Thundering run across the Irish Sea
MBY’s Derek Wynans is in Oban after a glorious run across the Irish Sea in Racing Silverline.
The 113-mile fourth leg of the Round Britain Powerboat Race took the Silverline crew just 1 hour 45 minutes.
The leg was won by Wettpunkt.com
Derek, 35, was given a warm welcome as they reached the Scottish port – it’s his home town!
He says: “I’m in Oban and what a beautiful, beautiful run that was.
“The boat was only running at about 75% because they had to hard weld one of the shafts to the gear box after damage yesterday, as a temporary repair.
“So we could only manage a measly 80 knots. Just ticking over really.
“We were thundering up the Mull of Kintyre and we stuffed it twice in a row into two big waves, which knocked out our sat nav and intercoms.
“It was very rough water for about half a mile, then we were clear of it and the water just got flatter and flatter up through the islands.
“It was absolutely glorious, fantastic!
“We had third place coming up past Ling, from Blue FPT, but just at the end we were overtaken by two RIBs.
“I think we’re in fifth overall. We’re over the moon. Everyone really happy.
“And I can sleep till Thursday!”
Meanwhile the Silverline team have given their impressions of yesterday’s race, which they led at first.
The Cummins Mercruiser Diesel (CMD) powered 42ft Buzzi design led for 10 miles, before letting the bigger and faster Austrian entry, wettpunkt.com, past.
Silverline’s driver, Miles Jennings, a director of Original Style Ceramics, explained: “With wettpunkt a retirement on Day 1 we had no real need to race him so we just let him go on and tucked in to his wake, running about 1 mile astern at a very easy speed of around 70 knots.
“We took a pretty direct course and everything was going very well mechanically until about 5 miles from the finish when we experienced a transmission failure and lost drive to one engine but we made it home on the other.
“It was all a bit of a disappointment after our triumph on Saturday but the Cummins UK crew are helping us diagnose and repair what isn’t really their problem and we will be on the line tomorrow for the sprint to Oban.”
