
Napier was a good time. Certainly NZOPA’s decision to hold 3-4 races over two days under the new season format is now well proven to be a great test of both boat and team construction and endurance.
Saturdays race saw what we would have said was a good 1.5m swell with another 20+ knots of wind on it, but in an uncharacteristic way, the swell was short spaced and the chop had no structure to it, made for hard water. We had 4 boats retire on Saturday, one missing a gearcase (Mans Ruin), one with a broken transom (Legend), one with broken steering (Gold Ship), and one with a snapped blower belt (Midnight Express), then a 5th as myself (Supersonic) with a broken cowling mount and broken trim.

The first race saw a reasonable lead in the 600HP class to Espresso Engineers over Rainbow Haulage however down in the 60Mile championship the first two laps were tight with Fury, Midnight Express and Supersonic all about 50m between each. Supersonic faced broken trim which saw them drop back and settle for third and Midnight Express stayed in touch with Fury II until the final corner where they made their move and pipped Fury II at the line beating them by 1 second – thrilling.
Race two saw closer action between Espresso and Rainbow, with the same result eventuating. In the 60Mile more drama, on the opening straight Midnight Express threw a blower belt and retired, one lap later Supersonic broke the cowling mounts stripping electrics off the motor forcing their retirement leaving Fury II to run home with the win and Equalizer to stay out in rotation to settle for 2nd.
Only myself managing running repairs late into the evening on Saturday in preparation for Sunday with some very crude new cowling mounts mocked up on top of the steering winglpate.

Conditions on Sunday were much worse; early morning, one of our patrol boats headed out to begin searching for the lost gearcase using sonar and divers. They reported back that the seastate was a solid 2-2.5m made up of a 1.5-2m short swell and a solid 20 gusting 30knot wind.
As a team, we were granted the support of the harbour master to race if we deemed it safe; however, collectively, we had a small meeting and decided it was simply not fair on the support boats to sit out in the conditions, so we could have 6 boats compete. Of the 6 boats there were only two of us who were FIRM yes’s to go out, myself and Rainbow Haulage. Two were fence sitting and two were not interested – to be fair the conditions were boat breaking.
All in account it was agreed that the 3rd race would be cancelled and points awarded according to our rule book for entered racers, with additional points awarded to myself and Rainbow through being voters in favor of competing regardless of the conditions.
Social media New Zealand Offshore Powerboats page https://www.facebook.com/nzoffshore has several images from spectators and a few of our race pits. We had some great community engagement, with my boat picking up special mention as being so ‘accommodating’ to kids. One mother even went back through social media to find our entry poster just to share her gratitude which was awesome and very humbling – certainly hits you in the feel good… This is something that makes our events so special is the “open pits”, the ability for the public to get up close to the boats and in many cases even jump on board and have a closer look. As young fathers myself and my crew always go out of our way to encourage kids to hop on board and have a look, and with a Sonic the Hedgehog on the side of the boat it’s certainly one of the more relatable boats for them, great confidence booster for kicking off the engagement.
We move now to Taupo on the 15th-16th February based out of 2 Mile Bay Boat Ramp.
At this stage we are expecting a very good turn out – 3x 600hp Superlite Cats, 3-5x 80Mph V8 inboards, 3 x 300hp sports class boats, up to 10x 200hp sport boats, 3x 140hp boats Taupo is very much a highlight event with the lakes foreshore becoming a fantastic grand stand for spectators and the freshwater being so kind on the boats. We’ve had flat races, rough races, foggy races, you name it at Taupo, you never know what it will throw at you.
Supplied by Ryan Archer