I love my local radio station. Ye see, Sovereign FM runs a competition during the weekdays, one which usually results in a daily winner of a new CD or some tickets to a local or London show. Last week, however, each daily winner got put into a final draw to win a “money can’t buy” prize; a day with a speedboat team and a seat on a speedboat as it ran a 3-lap race.
This was to take place on the Saturday, during Eastbourne Extreme, an annual event celebrating all sorts of ‘extreme’ sports, such as parkour, skating, windsurfing – and speedboat racing, obviously.
I won the prize. Sweet.
On the Saturday, I walked to the marina and met up with a mate who was to take the second place (Oddly enough, my wife didn’t fancy it too much). From there, we met up with Jenny and Denis, two of the people from UK Formula Future Offshore Race Club organising the weekend’s boating activities. From there, we were introduced to various other folk, including Jake Swann and Ben Kendall, the pilot and co-pilot of the boat one of us was likely to be racing in.
Nippy looking blighter, eh?
Sadly, the weather was against us that day; it was deemed to be too windy to race that day, although the reports were that Sunday was supposed to be a lot calmer. We were invited to spend the day with the team, but both of us had stuff to do at least one day of the weekend, so we decided to slide off and come back in the morning.
The next day, my mate didn’t turn up (nothing to do with alcohol or nerves, I was assured), so I was definitely in for a solo thrill.
Following a briefing that was far from brief (are they ever short?) but full of important details, we all headed off to boats – in my case, after being kitted up.
Initially, I was to sit on one of the support boats and watch while some of the qualifying races were run. See that seat at the front? That, apparently, is what’s known as the ‘suicide seat’, a fact I learned after we were some distance away from the shore and I had been sat there for some thirty minutes or so. Just as we were heading into choppy water. How choppy? Well, not as bad as the day before, where the swells were about a metre in height, but enough that heading across the waves in the wrong direction would cause some serious bouncing. Take a look at this short video (but turn the sound down, yeah? I did try to provide some commentary, but the wind was blowing too strongly on the microphone)
I hope you noticed just how high the nose of that speedboat on my right was going. The boat I was going to be riding in later.
*gulp*
My feelings of unease grew as I heard talk about the waves; it seemed that the younger boat pilots were going to have trouble with the choppiness. Indeed, after a practice circuit, it was decided they it was too dangerous for them to race, even though they were in less powerful boats. As it was, the waters were at the uppermost of the comfort zone for the experienced pilots.
And still nobody thought it would be too rough for me…
Just watching the faster boats zip and bounce around the bay was amazing enough – especially from the viewpoint of a suicide seat a few hundred yards away. I couldn’t help but notice that Jake’s was far and away the fastest boat out there. Fast enough, in fact that he decided to throttle back and (it seemed) coast his way around for the rest of his laps.
When they finished, our boat drew alongside Jakes and Ben and me swapped places. Suddenly, I was in a sleek beast of a machine with a 150hp engine behind me. There were two handles for me to hold on to, but no seatbelt or harness. I wasn’t sure if that worried me or not…
Jake opened the throttle and we sped over to the starting position. As we waited, I was told that I just had to take his arm if I felt I couldn’t take any more. This was a nice thought, but totally wasted as the short, relatively slow, trip to the start had convinced me that letting go of the handles in any circumstances whatsoever was going to be a very bad idea indeed.
Just as Jake gunned the engine, I had a sudden thought; all the younger pilots and smaller boats had been sent back to the marina. This meant… oh crap… this meant that there was no real reason to slow down much.
I have never gripped anything so hard in my life as I gripped those handles.
We weren’t the first off the line, but all that meant was that we hit the wakes of the boats in front – like the sea needed any roughing up. As an added bonus, the water from these wakes caught us across the face. This was bad enough on its own, but Jake wears glasses which got covered in salt spray. Not that really mattered, because all we could really see in front of us was either the nose of the boat as it shot up or a wall of water as we landed with a horrendous, body-jarring thump.
We were travelling from wave to wave at speeds up to 60mph. It was like being subjected to a series of belly-flops, ones that could come from any direction. At one point, we left the water for a while and I thought, “Hold on, where’s the water GHHuuuuhhhhhhh! ….ow…”
I would have gritted my teeth but I felt that this was likely to result in them shattering.
And then a windsurfer drifted across the course.
Luckily, Jake had seen him and his support boat and easily manoeuvred around them both.
Astonishingly quickly, it was all over. As we hove to, I turned to Jake and said, “I have so much respect for you right now.”
Now, all I had to do was persuade my fingers it was finally okay to let go of the handles. Funny. I didn’t recall there being finger-shaped grips on them before…
After a leisurely ride back to the marina, we had a quick photo opportunity and I went round shaking hands. I was offered a bag of chips, but I politely declined. For some reason, I didn’t feel like eating right then.
There’s a few more photos over at the Sikkdays Facebook page, if yer of a mind.
Finally, I just want to say a big thank you to all those responsible for giving me one of the most intense, amazing and unforgettable days of my life, Simon Rose at Sovereign FM, Jenny and Denis of the UK Formula Future Offshore Race Club and last, but not least, Jake Swann (and Ben) of Team Big 666 Racing.
