Diary
Liverpool
01 Sep 2005
Britiish Honda Championships - Liverpool Grand Prix - a very eventful week-end!
Saturday - 7th place I will tell you all the excuses shortly.
Sunday - 2nd place- only to be beaten to the chequered flag by 1 second!!!
A quick team re-cap for you all. Since Plymouth Libby and I have been out training every week-end under the guidance and watchful eye or our master - Neil Holmes. We have tried every possible combination to make the boat go faster and get the best out of driver, navigator and equipment!! We tried to loose as much weight as possible in the boat and many thanks go to Crewsaver who are a new sponsor on board and have supplied us with light weight air bags.
So the team were in good form and ready for the river Mersey, which is where the races were taking place and our pit areas were in the scenic Albert Docks surrounded by restaurants and bars with a constant flow of eager spectators watching our every move - great venue!
Race Day 1
Weather not brilliant , and with wind over tide the Mersey was pretty rough to say the least, but with 20 thousand spectators lining the Albert Dock Libby and I made a very impressive start and went straight into the lead on the green flag. Unfortunately it then all went wrong, the intercom failed and when Libby was frantically telling me to turn left on the first mark I was not hearing anything and I was a woman on a mission to beat the boys off the line and we missed the first mark. Once we had corrected our mistake we where now in last place! But we did not throw our toys out of our pram, we acknowledged to each other that we had no intercom but that we had to fight on and claw our way back up the fleet.
So that is exactly what we did, taking 2 boats in the next lap, only then to come across Claygate Bathrooms who had barrel rolled in front of us. With a race boat upside down and the crew in the water it is racing procedure to stop and assist until the safety teams arrive. The currents in the Mersey are so strong it was dragging the crew into the racing line so Libby and I stopped and shielded them from the on coming race boats. Our super efficient safety teams were there in a flash and Libby and I were on our way again - back in last place!
Still determined to get some very much needed points we fought back. The conditions were getting worse as the wind picked up which made the water very rough - hard work for crew and equipment. Out of 15 boats we clawed our way back to 7th place - "good effort " as Libby's Mum would say!
Julia Bradbury and the television crew along with the whole Honda fleet then proceeded to make a great spectacle and joke out of our little miss hap - "that will be a left turn then girls" I think was the favourite line!
A big thank-you must go to Kevin from DS Developments who came to our rescue on Saturday night and mended our intercom over night! thank-you also to the F4SA engineers who were a great help to Libby and I this week-end as we were short of our men, my Peter was busy at home preparing his 2 Litre race boat for his finals.
So with the boat all fueled and prepped for the next day Libby and I decided to don our knee high boots and hit the Cavern Club for the Honda party ala Beatles style! Well done Karen - a good night out!
Race Day 2
Perfect conditions, calmer and the sun was shining! This was going to be our day. An excellent start again but this time we remembered to turn left. We led the race from the start and was getting a good lead away from Team Negotiator running in 2nd place. We had problems with the GPS from the start so it was difficult to know what speed we were running and 4 laps from the end the steering decided to intermittently fail - so it was like driving a car when the power steering fails - nearly pulled my arms out of their sockets. Negotiator started to gain on us - we were losing speed so something else was wrong with the boat but we did not know what at this time. Libby was superb as usual and pushed me on in these difficult conditions - there is a lot of pressure on the navigator when you are in the lead - no one to follow and the battle was on behind us with Negotoiator getting closer. On the last turn we got caught up with a boat that we were lapping and then it was a race for the line - Negotiator beat us by 1 second! After we had got the boat out of the water we realised why we had been loosing speed, most of the filler that holds the gear box together was missing causing a lot of drag and obviously the failing steering had not helped.
A good result but not the best! We are still lying in 2nd place in the championships and it is all to play for at the finals.
The podium took place on a floating pontoon in Albert Dock in front of thousands of spectators with all the race boats lined up in front which was fantastic!! Libby and I were also awarded The Concourse De Elegance trophy for the best turned out team, which we are going to present to Gary and Phill of Marine Valeters who have cleaned and polished the boat before every race and promotion day for the past 2 years! Thank-you guys !!
Since Liverpool, the team has been very busy, we have been to support my Peter and his team mate - Peter in their 2 Litre Finals in Cowes where I played my part as a Raymarine ambassador and did live commentary on the races for the spectators and P1 Powerboat Radio. I have also been doing many interviews for BBC Radio Solent keeping the south updated on our adventures. The boat has had all the problems fixed which occurred at Liverpool and I am actually going out to test it today as soon as I have finished writing to you lovely people.
So on that note I am off to collect the boat to make sure we are ready to WIN at Guernsey 10-11th September. As usual I have attached a couple of photographs for you all, to see some more fantastic shots of the week-end including all the mishaps please visit our official Honda photographers site - www.keith-slater.org.uk
