12/8 - Grand Prix in Oslo
By Anders Olsen Sandvik on
Today my dad had planed a day at sea. We were going to watch the Grand Prix in Oslo. For those of you that don't know what this is, this is racing at the highest level at sea. It's a race with pilots and throttlemen locked into air force looking security capsules in 42 foot boats with a weight of 5 TONS! (Metric) The boats are equipped with 2 x 900 horsepower racing engines that produce speeds over 250 km/t (135 knot). During the race they average a speed of 200 km/t! These machines eat 120 liters of Avgas (This is a High-octane fuel used for aircrafts).
We were there an hour before the race. Just enough time for me to find a place to buy some food at Aker Brygge, but unfortunately the whole peer was reserved for ticket holders only! So much for having a big mac at MacD. I found a Thai Club sandwich house and bought some. When i got back to the boat the race was ready to begin. I shot a small video sequence from the start of the race. If you set your speakers on full you might get a feeling of how it was like being there! It was totally AMAZING! Didn't make it any better that Norway's best racer won, Bjørn Rune Gjelsten, with the boat Spirit of Norway. They have been supreme the whole week and was in the lead for the entire race. In 2006, Gjelsten (throttleman) and Steve Curtis (pilot), took all four world titles (World Championship, Pole Position Championship, Middle East and European titles). To win the World Championship this year they need to win 3 out of the 5 next races! A great day! After the race witch lasted about an hour I had to rush to get to work. We had one and a half hour and had no problem reaching it at 5 pm. I worked with Vegard today. It was fun! Time goes much faster when you work with someone, compared with working alone! Unfortunately we had some problems with turning on the alarm. It went of 3 times :P We finally got it and I was home at about 11 pm.
Standing Scours after todays race!
1. Victory 77 - 58 points
2. Qatar 96 - 43 points
3. Victory 7 - 40 points
4. Spirit of Norway 10 - 36 points
5. Quatar 95 - 20 points
6. Foresti & Suardi - 17 points
7. Spirit of Norway 20 - 12 points
8. Seveneleven 18 - 8 points
9. Negotiator 50 - 4 points
10. Foresti & Suardi 2 - 4 points
11. Jotun 90 - 0 points
(Source: Wikipedia)