Arendal GP – 15th / 17th July 2011

Well…. at the outset I must apologise for the terrible delay in updating everything! – I am very sorry, and can only say in my defence that I have had a great holiday, worked too hard, and fixed a major website database crash! An eventful 2 weeks I can assure you.

But everything is now pretty much back on course, so as soon as possible, I’ll have another 150 or so photos to upload of Relekta 91, Hospitality, around Arendal, some more video, and commentary on what can only be described as how a ‘frustrating’ Norwegian Grand Prix went for the team.

So for the meantime, here are a few photos to get us started, and video highlights from Arendal.
More to follow:

Arendal 2011 : Day 1


Hospitality:

Arendal 2011 : Day 2


‘Out & About’

Arendal 2011 : The Event.


More of ‘Black Beauty’ and the Team:

First test: 7th July 2011

It’s been a hard few weeks for Jan and the team with many nights burning the midnight oil fitting out the new hull, and which all finally came together in the past few days. Relekta 91, in her new black livery, was rolled out under the ZaboRacing team colours and put in the water for the first test and shakedown.

The team gathered on the banks of Olso Fjord, including Ugur Isik who had specially flown in from Turkey, and put Relekta 91 through a series of tests.
“Everything went according to plan” said Jan afterwards “We had a set of defined tests we wanted to do, and we pretty much achieved all of our objectives”

From a pilots perspective, both Christian and Ugur where equally happy with the testing. “It was a perfect day to get a feel of the boat, and it certainly met our expectations” said Christian, with Ugur adding that “the boat felt very solid going into turns, and that certainly gives us alot of confidence to be able to push much harder in a race environment”

There is no doubt that after the days testing, ZaboRacing will be going to Arendal confident in the knowledge that we have the package to put us on the top of the podium.

I have to also thank Tordis Ødbehr and Marit Haug for some of the excellent photos in this collection:

Zabo’s new hull : update!

It has been a huge project, but progress on our new hull is well on schedule, though it has to be said, only due to the hard work and long hours put in by Jan and his team.

The second engine was fitted yesterday, (saturday), and with that, the engineering aspect is pretty much complete to include the new Mercury 1075 SCi V8 engines, gearbox and drive systems.

The paintwork was finalised over the last week, and with the new colour scheme on the cockpit to stamp our Norwegian heritage on the boat, the polishing of the hull and application of the logos, (including that Norwegian flag I spoke about in the previous post), will be completed over the next couple of days.
The instrumentation is almost completed with just the navigation systems to be installed, and Cato from Raymarine will be doing that this week as well.
The final job will be adjusting the new trailor and giving it a lick of paint to ensure Relekta 91 has a comfortable bed in between winning Grand Prix’s!

If all goes according to plan, which we are confident it will, we hope to put the boat in the water in the coming days and test it, shakedown any minor problems, and then our ‘black beauty’ is ready for Arendal.

Here are a few more pictures taken yesterday, saturday 25th June:

New Class-1 ‘superhull’ for Zabo!

Some would say it is surreal that the boat which nearly destroyed Relekta#91 in our second Grand Prix as a team at Uddevalla in 2010, is now going to be running under a Norwegian flag, and as the property of our team owner Jan Zaborowski.
Several weeks of negotiations finally came to a close a few days ago, which sees ZaboRacing purchase what was the ‘Fazza’ boat from the Victory team & Company in Dubai, and something that we are not only happy about, but indebted to everyone at Victory for.

As Jan said: “We got the boat under a fantastic deal from Victory, and it would have been crazy not to take up such an offer….. and that offer was based on the fact that Victory see Zaboracing as being one of thee most enthusiastic teams in Class-1, and are impressed by the effort that we put in on such a small and tight financial budget, and hence felt that it justified helping us to ensure Class-1 remains highly competitive.
The Arabs have long been afraid that they would be alone again in this sport, dominating Class-1 because of their larger budget, but a reversal of policies in the winter has made it possible even for the less wealthy teams to participate at the highest level of powerboat racing. The Victory team acknowledge and recognise that the more boats that compete, the better the conditions for the sport to survive”

Equally, it’s further validation of how the teams work together, not just in the pits at Grand Prix events, but throughout the year. Admittedly, that is all set aside once the green flag drops….. but most importantly, this investment is a long term commitment to Class-1 by ZaboRacing, and confidence in the fact there will be many many more green flags to be dropped.

It’s not clear yet whether we will enter 2 boats for the rest of the 2011 season, that is all down to a matter of economics and funding, but we certainly have the team infrastructure to do so. We proved in Abu Dhabi that we can rise to the biggest challenges any team faces at a Grand Prix event after the boat flipped in Race 1, and yet we where there on the start line for Race 2 which everyone else thought would be impossible…. and further proves what a professional group of people Jan has brought together.

The Maritimo hull we are presently using is still a fantastic and highly competitive racing hull, but as the team has developed since its creation only a year ago, we have constantly looked to evolve and enhance our performance. We acquired two new Mercury 1075 SCi V8 engines in January, and with Christian and Ugur in the cockpit, the boats performance in the practices and Pole Position was absolutely stunning in Abu Dhabi.

The new hull is now in a container ship and enroute to its new home in Norway, and with its arrival, we are confident we have placed ourselves in a very strong position to actually win the World Championship, confident in the knowledge we already have the pilots, the engines, and the team.

And when it finally does arrive in Norway, the first thing we will do is to put a big Norwegian flag on the hull, then move the name Relekta 91 over to it, engines, electrics, Christian and Ugur…. all in time to drop it in the water in Arendal, and go out and win 2 Grand Prix and one Pole Position!
Simple!