Last weekend, myself and a few hardy fellow Mayhemers took part in a jolly little 2 day event held on Lake Windermere.
We were greeted on the Saturday morning with a mist over the water which meant that the racing had a slight delay in starting as we couldn't see the course! After that, the sun actually shone!
The first few races were 'normal' in that the water was calm and the boats could be driven at speed (unless they broke down - but that's another story... ).
Just after midday, the wind picked up and from then until the end of racing on Sunday the course could truly be described as 'off-shore'! I've raced in the open sea with waves smaller than we had at Windermere! The wind was coming from the South - straight up the lake FOR 6 MILES, resulting in 'head on' waves a foot hgh along the pit straight. If the boats had 'flown' any higher, we'd have had to use 35MHz radios!
It was definitely an event for submerged drive as the surface drive boats were too fast on the plane and if throttled back, dropped the back end into the water leaving the prop cavitating like mad and unable to get back up on the plane.
That's what makes our kind of racing so interesting. If the water conditions change, you can end up with the completely wrong design to win. ("You pays your money .... etc ).
Just to show the severity of the conditions, here's a picture of the rescue boat bringing in 3 boats which had fallen foul of the waves.
Great weekend though (even though I didn't win a sausage - had some very nice ones in bread rolls though)
Danny
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Topic: Windermere race weekend (Read 2948 times)