Double Trouble Wins Cowes Torquay Cowes as Good Boy Vodka’s Fastest Time Is Penalised

Gary Aldington and Anton Modin won the storm-shortened Cowes Torquay Cowes in Double Trouble, taking overall victory after Robert Lockyer’s Good Boy Vodka, the fastest boat on the water, was hit with a 20-minute penalty for passing the wrong side of the Southbourne buoy.

Good Boy Vodka’s raw race time of 49 minutes 15 seconds was 20 seconds quicker than Double Trouble’s 49:35. With the penalty added, Robert Lockyer’s crew were classified fourth overall, second in Class 120 behind Double Trouble. Notareal picked up the same penalty for passing the wrong side of the finish buoy, dropping Joe Spoloric and Cade Wilson from contention to seventh.

“Unfinished Business”

Gary Aldington:

Standing on the top step of the podium today feels a bit weird. Rob rang me and said ‘you’re the winner’ I said, what do you mean? He said, we screw up it’s yours.

Well we still have unfinished business because even though my name goes on the cup, he was first across the line. I still have to come back and beat Rob again in a different way. For the moment you take it as it comes.

The Moment at Southbourne

Rob Lockyer, Good Boy Vodka:

Actually the conditions were pretty good out there, sure there were some big swells but it was fine. Not sure Lyme Bay would have been pretty. So I still think it was the right call to alter the course. We led for most of the race, then we almost missed the mark at Southbourne and did a double turn there. My navigator wasn’t wearing his glasses so Gary came by us, and then we caught him and retook the lead heading back up the Solent.

Gary Aldington, Double Trouble:

I thought the start was good, then I just noticed that we were just down on top speed so Rob got away from us. The boost on the right engine wasn’t there which I was worried about as it’s clearly hurt us. So we were down to one normally aspirated and one super charged. The port engine had a hard time as it was literally on the limit everywhere. Rob had a better boat for today although we actually got past him at the Southbourne mark. We thought even if we could stay a mile ahead of him, we knew he could just overtake us, so once we got down the finish straight we just lifted a little and thought let’s not blow the engine to bits.

Fastest on the Water, Fourth on the Board

Tim Linden, throttles on Good Boy Vodka, spoke to PBN before the penalty was posted:

Coming into this weekend we’re all keyed up having done the full race course two years past. So this one felt a bit strange though it’s still good to race but this one was more of a sprint, like a real sprint. We just had to go out and run as hard as we could, ’cause you didn’t know how it was gonna end up. This one’s about just laying it down and trying to get ahead first. It was a tough race and a lot of boats broke. We came across the finish line and basically had one and a half engines running plus we were taking on water when we got back to the yacht haven.

Silverline’s Retirement

Drew Langdon, Silverline, which was running second before retiring:

We were running behind Good Boy Vodka around Hurst, so in second place. Then we took off from a huge wave, landed heavily on the right hand side and knocked out all the electrics on the new starboard engine. The water temperature then skyrocketed because I think the supercharger belt came off and as it’s came off, it took out both the oil and water pump. So, and then when the electrics came back on again, it said two PSI oil pressure and it was all over for that engine. We had no oil pump and no cooling. So we pottered back on one. But yeah, it was going quite well, to be fair. We couldn’t go as fast as Rob because we were set up for rough water, but we could see his rooster tail, so we were ready to strike in the bumpy stuff though one heavy landing messed it all up.

Lightning Strikes’ Recovery

Second overall and first in Class 100 was Lightning Strikes, after its own mechanical scare. Dean Stoneman:

I think we should have gone to Torquay. It was rough, but it wasn’t horrendous. We’ve raced in rougher conditions in Poole Bay. It would have been nice to go down there because this race is all about endurance and survival. We had a really good start, just cruising along at 95 mile per hour down the Solent. As we’ve got to Hurst Castle, I saw the water temperature climbing, and I could smell burnt rubber. I checked and saw that we had thrown a supercharger belt and the dip stick had gone. So I think the dipsticks had come out and wrapped itself around the auxiliary belt and took supercharger out. So we had to cut some of the Kevlar belt around the pulleys and pulled that away, put the auxiliary belt and supercharger belt back on and got going again. We had no dipstick, but no oil anywhere which was good. We managed to catch up and past Blackball and 69 racing. I could see the other guys in the distance, and I think we were going quite a lot faster, because as we were coming around, I could see their rooster tails and on the 2nd lap, in Christchurch Bay I closed a huge amount of distance on them. But I knew that at our speed we couldn’t push much faster so settled to cross the line 1st in our class.

Double Trouble’s Weekend

The win comes two days after a sheared supercharger belt spline threatened to keep Double Trouble out of the race entirely. Anton Modin, throttles:

Overall this weekend has been great fun. We flew in Tuesday, we went out testing Wednesday, we broke a little bit, repaired it, came over to Cowes and we did our best. One blower was out from the start so we were a little bit down on power, but we could try to keep up with them as best as we could in the rough, there’s always next year. You can really push these boats hard, like, in the rough. It was super nice when Gary was heavy on the throttles today. Now we may be back over for the last round of the UKOPRA Championship to race 3C.

We are still tied for the lead in the championship, so we need to do something.