Offshore powerboat racer Gavin McGrath used to drop boats into the water by crane.
But it clearly wasn't enough for the Taupo engineer who's got big hopes for today's Napier race, for which he's enlisted local knowledge in the form of former two-times national drivers champion Tony Carson.
"I think he wants to win," said Carson this week, as he confirmed he was opting out of the Sports 200 class entry he usually races with daughter Charlotte to team up with McGrath in Phantom-design monohull and Classic-class entry Gull Force 10, powered by two 502hp Merlin engines.
It's a boat he bought from the United States almost four years ago, because a change in local laws meant it was no longer allowed to go over 40mph on the lake at Guilford, Ohio. And in a pre-Napier race spin on the race course off Ahuriri and Westshore it was soon obvious why its previous owner decided it would be better off somewhere else, like being driven on the open sea by a guy named McGrath from Taupo.
It seemed the perfect pairing as Gull Force 10 bounced out towards Pania, soon passing the 80mph and the limit the Classic-class boats have in the hour-long race which starts with the 1pm rolling start out from the Napier Sailing Club's tower at Perfume Point.
McGrath, who as it happens is not related to multiple title winner, international Superboat racer and Aucklander Peter McGrath, is bound to be pushing it, although the boats have their equivalent of the airline black-box recorder, which race officials can secure afterwards to checked whether the speed-buzz has gone just a little far.
Any excess could lead to disqualification, as was the case for one of the opposition earlier in the seven-venue season which started on Lake Taupo on January 29 and ends off Whitianga on May 13.
Napier is the southernmost leg, the northernmost having been a fortnight ago on Doubtless Bay in the Far North, where racing was red-flagged because of a crash involving the D&H Steel boat crewed by Carson nephews, Max and Jamie Carson, of Auckland.
As the wrecked boat sank, they were rescued by Tony Carson and daughter on rival boat Red Steel. But despite suffering a broken nose Max Carson will be back today in a borrowed boat, with an engine salvaged from the crash.
The 52-year-old McGrath drives like he'd like something even faster, and the sea a bit rougher than forecast for today.
But, between a couple of spins yesterday: "Classics? It's the only class it fits into. The
gentlemen's social class. We don't always go out to win."
The punters, who can view the boats as they're launched at the Napier Sailing Club ramp from mid-morning and when they return after the race, will notice that. It has seating for five, two up front, three in the back.
There was some irony in yesterday's warm-up, disrupted when he realised the fuel gauge was "on E," with a shy admission from one passenger who had already noticed, but assumed the gauge wasn't working.
"We didn't realise it was so empty," an emphasis perhaps on the "so", for when Gull Force 10 heads to sea today it will be ballasted by about 400 litres of the sponsor's finest 98 octane. By the time it returns, it will have "burned" about 350 of them.
Gull Force is a comparative baby in the Classic class, with among those expected being the 44-year-old Topaz, still in the hands of Whangarei racer Bryan McLean, now in his mid-70s.
Of similar vintage is Chindit, which has been around since the 1970s, and won the 1981 drivers championship for New Zealand offshore powerboat racing pioneer Graeme Wingate.
Other interest will centre on the bigger catamarans, the series-leading Fairview, and Papakura Toyota, which had raced in Napier as Sleepyhead, which as Placemakers once crashed with Carson's brother, Wayne, in the cockpit, and which, when repaired, was then raced by Tony Carson as Red Steel.