging failure on the port motor. An already heavily discharged battery meant that any extra current draw pulled the battery volts below the 'critical' for the engine ECU's and fuel pump to do their thing, hence the dip in oooomph. So the last 109 miles were done with only the occasional very short stab at the trim switches which gave a terrifying hessitation from the port lump. We really weren't sure if it would make the 100 miles on what remained in the battery and discussed our options of ripping out some of the bilge pump wiring to link the charging circuits (one of the jobs that never got done in the mad panic rig, was the battery crossover link cables & switch), luckily though, it continued to tick all the way to the line. We tried to restart the motor back in Gunwharf Quays, and it was a flat as a pancake.


Jon Fuller

Back at base, it would now seem that the battery cells had been smashed to pieces. The alternator was charging after all.

 

[Cookee]

Back at base, it would now seem that the battery cells had been smashed to pieces. The alternator was charging after all.

Hi Nick - Well done to both of you!

Just for interest sake what battery was it?

 

[Adam]

Going through the time sheets today and came across Portsmouth to Plymouth times. Also came across the revised Portsmouth to Plymouth times showing protests in red.

There were certainly more that went through the exclusion zone as well - we got over-taken by one boat that went well inshore and I could see other wakes (too far away to recognise) inshore ahead off them as well. So not very consistent.

Not that it made any real difference to our short lived event!

 

[Jon Fuller]

Not that it made any real difference to our short lived event!

Quite!!

I felt for you in Plymouth when you said "I've broken my driver and he wants to quit".

Would have been nice if he'd said, "I can't go on, can you find someone else to run with you".

As far as penalties go, my personal opinion is, there was far too much dishing out of this stuff (across the board) and it really isn't in the spirit of this kind of event. Also, the OOD lied to me, was totaly unhelpful and I got the impression he just wanted an easy time and our issue was too much agg. A miserable old sod. ho hum. I'm always sadened when the sport becomes a game of chess tween officials and competitors with one trying to outsmart the other, rather than an offshore race. Communication would make a world of difference.

Stewart said it was his last OOD-ship, never mind.