FAST LEARNER

While my husband is a very experienced powerboat racer with many years of designing and testing the Bladerunner boats we build at our company Ice Marine, I don’t get out on them as often as I would like. So when Jeremy decided we should do a shakedown test of our new BR 45GT demonstrator together, I was over the moon. Especially when he suggested we take it on a two-week cruise to Mallorca. This would be the first time we had holidayed together without children for 25 years. As the date got closer I began to get nervous as the reality of being the only crew member on board struck home. “Don’t worry,” Jeremy said, “I can do all the driving and mooring, all you have to do is sort out the fenders and lines.”

Our trip did not start well with a four-hour flight delay courtesy of a French Air Traffic control strike. Our precious boat fared even worse. It was being trucked down to Palamos, Spain on a low loader but refugees had managed to sneak on board during an overnight stop and the lorry driver was imparting dire news of damage and mess. Thankfully the damage was mainly superficial but Jeremy wouldn’t allow me to see it until he’d finished cleaning up the mess. It