Saturday morning to pick up the errant gearbox for me to take to Belgium this weekend for exchange. Scorpion had finished their work with the aft locker floor and I also collected the bulky Austrian Grabner racing life jackets from Scorpion.While on Black Gold, I removed the SD card chart cartridge so I could experiment at home with the PC Planner chart package and their USB multi-media reader which will allow us to plan routes remotely.
Next stop was the Rib Show at Hamble Point. I didn't want to buy anything there, but I had arranged to meet racer John Cooke (Cookee) there. John is a constant source of wisdom and advice on the Rib forums and it was good to see his race boat with many of his ideas incorporated. Main take-aways for me were:
1. Drive to finish rather than to beat the boat next to you (a good theory!!)
2. Look after the engine cradle and ensure the throttle man (Roger in our case) keeps the propeller revs down when landing
3. John uses buttons rather than switches to reduce the risk of them turning of when the boat lands hard
4. He has multiple bungees round the engine leg to reduce the movement of the leg as the power comes on and off
5. He also suggested bleeding the two stroke oil every night at the engine mounted tank as air in this can trigger the alarms
6. John also strongly recommended that I buy a device to manage and reset the Mercury alarms
Next stop was the E P Barrus stand. This is important as Barrus will be providing a three-person team and truck full of parts to support Mercury engines.
We have given them information on our engine, drive and propeller. It was very good to hear about their plans and they even wanted to know what filter elements that we have in the fuel pre filter so that they can load them on the truck.
Up at 5 am tomorrow in order to get across to the Belgian Mercury Racing dealer with my three week old gearbox.
- Gavin May 4th
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