Remembering rib racing - the early years

[Downhilldai]

Originally Posted by dougcrock

Well done you're filling system is pretty good

Found among the old Avon & Suzuki brochures.......

[Downhilldai]

Originally Posted by PeterM

...am sure it wouldn't be possible now with H&S and risk assesment being what it is...

The article does mention a 'comprehensive list of safety equipment' being required.



Not much use if you don't attach the killcord though

[Bigmuz7]

Originally Posted by Downhilldai

Found among the old Avon & Suzuki Mags.......

I take it thats code ?

[willk]

Originally Posted by Bigmuz7

I take it thats code ?

Rubber and Two Strokes?

[Downhilldai]

Some of the old Soozook brochures pushed the limits of marine porn.

[willk]

Originally Posted by Downhilldai

Some of the old Soozook brochures pushed the limits of marine porn.

Nothing with Carol Vorderman pls

[Downhilldai]

Nice fins:

[Dhf]

EXCELLENT!!

[Pete7]

The Highland and Islands Race always stated at Inverness with a gentle days cruising down the Caledonian Canal and a race across Loch Ness followed by more canal. Just as well because we were still readying the instruction manual for the GPS as we worked our way through the first locks it was that new and still only in development stages, there were no guarantees it would ever become operational.

Mike Armitage agreed to start the race and we lent him the REME Corps flag on a pole for the occasion. He also wanted some sound but no one had a hand held VHF, so I gave him a Mk4 thunderflash and a quick instruction on how to use it. At 1100 am everyone was ready to go when our Lynx helicopter roared up Loch Ness at about 25 feet over the top of the racers. I had been watching Mike strike the thunderflash as saw it go splash in the canal whilst everyone else was busy ducking as the lynx hovered overhead. Bang and we were off stealing an early lead on the rest of the fleet . Sadly it didn’t last long as everyone realised what had happened. The finish line was also interesting, an imaginary line in the water somehwere to the sw end of Loch Ness, serious stuff this racing lark with everyone recording their own times.

Earlier the first lock keeper had informed us we needed a licence to use the Caledonian Canal so I bought a one day ticket. He looked perplexed when we told him we were going all the way to Corpach today a trip which would normally take a week at 4 knots. There were only a couple of incidents down the canal; firstly when we shot around a tight bend at 25 knots to find an old bloke sat in a dinghy fishing. Oops, err, sorry, but it was all a bit too late

The other thing that confused us was the port and starboard navigation marks change at Loch Lochy so port becomes starboard and starboard becomes port as you now descend down the canal. That would have been okay but on exiting the lock the green can was missing leaving a red post in the middle of the lake. Right so which side do we pass then? Oh, err, too difficult, go to the post and crawl pas with the sounder on just in case we got it wrong.

The trip the next day from Corpach to Kyle of Lochalsh was pleasant and even Ardnamurchan Point the most westerly point of the British mainland was calm. It had caused real problems for the 1991 race with atrocious conditions.

Money was short in 1992 so many of the teams chose to sleep in the back of works vans, motor homes or caravans towed by support staff. The harbourmaster at Kyle allowed us to park up on the jetty next to the boats. He even arranged for a large bower delivery for the diesel ribs to refuel rather than lift out of the water. We disappeared off to find our £15 a night B&B with the lads sharing a double each – like I said we were all on a budget so just as well the lads were all good friends. However, slightly disturbing was the very fine mess over all the windows in the B&B. Were they worried we would do a dine and dash. Showered and changed we walked outside to the minibus and then found the reason for the mess. Millions of tiny Scottish midges we were covered despite a dash to the minibus just a few feet away. We met the rest of the team in a hotel on the high street and for the first time both the Highlands and Islands racers and the other racers doing Glasgow to Edinburgh met up.

About 1130 pm I noticed the lads had suddenly disappeared, slightly worrying but as I had the minibus keys they couldn’t go far or get into too much trouble. Wrong, as I glanced out of the hotel window I saw the 3 of them carrying a hotel table complete with the breakfast china, cutlery and glasses all sat on a white starched cloth down the high street. EEK, I made my excuses and dashed out side and walked down to the harbour. No sign of them but peering over the side of the 20 foot jetty revealed the table complete with table cloth and china now sat in Charles Dias superb 8m Delta rib. Oh feck, visions of a Court Martial flashed in front of my eyes as I pondered how I was going to get it up the side of the jetty never mind back to the hotel. I didn’t find until later but several of the races were lying awake in pleats of laughter listening to me quietly swearing and running up and down the jetty in panic mode. The table and all accoutrements were eventually returned to the hotel and I don’t think they even noticed one of their tables was missing.

Pete

[Dhf]

That poor fisherman what he must have thought, picturing that table on a rib..funny as..
And thank you for the info on Paul Lemmer, I have a 1996 7m BWM myself, with new tubes fitted arouund 08, did he have anything to do with the designs or the building of these hull's, or was he just salesman, great either way and didn't know my rib came from racing stock.
Many thanks

[Downhilldai]

Originally Posted by Dragonhawk ficht

..did he have anything to do with the designs

[Pete7]

Oh dear, we are going on a thread drift here. Paul told me one night that he had bought the moulds for the BMW 5.5m hull from someone in Cheshire. Unfortunately, what he didn't know until later was that a set had also been sold to Northcraft at the same time also with "royalties". There are some real sharks in the rib business. Anyway BWM and Northcraft existed alongside each other for many years probably because they were so far apart it didn't really matter.

Paul had an earlier company before BWM that also used the distinctive concave hull shape. I think it was called Stellacraft. Not many were built and he re-badged the company BWM.

Having got the concave bow shape he then built the 6 and 7m ribs to a similar design. The other hull shapes, like the XP21, well that bears a remarkable resemblance to a Phantom powerboat hull, which then became the Tohatsu hull shape.

There was also the big 8 and 9m BWM ribs, can't quite remember the model name or where they came from, but they have quite distinctive upswept chines at the bow similar to Fairey Marine powerboats.
Pete

[willk]

These big moulds really got around. Check page 12 of this report. Loxton Marine used them after BWM. Some ended up in Northern Ireland and became the basis for South Down Marine's Barracuda and then moved to Ferryman Boats in Derry as the FRM 900. Others ended up in Poland where they underpin the Parker 900 RS.

[Dhf]

Well thank you, Pete and Wilk for that interesting info. and appologies for causing a drift, I've no issue with the hull just interested in the history.
I was starting to worry when Dai started laughing at my Q.

Plz carry on your fasinating tales therethenthen great

[Downhilldai]

The early BWM ribs were supplied by Northcraft, then, all of a sudden, they were built in-house......

[andymr]

Okay, lets clear this up...WE brought the BWM tooling and rights from Paul Lemmer in 1996, Paul stayed on as our salesman...but we parted a year later...The BWM products were produced and ran by Steve Loxton – Steve remodelled the hulls (like the anti-stuff bow which was actually Pauls idea) and produced new consoles and seats but he emigrated to New Zealand in 1999. All of the tooling was brought back up from the west coast. In 2000 – 2006 BWM products were produced by Rod Ross-Smith, he made a nice job of tidying the moulds and also produced new tooling, we did a deal with Animal (the clothing company) and Rod produced some quality, good looking Ribs...Unfortunately in 2006 Rod had some health problems, so once again all of the tooling was moved from the Hamble...since then we have renewed all of the tooling again to stepped hulls and smaller Jet Ribs (some designed by Adam Younger) – we have also produced our own diesel range of engines which we launched at Dusseldorf Boat Show Germany in January this year, since we have been very very busy!
If you are interested you can see that we are still alive and kicking from our website BWM Ribs - Home - We are also getting back into racing as we are doing the Cowes –Monte Carlo Venture Cup...
Hope this clears up some of the unknown bits???

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Downhilldai

The early BWM ribs were supplied by Northcraft, then, all of a sudden, they were built in-house......

No, Paul built his own hulls at the same time as Northcraft were building theirs.

Pete

[andymr]

That was before we got involved pre-1996

[paul tilley]

northcraft also built the deepsea range for paul lemmer and henshaws supplied some of the tubes for a short period . IF i remember correctly the bwm rapier was a splash of a revenger hard boat hull ,i seem to remember having a few phone conversations with Mike Sloggett owner of revenger about this .

[Bigmuz7]

This thread should have tickets, and no disrespect to anyone I wish some of you boys would open up a bit more often

pours a *virtual drink* all round

now where were we ?