I managed to get up to this event this year, for the first of two days racing. It’s a spectacular scene, the beauty and tranquility of this alpine lake rather modified by thee presence of these awesome machines. The course was a bit short for the big guys, which probably knocked 20 or 30 km/hr off their top speeds (which the knowledgeable bloke next to me said was 240-250 km/hr!). Here’s a starter:
They’re only 100m or so from the beach on this leg, so the noise is almost painful. They leave behind evidence of their passing, patterns which are sometimes interesting:
That was “The Boss”, a famous boat in NZ. Here’s another:
They certainly shift some water.
The Boss was beaten on Saturday by “Annihilator”
I think this closer shot is of the right boat:
There was another that looked rather similar:
(Actually, I suspect I have these two yellow boats mixed up. No matter.)
There was close racing in the F1 tunnel hull class. This boat led the first race until the last 20 meters:
I missed the exact finish, but here’s a shot taken a split second before it was overtaken by the current NZ champion:
The little guys looked incredibly slow by comparison. This last shot was from a one-design class which produced a surprisingly large winning margin:
All through the racing, every time I went back to the car I could hear tuis and bellbirds in the nearby bush. My well-informed neighbour was a local. He has noticed a huge increase in birdlife over the past couple of years. They hear kiwis at night now and see wekas around their house. That’s never happened in the several decades they’ve been at Lake Rotoiti. So the stoat and possum trapping is having some real effect. He was full of praise for DoC, which was nice to hear.
