A better race and within 1 second, on time, of Nicky Wain, the eventual winner, on the first run. However, he and others improved and I didnt. With a time around 18 seconds slower than Nicky's second run time, that sounds like a huge interval in todays racing. It would probably be a different division! But with 4 minute races and 30 gates that the whole boat had to pass through, it really was not so far behind. Around half a second to get into a gate, through it and out of it. With todays races being around 90 seconds, that would be equivilent to just a couple of tenths a gate! It was so difficult to find that extra split second though. I do not recall ever being exhausted at the end of a run. I also recall Alan Edge calling me "Peter Perfect" once. This was because of my cautious style of racing where I placed going cleaner (sometimes clean) above speed. Maybe that was my downfall. Never going 100%. I'm still a cautious bloke now!

Anyway, this result was more like it and paddling team with Rob and Chris to 4th was great. (Rob took an awesome 4th in the K1M also with Chris 16th - this is amazingly the opposite results they got last time out!) Just look at the team penalties! Hundreds of them! Our time was 273. The winning total was 384. That is a collosal 111 seconds difference! I sit here now wondering why we didnt paddle the course a whole minute slower to win with a clean run!! But if that was in any way possible, we would surely have done it! I think the truth is that the course was simply that difficult and no matter how slowly or how carefully you paddled down it, you would still clang a load of gates or miss them entirely! If it is hard for me to understand this, as a racer of that period, Im sure you young guns have no chance of understanding!