2023 Bermuda 'Round the Island Seagull Race.

[Lightbourn]

Dear all
Another of our historic races is complete for 2023. I haven't done the maths yet to calculate how much we can donate to the Bermuda Sloop Foundation - but I hope that it will be in the $5000 range - so well done everyone for supporting this worthy charity promoting the growth of youth by being out on the water.

First of all - my thanks to everyone that makes this race possible -
1) Heinken/Burrows Lightbourn who give big donations towards shirts, beer and prizes - it really makes the race - and the Heineken shirts look so good!!!
2) RUBiS for donating fuel gift vouchers that are given out to our crash boats
3) Our wonderful crashboat fleet - whether official or unofficial - we thank you for helping making this race possible - without you - we could not hold the race due to safety concerns . A big thank you to Jonny White - the crash boat captain who manages to organise everything and people.
4) Our caterer - Kirk Wilks of Wilks Catering - a big thank you for providing much needed sustenance at the end of a day of being out on the water!!! You support us with that and the decent price!!!
5) Sara Lewter for doing the music to get the people dancing - there was a little bit yesterday - but in general - great music as background to make it a festive event.
6) Luis Martins and Tim Southern of Fast Forward for absorbing our freight costs for the TShirts - Tim made it to race this year!!!! Yay!

Lastly - the committee of Corry Kowalchuk, Stephen Roberts, Michael Bean, Brian Lightbourn and John Russell - there is a lot to organise prior to the event; aside from the generation of the shirts etc - there is chasing up of trophies, finding prizes from local businesses/restaurants to supplement the prizes from Heineken; ensuring people are in the right classes; and calling the race on weather!!! we work well!!!

Thanks also to Shawn Burgess for being my help and supporter on race day - helping to start the races and checking which boats go out; checking people back in - he can recognise people in boats that I certainly don't!!!!!!

Now to the race report
The weather was kinder to us than the last 2 years - instead of plastic bags to protect you from the rain and wind - sunshirts etc were needed. The 8-12k winds coming from the SE made south shore "sloppy" ( the description I was told!!) (Nasty could be another one)
We lost a couple of boats due to the change to the rain date - but of the 49 boats that were signed up to do the race on the day:
25 finished - 9 DNS - 13 DNF - 2 DNC
Not all the DNF were south shore related - several were because of "electrical failure" early on in the course or fuel pump issues - one person had their fuel pump fall overboard - that would do it!.

JJ Soares was the 1st boat to break down - on return - he managed to fix the issue - and apparently went out again - I don't think he did the course - but hope that he and his crew at least had a good time out on the water.
There were a few racers whose engine would not start - so swopped them for other outboards and also went out.

The first "bad" call I had was from Martin Dixon a crash boat - saying he had obviously run over a thick net of some kind - and it has stopped the engine - so we almost needed a crashboat for a crashboat. He ended up getting a tow from the CoastGuard - so hopefully the engine is OK.

The second and last bad call I got was that Cheeky Lips driven by Glenn Clinton and Alan Powell (who had come back to the island specifically to race) were hit by a rogue wave somewhere on south shore which turned them turtle. Luckily - a boat was close by (some random stranger) - and rescued them, the boat, the engine and quite a lot of their stuff. They are OK - probably a bit bruised but - in general - safe. (Bar Alan's phone which sunk....) Glad there was someone close by.

We had a late entry of newbies Conor Outerbridge and his girlfriend Haley - they went out in a punt type boat - and they did not have a line to the fuel tank from the petrol tank; so they had to keep stopping to refill the tank!!! Their enthusiasm was awesome to see - but we did tell the crashboats to watch over them as we were a little concerned about their safety and ability to complete the course. Needless to say - Michael Bean picked them up and towed them back - there was no way they were going to make it to south shore like that!!!! He said that they were laughing the whole way back - so next year Conor and Haley - plan a little further in advance than the night before - get a decent boat - and ensure you can feed your fuel tank fuel to take you around. Hopefully see you next year!!!!

Mandy Lohan was very proud (as she should be) of her 13 year old son Finn - who captained Sea Ya around the island. He won the prize for best performance as a novice - hopefully he is getting hooked on racing like his mother was/is!!!!

Record breaking - Kenny Matthie and "In Living Memory" broke their own record set last year of 2 hours 12 minutes for an Unlimited seagull engine - with a new record time of 2 hours 4 minutes!!!! Congratulations.

There is one change to the prize listing - we were told later in the evening after the prizes had been given out that Miles to Go in fact had to cut through Castle Harbour as they had a hole and engine issues - so needed to get home. This means In De Red - captained by Alex Brogden gets 1st in the class - (Michael Bean has the 1st prize for you - so please contact him to collect it 337-2325)

Save the dates - next year 15th June 2024 - rain date 22 June at Sandys Point Club. Sign up will be at Spanish Point Boat club - 5th June 2024

See you all then - and hopefully we will have more entries and successful completions of the course next year!!!! I think that working on engines and boats a week before the race is cutting it a little fine!!! Allow at least a month!!!!

Thank you all again yourselves for making this an awesome event. See you next year
All the best
Martine

I will look for more pictures and add them later...

[Lightbourn]

2023 Entry form showing classes.

[Lightbourn]

https://fb.watch/lr6Y6Wk29h/

[Lightbourn]

https://fb.watch/lr6_WDxD40/

[Lightbourn]

https://fb.watch/lrde5gsJWo/

[andrew]

This year we ran a stock 170 with OEM big end cap, yes a gamble but kept to low RPMs and had a good day cruising a much too heavy boat comfortably around 6 knots. This was the revived version of this motor, with a used replacement rod/cap found on eBay:

viewtopic.php?t=6861
viewtopic.php?t=7211

On the test run 2 weeks before, the flywheel nut came loose after about 15 mins and the starter cup with nut came flying off the motor (recoil and cowling were off so we could monitor the situation). We bee-lined back to the dock for fear of motor cutting out and not being able to restart. Luckily discovered on return that it had actually flown into the boat. Back on properly tightened and no more issues there. But, it cut the test run much shorter than I wanted, so we went into the race with a well-stocked toolkit and crossed fingers. Also didn’t burn enough fuel to get a sense of what it would take to go around, so we carried quite a bit extra on the day.

Spark plug was a bit wet/oily after test run, but had been running closer to 20:1 mix and a cooler plug than desired, so not unexpected. Went with slightly hotter plug and 25:1 on the race day, with good results.

On the day, motor started off great but one hour into the race it started to struggle, revs dropped a few times, came back, then finally cut out. Checked the plug while we bobbed around to see if fouled, it looked in great condition, so was happy with the plug and mix. Restarted and ran a minute or two, then same issue arose. Third time it cut out it would not start again. So we were towed into Cambridge beach beach by one of the helpful crash boats by 9am.

Suspected fuel was the problem. And yes, turns out in our haste putting the motor together we forgot to put in a fuel filter. Silly mistake. Carb bowl was filled with crud. Called a friend on land who 90 mins later delivered carb cleaner and filter to the beach. Stripped/cleaned carb, put the fuel filter inline just before the fuel pump, and 2 hours after breaking down we were off again! For 5 minutes that is, until the problem repeated itself. At this point I was not confident we would be going any farther.

Luckily we were staying very close to land at this point in case of further issues, so we rowed in 100ft and tied up to nearest dock. Carb bowl off and again there was a bit more muck in there which we rinsed out. Assume this was the last bit of crud from the fuel still in the line between filter and carb.

After this we had a good run with only 2 more easily-fixed cutouts, first one was water intake blockage and second was due to the fuel tank vent cap rattling closed creating a vacuum. We raised the tank up a foot or so closer to the motor, just in case it wasn’t getting enough fuel via the cobbled-together fuel line from the tank, but in hindsight I think we were fine there, at least at the lower RPMs we were running it was never starved.

We (proudly?) finished with the longest elapsed time of the day, 8 hours 25 minutes, and I think were 2nd last boat to come in despite going out just behind the first boats at 7:45a. I had a feeling we might need the extra time with an improperly tested and notoriously unreliable motor . Two and a half hours of this at least was preventable breakdowns and would have been discovered on a proper test run. We also ran all day at max half throttle, once it was finally going properly we didn’t want to introduce any more variables that could have caused issues and knew at 6kts we would be back just in time for the BBQ. Also made a 15 min stop on Fort St Catherine beach to bail the boat a bit, top up gas, and fix the choke which had come loose and kept closing (screw attaching to choke lever rattled off somewhere down south shore).

So my lesson learned (again and again) is: do a proper test run!

Lastly, since I couldn’t find much info on this before the race, a note on the 170 fuel consumption. Believe we used ~16 liters of fuel over ~6 hours running at half throttle.

[Lightbourn]

https://fb.watch/lsnGs_lmba/
https://fb.watch/lsnJ6MQDX3/
https://fb.watch/lsnKduByY3/
https://fb.watch/lsnMw9p_Vj/
https://fb.watch/lsnNShEydj/
https://fb.watch/lsnP8QWb9F/
https://fb.watch/lso0rRBvPu/

[Collector Inspector]

This year we ran a stock 170 with OEM big end cap, yes a gamble but kept to low RPMs and had a good day cruising a much too heavy boat comfortably around 6 knots. This was the revived version of this motor, with a used replacement rod/cap found on eBay:

viewtopic.php?t=6861
viewtopic.php?t=7211

On the test run 2 weeks before, the flywheel nut came loose after about 15 mins and the starter cup with nut came flying off the motor (recoil and cowling were off so we could monitor the situation). We bee-lined back to the dock for fear of motor cutting out and not being able to restart. Luckily discovered on return that it had actually flown into the boat. Back on properly tightened and no more issues there. But, it cut the test run much shorter than I wanted, so we went into the race with a well-stocked toolkit and crossed fingers. Also didn’t burn enough fuel to get a sense of what it would take to go around, so we carried quite a bit extra on the day.

Spark plug was a bit wet/oily after test run, but had been running closer to 20:1 mix and a cooler plug than desired, so not unexpected. Went with slightly hotter plug and 25:1 on the race day, with good results.

On the day, motor started off great but one hour into the race it started to struggle, revs dropped a few times, came back, then finally cut out. Checked the plug while we bobbed around to see if fouled, it looked in great condition, so was happy with the plug and mix. Restarted and ran a minute or two, then same issue arose. Third time it cut out it would not start again. So we were towed into Cambridge beach beach by one of the helpful crash boats by 9am.

Suspected fuel was the problem. And yes, turns out in our haste putting the motor together we forgot to put in a fuel filter. Silly mistake. Carb bowl was filled with crud. Called a friend on land who 90 mins later delivered carb cleaner and filter to the beach. Stripped/cleaned carb, put the fuel filter inline just before the fuel pump, and 2 hours after breaking down we were off again! For 5 minutes that is, until the problem repeated itself. At this point I was not confident we would be going any farther.

Luckily we were staying very close to land at this point in case of further issues, so we rowed in 100ft and tied up to nearest dock. Carb bowl off and again there was a bit more muck in there which we rinsed out. Assume this was the last bit of crud from the fuel still in the line between filter and carb.

After this we had a good run with only 2 more easily-fixed cutouts, first one was water intake blockage and second was due to the fuel tank vent cap rattling closed creating a vacuum. We raised the tank up a foot or so closer to the motor, just in case it wasn’t getting enough fuel via the cobbled-together fuel line from the tank, but in hindsight I think we were fine there, at least at the lower RPMs we were running it was never starved.

We (proudly?) finished with the longest elapsed time of the day, 8 hours 25 minutes, and I think were 2nd last boat to come in despite going out just behind the first boats at 7:45a. I had a feeling we might need the extra time with an improperly tested and notoriously unreliable motor . Two and a half hours of this at least was preventable breakdowns and would have been discovered on a proper test run. We also ran all day at max half throttle, once it was finally going properly we didn’t want to introduce any more variables that could have caused issues and knew at 6kts we would be back just in time for the BBQ. Also made a 15 min stop on Fort St Catherine beach to bail the boat a bit, top up gas, and fix the choke which had come loose and kept closing (screw attaching to choke lever rattled off somewhere down south shore).

So my lesson learned (again and again) is: do a proper test run!

Lastly, since I couldn’t find much info on this before the race, a note on the 170 fuel consumption. Believe we used ~16 liters of fuel over ~6 hours running at half throttle.

ADVENTURE!

Great story telling as it was aye.
B

[Charles uk]

Did you get any pics Andrew?

I think you slander 170's " notoriously unreliable motor " what was driving Kenny's little boat & I think broke the record?