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!