For a day with less than a minute of boat running today was intense. Our boat is running well and we are slick at running it. We performed as predicted in the sprint race, losing some ground with a time in the middle of the field. We are happy, however, that it will not jeopardise our competitive ranking and we envisage a recovery with our strong event; the endurance race. Our commitment to assisting the Mexican team in their qualifying efforts came to a head this morning; after their near sinking yesterday they found their motor to be inoperable. Despite being the smallest team we split up for an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at repairing their systems. The boat was almost completely rewired by myself with help from representatives from Carnegie Mellon and Cederville universities; within 45 minutes. The proprietary brushless motor, being tied into the system's controller, prevented the necessary controller replacement from being possible; ultimately consigning the Mexican team to a retirement from the competition. In the meantime as well as running the battery charging strategy and preparing the boat for competition the rest of the team fine tuned the telemetry system to extend its range; not strictly necessary but a luxury to confirm the accuracy of our readings. Our lasting impression of the day remains the New Orleans boat which ran a 23 second 300m, its acceleration is literally explosive.
Richard, Team Tarka
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