Cowes Torquay race

Following on from the Round Britain trip we raced in the Cowes Torquay Cowes race, one of the toughest annual Offshore races you can do, many start but often few finish!Here's our story:Here you go ................What a weekend!A big thanks to everyone involved whether in or out of the boat.The weekend went quite smoothly (remind me never to drink red wine in the Duke of York ever again), the customary weather briefing at the pits on the morning of the race told us that it wasn’t going to be too bad and the western end of the course may even be flat!The convoy to the muster area was painfully slow at times but we made it out of the Solent without getting tangled up with the many spectator boats littering the way up there not to mention the yacht race that we caught up near Hurst Castle!We had a good start on the outside of the start line and had a short fight with Swipewipes and My Pleasure but the sea was quite big and it was a long way to go so we kept up a steady pace until we were clear of Portland and we could get into some slightly better water. Unfortunately for Swipewipes they had picked up some poor fuel, so we will never know if our tactic of heading more northerly rather than directly across Lyme Bay would have seen us overtake them, but we were flying and saw speeds of 68 mph before turning in fourth place overall and first in class at Teignmouth. Before we could get to the Exmouth mark and start our run for Cowes Hercules Sagemann came past us – no surprise as they were an A class boat with massive twin petrol engines totalling 1850 hp, the mystery is why were they behind us to start with, the answer of course is they had inferior navigation skills!After less than five miles we were forced to slow down due to a massive vibration which turned out to be a loss of one of the blades of one of the propellers, unfortunate as we were definitely not only in a great position for the class win but also first diesel boat home and a place in the top five overall – a spectacular performance for a boat in the smallest class! We were limited to just over 30mph for the return trip across Lyme Bay and back up to Cowes so we started the long haul back to the finish, whilst underway we received a text message from our ground crew (thanks Dave!) to say that our competition for the class win had pulled into Weymouth and another boat in our class was going in the same direction at just 5 knots – we could still do well if we kept our speed up high enough to be qualified as a finisher! It goes without saying that the mood in the boat was lifted as things were looking very rosy indeed. It only seemed like ten minutes had passed when we had another text saying that the boat that had pulled into Weymouth (Gordon in My Pleasure) had rejoined the race and was going flat out, this of course meant that we might not win our class but we still had hope – as it turned out Gordon had only topped up with fuel so his only issue was a high fuel consumption although we only found that out later. We eventually crossed the finish line in just under 5 hours just 11 minutes behind the class winner. Apart from the medals for each of the crew we were surprised and very honoured by being awarded the John Mace Perpetual Challenge Award for design which was received by John on behalf of the design team of the brilliant BananaShark Stirling. A very difficult and emotional race but the result we can take away from the weekend is improved performance and a bright future for the crew and the boat.Bring on 2013 and the Cowes to Monte Carlo Venture Cup!The part of the prop embedded in the back of the boat!

Tim Tapping's photo from the far end of the course before the prop lost a blade:

Receiving The John Mace Perpetual Challenge Award for design from the British Powerboat Racing Club on behalf of the design team in Cowes.

Great news! Our wonderful sponsors E-Lites have given the go ahead for us to distribute the £3,500 entry fee that is due to be returned to us by the RB12 organisers - we will be setting off round Britain on June 21st to give this money to Children's Hospices around the country as we go. A big mention to Raymarine and E P Barrus as well without whose help none of this would be possible. Here's the route as it is now!

Going Round Britain anyway!

RB12 Race has now been officially "Postponed" until 2014 but it will take more than that to put off the E-Lites BananaShark crew.

 With very little time to organise it the intention is for the crew to carry on with the trip and go round Britain anyway, using the more traditional Race route through the Caledonian Canal the crew plan to start in their home port of Salcombe, the team will visit 10 more venues leaving cheques for Children's Hospices at every venue with the Rotary Club of Great Britain (I'm sure they won't mind!) - This money will come from the return of the entry fee from the RB12 Organisers. Our proposed route is on this map and if we get approval from everybody we will be back by the end of June.

Wish us luck and if anyone is on our route we would love to see you on the way round.

Here's a bit of video from the 2011 Cowes Torquay race: Video

Nice photo of the team taken by Chris Davies in Cowes on the morning of the Cowes Torquay race 2012

Spring is nearly here and the boat will be read to race the best in the World very soon, the BananaShark team E-Lites have had a very busy winter, not only have they been working very hard on the boat to get ready for the 2012 season and especially the epic Round Britain race in June, but also had to find time to visit the Autosport Show and the two Top Gear live shows in London and Birmingham with the boat as guest of E-Lites electronic cigarettes.

Team principal John Cooke also visited the London Boat Show and did a presentation on the boat and the team in association with sponsors Raymarine who supply the team with the latest multi functional displays.

BananaShark and the crew have also been busy raising money for various charities, and they have auctioned off rides in the race boat at the Help the Heroes Ball at the Beautiful Soar Mill Cove Hotel near the teams base in Salcombe Devon which was at the end of November and they managed to raise a staggering £5,000. In December it was the turn of the Imperial Hotel in Torquay who were raising money for the Devon Air Ambulance and the Round Table Children’s Wish Charity raising even more money for the excellent causes. Lastly in January the Burns Night Ball for 200 guests held at the Grand Hotel also in Torquay  were also raising money for the Round Tables Children’s Wish Charity and their total for the evening was well over £1,000, their highest ever total in the six years the ball has been running.

Despite having the most economical engines in the whole race the team have somehow found time to enlarge the fuel tanks to account for the length of some of the legs of the next Round Britain race to be held in June, the Yanmar BY260’s supplied by E P Barrus are based on the very reliable and economical 3 litre BMW car engine only use approximately 1.5 litres per mile (for the pair!) and the longest leg being from Edinburgh to Hull at 267 miles it’s going to be a long day and we expect to burn around 250 litres of diesel, the team will also be using the fantastic Raymarine displays which will enable us to keep an eye on our fuel consumption in real time. The team has also been Carbon Neutral since Cowes Torquay last year and in association with Treecreds have already bought the Carbon Credits required for the whole race, not only for the boat but also for the support vehicles as well, so instead of destroying the planet we hope to do our little bit in saving it. The team is also looking forward to June 2013 when they will be racing from Cowes To Monte Carlo but we’ll be stopping every night on the way down – I don’t think even the new fuel tanks will get us there is one go!

E-Lites and BananaShark at Autosport

E-Lites and BananaShark at the Autosport show 12^th – 15^th January

The BananaShark Stirling race boat will be on our sponsors stand at the NEC for the four day Autosport show along with a free 3D Formula One simulator. The boat will be on display alongside the best the UK has to offer in the whole of Motorsport, there will be a chance to see inside the boat and talk to E-Lites director and crew member Adrian Everett about the adventures the crew have already had and how to follow the boat in this year’s Round Britain race which takes place in June.