This weekend was a veritable smorgasbord of delights as the much anticipated and delayed Pirates Festival and the OCRDA 2022 Aqua Adrenaline tour visited Torbay. In this article I am going to be talking a little about my two visits to the OCRDA event held last weekend at Torquay harbour as well as to show off a few images supplied by club members - once I have more I will also add these! In the meantime, you'll have to put up with a few from myself and Chris Vincenti - well done Chris.

The OCRDA, which stands for The Offshore Circuit Racing Drivers Association is run by a professional and highly experienced team of dedicated individuals. Chairman Bob McCarthy has been at the helm for many years with recent years having seen the sport grow massively in popularity with over 31 teams competing in the 2017 season. Joining up with Jetski Racing, Water Ski Racing, Zapcat Racing, Jet Ski Stunt displays, and stunning Flyboarding displays, the series has toured since 2014 as Aqua Adrenaline – combining a number of aspects to provide fantastic on water entertainment for spectators. As the sport has flourished, OCRDA have been welcoming more teams and more companies in terms of sponsorship for what promises to be another fantastic season in 2022.

The OCRDA 2022 event comes to Torbay as the first of eight heats in this seasons race calander. As always it is a hugely anticipated event both for the exciting racing it brings as well as the event in general. There’s always something interesting to see, for example Ducati were on hand to show off some of their bikes. This year, the first season after lockdown, the event was overshadowed by dull weather across the two days although Saturday did provide a little sunshine to warm the competitors and the crowd. Having been to a number of these events now over the years I have lived here in Torquay, visitor numbers were definately on the lower than average side but since the event coincided with the Brixham Pirate Festival perhaps that’s to be expected. Even so, it’s well worth planning your stay in Torquay to coincide with the event.

The racing normally starts at around 13:00 each day as there’s a lot of preparation and safety work to get through and this generally takes up the morning. Over a couple of hours in the afternoon, there are generally four races, two of which are jet-skiers and two are for the powerboats. Both offer exhilarating spectacles as the various contestants via for prime position during the race. The course itself is probably a good couple of miles from start to finish so the boats and jet skiers tend to get strung out over the 20 minutes or so of the race but if you are lucky, you often get some great shots as the head towards the bouy closest to the sea wall on Beacon Quay en masse. This is a tight LH turn as the boats race in towards the quay and often you will get three or four boats jockying for position as they hit (metaphorically speaking) the bouy for this turn. Given that the spectators are just 75 metres or so from this bouy as you can imagine, it can be quite a spectacle.

If anyone is interested, I have added a bit more detail on the gear I used plus some comments on the post processing of my particular images over on my blog at http://thecreativecamera.co.uk/ocrda-aqua-adrenaline-power-boat-tour-visits-torbay

Just a let you all know that the Dynent abd Poulson Cup entries have to be in by next monday 21st March, not the 28th as shown on the website. Don't miss the opportunity to get your entires in. You can enter a total of three entries, either two DPI and one print or two print and one DPI. You can of course enter just one in each or indeed, choose not to enter at all in any one of the competitions.

It's your choice. Good luck.

Chairman's Update for October/ November

So I eventually got my trip to Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, so for those interested in figures it was 24 days, 2578 miles, 3 different B&B’s and 9302 images (good job the rain kept the number of images down).

I visited Barra, Vatersay, Eriskay, South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist, Berneray, Harris and Lewis and Scalpay. So a lot of places most of them new to me so wasn’t always taken photos but sightseeing also. One of my main hopes was to photo the Eagles but all I got was a glimpse of a Sea Eagle, did get to see Seals and the highlight was the Aurora. So a lot of processing now and hopefully give you a show in the New Year.

For those members who are active in the club you'll know that my first few months as chairman has not been the easiest due mainly to the on going problems with Covid-19.

After a year of Zoom only presentations we have made an attempt to get back to normality and create our 2021-22 programme back in the church hall with the use of Zoom to assist. To be honest this is not really working, we are having an extra expense of a dongle to give us the internet connection and only a handful of members using it. Add to that some technical issues the evenings are not the best. So now we have voted to end the Zoom at Christmas. We will still be using Zoom for speakers/judges but only into the hall. Still on with attendance, due to the lack of numbers our Christmas Buffet evening on 20 December will also be cancelled, so no meeting that evening.

On the plus side we have seen some excellent images in our competitions and noticed quite an improvement in one or two of our members. We now have a new Programme Secretary in Chris Frost, due to his commitment with his degree Darran has had to relinquish the post but we thank him for his time and effort.

There are a couple of changes to the programme and a couple of evenings to be filled and these will be added to the web site when available. We do hope that members can find their way back to the meeting hall, we are taking precautions seriously and do miss seeing you all.

Stay safe out there.

Stuart Chairman