RN50

Report on my training (and the competition) for the: Honda youth rib championships 2002

By Jon Bates (more commonly known 'master bates')

When Dan (Coxswain) told me that he might be able to find the time to train me up to compete on behalf of the troop and Minnis bay S.C. in the Honda youth rib championship 2002 I was really very surprised (when I asked him “why the hell did you choose me a scout the age of 12 years who is addicted to speed and the sound of big engines”) He said I had the right ‘aptitude’ whatever the hell that means!! Of course to top it all off he had to tell me “er… you will be doing it in my boat by the way” Cough splutter 130 Hp engine! (I could not contain myself REALLY) and as if I wasn’t excited enough he told me that if I won the regional finals at Pevansy Bay Sussex I would get through to the national finals at The Boat Show in Southampton for the national finals I could win a new planing rhib for the scout troop.

I was so enthusiastic that I started thinking up names for our new rhib - after me obviously! First there was “Masterbates” and then “rubberjonny” Coxswain agreed that both were very comical and cool (the funny thing was he was actually serious!)

06/07/2002

We launched quite late at Palm Bay because of the tides and so once we had done all the routine checks such as the amount of petrol and oil and checked safety gear. Then we were off slowly chugging along to warm the engine up coxswains first words were “ok you can speed up a bit now we’re out of the rocks”

My action was “up on the power and oh look were going at 35 MPH already” I had the wind in my hair and the smell of the sea in my breath and the water from the sea in my wetsuit woh!!! It’s bloody freezing. When me could see the estuary into Ramsgate marina I steered us into it and guided us in safely. Obviously if you don’t radio through to port control before entering the outer marina the customs officers are bound to have a go at you oh what a surprise THEY DID ah ha ah ha ah ha. When we were in the inner marina I practised coming along side and head on to berths. Dan’s engine kept stalling because apparently it’s designed to go fast WOW! We left the boat in the marina to be used the next day.

07/07/2002

Today was a late start out of Ramsgate as Dan and I were both busy anyway this time in the marina it was a lot windier which really does make it a lot harder to carry out skills such as turning in your own length which people who went on the river trip will know this was quite hard well try doing it in a rib which kept stalling twice the size of The Black Pig with a strong cold wind in your face and millions of pounds of boat everywhere you look! Other techniques like, coming alongside and securing to pontoon and jetty and leaving a docking place. Next we had to wait for the ferry at which point coxswain tried to radio port control to report our departure of course all I heard for the next 5 minutes was,

“Port control port control, Grayswish…Over”

Until Dan figured out that were not picking up the call!

By this time the ferry was gone and we slowly chugged out of the marina I started to realise that heavy weather driving was not going to be easy and… oh it wasn’t.

I drove us back round to Margate harbour and we practised anchoring and securing to a buoy after redoing these over and over again to absolute perfection we had basically finished training for the day so we drove round to Minnis bay to see if there was any sailing that we could watch. But there was only windsurfers so back round to Forness bay we went-a-boatin so I just thought I would satisfy myself one last time before we anchored at Forness so I went up on the power slightly but I didn’t get that buzz of when the huge 130 sounds like Dan’s Toyota on a good day so I floored it. That was about it for that day apart from me outsmarting coxswain a few times. Another good thing happened today, I found out that I am the only person apart from No 1 and himself that is allowed to drive the boat faster than 30Mph… YES!

23/07/02

Today we went out in the Minnis bay safety boat RHIB ”ALAN G” I found that this was a lot harder than Dan’s boat which he thought was quite weird but understandable because it has a lot quieter engine and I found the gears harder to change. Alan G was a lot less fun though but we found many ways of entertaining ourselves which I will write about in a minute!

Anyway when we came out of Minnis Bay the sea was quite calm but soon got quite hard to handle, because as I was driving round to Margate harbour we took a few large waves to the bow and got quite wet this was very funny (by the way when I say large bow waves I mean 3 to 4ft waves!) when we got to Margate I practised coming alongside which after a few times I got it right, I knew it really wasn’t good enough. Afterwards I tried coming up to a buoy, which I got to perfection on the second time. YEY! When I was going along at full speed good old coxswain thought it would be a good idea to cast a buoy of the port side

“MAN OVERBOARD”

I clearly was thinking “you crafty son of a… buoy!!”

I turned round to get the casualty, I carried out the procedure exactly to the book I came along side and the blooming thing got caught on a wave! This happened about six times by which point I couldn‘t care less if the thing died a bloody painful death that was about it for the day apart from our heroic trip out to Reculver where we went full speed all the way getting a magical flying boat on the way that’s right Daniel Hawkes is most probably the only person in the world to get some serious prop air in a 30 Hp RHIB. AVE IT!!!!!!

The Honda young rib Championships

Watch out Southampton cos here we come. That’s right in true Sea Scout fashion I generally thrashed the pants off everyone in my age group. This next section is quoted from the official R.Y.A website:

“ Pevensey Bay SC hosted the South East regional final of the Honda RYA Youth RIB Championship on Saturday 27 July under a blue sky and warm temperatures.

Competitors from Bexhill SC, Papercourt SC, Newhaven and Seaford SC and Minnis Bay SC gave their all in this exciting powerboating competition. The event, supported by Honda, Avon Inflatables and Indespension Trailers, was held in Sovereign Harbour. The outer harbour gave lots of room for a fast slalom as well as a slower one, which required good throttle and boat control.

In the 13 - 16 age group, Stephen Sear of Bexhill SC blew away the opposition with an impressive time of just 1 minute 26 seconds, 12 seconds faster than his nearest rival, Christopher Smith from Papercourt SC.

In the 8 - 12 age group, Jonathon Bates won in a time of 1 minute 48 seconds with a skilful and nicely controlled run through the course.”

8 – 12 years

1 ^stJonathon Bates (Minnis Bay SC) 1m48s

2 ^ndPeter Harrison (Bexhill SC) 2m10s

3 ^rdSteven Giles (Newhaven & Seaford SC) 2m56s

Now after that I’ll tell you what happened when we got to Pevansy bay S.C it was quite quiet, as there was only 6 competitors in this round including me. We all sat on the balcony waiting for the rep’ from the R.Y.A to brief us, when he did talk about the competition I noticed him say that

“The props’ on these boats are quite small so they accelerate like stink”

because of what I have written somewhere in the c!$p above you can probably tell what I thought after the briefing we all went to get changed and then it was off to the Sovereign harbour just down the road where we were CONFRONTED WITH OUR DESTANY (the course and boats) I sat and watched the older age group the first driver, if they were all this good I was screwed!! But they weren’t, YESSSSSSSS!!

When I first got in to the boat I was very nervous but I thought to myself

“Right I’ve driven a boat much faster than this one so consequently I should be able to go full speed all the way round” so I did!

At the beginning we were told the examiner was there to help but after the first run he was loving it and letting me get on with it. We were only meant to have two timed runs but because the people on the luxury safety yacht were too drunk to notice me finishing I got 3 runs…YEY…! When I got in I had to ask Dan and dad if they would please close their mouths and have some respect for the kids in second and third place - dad especially. And the rest tells itself but I’ll just say about the neat little trophy sitting on the mantle piece which says;

First. Yeah baby yeah!!!!!

Who the man? MASTER BATES

Thanks a bunch to Dan for letting me loose in your rib and training me.