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Powerboat Racing Forum

My first OCR Race

by _Ed_ » 12 Oct 2015, 13:09

With Cowes now a distant memory, I had a call from Malc, trying to convince me to enter the Plymouth OCR series. Initially in my mind, I did the training earlier this year just to get a feel and enter the Cowes Poole Cowes race. That was a good race, but with the boat generally not performing how I wanted on the day it had left me with a bit of uncertainty about the level of enjoyment from this racing stuff. The fact that my Fletcher could easily do more than the top speed we had on the day in Cowes didn't help. However, that engine was sold and a few things noticed which in hindsight explained our problems, and now we had another temporary (and very old) 2.4 200 bolted onto White Fusion. This ran better and we knew from our day out to the Needles a couple of weeks ago that it should do the job - as on that day it was faultless.

Currently work load in my spare time is high, I'm planning for my November firework shows, and really could have done with the weekend to carry out more planning, and at this point the weather looked pretty rough - I can't afford to be broken at this time (or ever) really so if it was really rough I didn't want a wasted journey. However - we went ahead, and whilst this all so far sounded negative - I'M SO GLAD I DID!!!!!

We had a bit of a mad rush Saturday morning, filling with fuel preparing our kit etc, and then launched the boat into the water - it wouldn't start!!! So back to the pits again tried with a jump pack, and away it went. Phew, back in the water we waited for further instructions. First we were all taken on a guide tour around the circuit to familiarise the boats and their crew with the race. Then we headed back to the starting area.

This race, unlike Cowes was a standing start. We all line up roughly err in a line, and then the flag goes up and full power we are away. This differed from Cowes where we all got up on plane at a fairly fast pace and then the green flag went up. I think I preferred this one.

So onto plane and immediately we are in a good position, I think initially we may have been into 2nd or 3rd place. It was looking good. At this point I was very nervous, as was Malc, we headed on the start run towards the first turn, and then 30deg port followed by shortly by another 90deg port then down to a very sharp 135 deg port and then a 135 deg starboard. We nearly got caught out on the first 135 and nearly hooked the boat, nearly pointing us back where we came from! From the second sharp bend it was then south towards a maker with another 90 to port onto the next at about 85 to port going NNE to a final turn of around 95-100deg to put you back on the main straight.

If your can at all understand that, it was a nice tight but fast course, with lap times around 2 minutes. We were seeing speeds of nearly 66mph, and had quite a lot of speed on top of some of the others, but struggled more in the turns, where we lost time to pretty much everything. This other than our own lack of experience, is also down to the boat setup, weight distribution etc. We need to work on that.

So we got to 25 mins into a 50 minute race, and then started having troubles, the engine gradually lost power and we came off the plane. Up went our orange flag, and we had to retire from the race. Damn!!!! We had lost a place dropped to 5th and then regained it and indeed we think could have finished in 3rd!! But it was not to be, and we were towed back to the pontoon.

Attempts were made to get the engine running, at first it seemed as though it may be electrical with the stator filing and nearly welding to the flywheel, but as it turns out I now believe its something to do with the top crank bearing, or related parts. All our attempts failed and on the second day of racing, we couldn't even get it to the start line before it died again.

But still WOW, yes this is the most crazy kind of racing I've done and so much more exciting than track days etc I've done in the past. We think we have already located a newer and more reliable engine for 2016, as they say, to finish first, first you must finish!!

And with that I have thrown together a little video of our adventures this weekend.

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by Matt13 » 12 Oct 2015, 14:42

Great Vid Ed, looks just a little bit quick ! 8-)
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by annageek » 12 Oct 2015, 16:27

Another great video and another great write up!

That looked wicked good fun! That 'moment' you had on turn 2 must have been like mainlining adrenalin straight into your heart! :) You can really see things coming together as the video progresses though, and given it's only your second race and you have a slightly less than optimal set-up, I'd say fantastic effort! You must be chuffed regardless of the DNF.

Out of interest, what are the classes/categories? I presume it's divided up based on weight/power/length?
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by _Ed_ » 12 Oct 2015, 17:36

Thanks Matt.

Anna, I'm not too sure on classes, I was just looking it up but its unclear if we fit in a class at all - we are just racing a 'club' class. One thing I have learnt from all this racing stuff is that its really fragmented and in a pretty sorry state. It seems the RYA generally cause a nightmare for OCR type racing and possibly there is a great deal of politics involved up there somewhere none of which I know anything about, which it seems has really damaged the sport over the years.

This is really the only thing I can find about offshore in the UK. http://www.rya.org.uk/programmes/powerb ... tre3c.aspx

I'll report back if I find out more.

Turn 2 was interesting. In those 5 seconds we learnt more about the boat than in the whole time Malc has had it. It doesn't look too bad in the video and it didn't 'feel' too bad in the boat, BUT you could imagine that had it been taken flat out it could be dangerous. The back of the boat slid out by probably somewhere in the region of 20-30 deg, and when it caught again it cause that list to starboard. It was enough that Malc had to counter steer quite a bit to point us back in the right direction. - most of the time on the intercom I was just telling malc to go faster hahaha. We got some pretty cool rooster tail pics as well!



So if we are to race in this again the CG needs bringing forward. That is for definite. I had a look after and did notice that all of the other boats had their tanks just behind the drivers seats, if obviously must make a big difference. Also possibly the engine needs lowering an inch, that would affect top speed a bit, but if it holds the back better we would make it up in the turns.

All in all very interesting

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by shibbs » 12 Oct 2015, 19:17

WOW!!!
Great video and well done, that looked absolutely amazing, and hard work,.. Bet you were exhausted afterwards?
Even though it didn't run as planned it looked like you kept your sense of humour right through to the end with the flag wave. :D
A good effort, thanks for sharing, thoroughly enjoyed watching that!
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by _Ed_ » 12 Oct 2015, 19:56

Believe it or not, I was entirely unaffected by the race physically, during or after. Malc suffers more as for him, he has to use the foot throttle, which has such a strong return spring (as its still on cables) it gives leg cramp. (Drive by wire would be so much better). As for humour - it was so much fun, we still ended on a massive high. It really was better than Cowes Poole Cowes, as not only was it fun for us, our friends/family could come and watch as well, so they also found it more exciting.

Glad the pics and video are interesting. I could not have ever imagined I'd be doing this even 6 months ago. It really is accessible to anyone with a bit of time, effort and not that much money. If its of interest, this weekend cost us £80 each to enter, £150 for the boat entry + fuel +accommodation and the normal staying alive stuff lol. So not that bad really. Even our race training was provided FOC as the OCRDA are trying to get new people into the sport.
Will try to avoid engines going bag on each outing however as that will get expensive quickly!!!
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by sprocker » 13 Oct 2015, 06:56

Fantastic stuff Ed, I really enjoy your racing vids.

I wish I'd known about the racing in Plymouth, I would have popped down to watch. Is there a website/websites that would give us the racing schedule?
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by Ianfs » 13 Oct 2015, 13:38

I've watched the vid about 4 times now, so call me a sad git, it was fun!! :D

I love watching that type of powerboat racing on the sea, its a real challenge on that surface to maintain a smooth drive. Back in the 70's we took a boat and trailer in part exchange, it was like a T850 single seater, but had a 50hp on the back. I was asked to drive it in some races for the garage, it took me quite a while to say yes, I think it was a nano second or something like that... :lol: :lol:

Watching you catch the wave then recovering and learning the corners took me back, which is why I had to watch it again. Absolutely fantastic Ed, congrats to both of you. I loved that you both began to rely on each other as the race progressed and you both relaxed into it. I couldn't help keep thinking that the other guys probably felt very relieved when you pulled out, you were well quicker.
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by _Ed_ » 13 Oct 2015, 22:46

Ian, glad you found it that interesting. I tried to keep it as short as possible. Its a memory for us if anything. I'll continue to do them for future races and put them here as well :)

As for our speed, yes. We are not in any specific race class, so we have more power than some of the others. However they have experience and better setups, so for us it makes it a really interesting race!!

Sproker, I don't know of a race calendar as such. Events seem to be announced a few months before they happen, but I'll post up any future ones I hear about.
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