29th August: Offshore Power Boats

The Cowes-Torquay-Cowes and Cowes-Poole-Cowes annual power boat races were held on the 29th August 2021. I was booked on the afternoon shift at Calshot Tower (the first time I’d been up there since covid-19 struck) so I turned up early at Lepe to take some photos of the race starts. I was hoping for some spectacular views for a post on the NCI Calshot “Blog”.

In the event I was disappointed. According to the Notice to Mariners the Cowes-Torquay race was to start at 10am and the Cowes-Poole race at 1015. However there did not seem to be a mass start, only a single boat seemed to start first with more some 5 minutes later. It was hard to tell since the lighting was poor. At that time of day, from Lepe I was looking into the sun and the power boats, as might be expected, were taking the shortest course and staying close to the Isle of Wight side. It was hard to tell what I was photographing!

Later, in Calshot Tower, we saw some of the power boats returning at “slow speed” into Southampton Water after the races.

Here are photos from Lepe, they look better when viewed larger (click on the thumbnails).

Here are some photos from Calshot Tower, either of returning spectators or participants after the event: