2007 Pre Season review -

 

Does the work ever end?!!!

Friday night:

The boat is upside down, the bottom is white, the floor is a mess and the shelves will take months to clean. But wait we’re not there just yet.

Before Friday night:

We sold our house, moved into an apartment and started remodeling the new house. Now this all seemed incredibly rationale and entirely sane until December 14 when a minor wind storm blew through the Northwest. The south end of Mercer Island looked like a scene from the country fields of Europe following the BlitzKrieg. After 164 hours (yes merely 4 hours shy of 7 complete days) we returned to the Twenty-First century. In the interim we lived in an erstwhile stone-age. In the morning (to a wind-up alarm clock) we rose and drove 15 minutes to the community center to shower. We spent the day out, went to the Public Library in the evening and stopped by the SubWay shop for sustenance in the evening. Once returned to the welcoming sub 40 degree Fahrenheit temperatures at home we huddled in the master bedroom and played cards around a fire of discarded power company pallets. Oh fond memories – fortunately the power returned on December 21st and we could finally see the lights and decorations on the tree.

Having no small amount of work to do around the house in the winter I somehow failed to recall what it entails to prepare for the race season. In early March I got a call from Dean and was posited with the question... “Are we going racing this season?” This was a gentle reminder that we had work to do and no trivial amount. In 2006 we fought starboard sponson lift all season. A rookie driver learning the ropes and I was left foot driving the entire time (not necessarily well mind you as we did achieve 12 feet of elevation in Tri Cities…). There were changes to be made and it was dawning on all of us that time was nigh.

One of the first things we had to address was that our trailer, built in Canada, was not actually legal in the United States. The WSP had been gracious enough to provide me a registration in 2006 – but advised me not to be pulled over as it would result in rather stiff penalties. Corkey to the rescue (if not without some kicking and screaming) we now have a legal, lower and safer trailer – many thanks Cork.

                        While the trailer was a consideration on the pavement the boat was rather more so on the water. Managing a 115 mph lap in San Diego was either shear brilliance or shear stupidity – I’ll allow the community at large to decide. Aerodynamic changes had to be made. So baby got new shoes… a new starboard sponson air deflector, new starboard ram wing air deflector, new canard controls, new props, new skid fin and new paint. Has any boat ever been so loved I ask you?

 

Well before and after Friday night:

            How does one work on the bottom of a hydroplane? This is probably a somewhat obvious question to many – not so the uninitiated. The answer is actually quite simple, you turn it over. After all you only have an eleven foot wide, twenty four foot long, two thousand pound hull (fortunately not overly tall…). One simply lifts it up and flips it over!

Well after Friday:

            We are days away from Tasting & Racing. We were unable to make Desert Thunder through no fault of the crews efforts. Countless hours put us in position to race but unfortunately we had a small hole in the middle of the hull - our motor blew up on the dyno less than 72 hours before the race. Now we look forward to making up for lost time and points. Great thanks go out to Dean, Jim, Christopher, Dwain, Kathy, Megan, Bryn and Donna. Let’s get out there and kick up some water!!!  (Oh BTW what does the new boat look like – stop by TnR to take a look…)