My week long adventure in San Diego for the Bayfair event.

byCali

3.9K followers

3 months ago

Howdy ya all, posting here about my adventures last week in San Diego, Mission Bay setting up audio for the Bayfair H1 racing event.

Had a lot to do, setting up speakers on 3 beaches, Fiesta Island, Ski Beach and crown point. Crown point is where the jet skies held their races, was fun to watch what little of it I got to see.

Fiesta Island is on the front stretch of the race, or back stretch depend on who ya look at it. Honestly it is the best spot to watch the race, and as you will see later in this post, a group shared their video of Cory Peabody crashing his H1 boat. They had a great view of that turn.

At Fiesta Island, I set up about 2 miles of loudspeakers on telephone poles, and hard wire them to the production slash time keeper trailer. I get to play on boom lift to get the speakers on top of the poles, hook the wires up and move down the beach to the next pole or up the beach. Hahahaa.

We have fence poles pounded into the grass at the other two locations, I clamp the mounts to the poles then the speakers to the mounts. Same thing with the wire again. Getting it all back down on Sunday night and Monday morning is a bit trickier for I have campers to get the speaker wire around, I have tricks up my sleve to get around that issue. Kinda fun, boom out over the water, swing the cable away from the camper.

During the event we have little things to deal with, keep people happy, mic here, extra speaker there, then it is fire up the grill and get some grub cooking. Heck we even gots a griddle, eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, french bread, all down inbetween our two rigs. We set up so our canopies and our doors face each other, great shade, watch football on the outside TV, beer box with cold brews. Good times.

This is view from broadcasting plateform overlooking the launching ramp, and where all the H1 boats will set up at in 2 days. The ramps, docks, and cranes have yet to arrive, but when they do, then the race boats show up.

This is how the H1 hydro boats are transported, spare tire and soon to be work platform. This is Cory Peabodys boat that ends up upside down in the bay on Saturday while racing in the first heat. If you look up to the where the boat is way up in the air you can see some braces, do dads that attach a fin the helps the boat corner massivly in the water. When looking at the crash, and the commentators also speak of what I thought when I first saw it happen, the boat was lifting up on that side and fin was pulling out of the water. Thus the boat slid into the other lane and hit that boat, sending the front of U-91 in the air, and if you look good at this boat, it is a big sail if it gets airborn, well watch the video and you will see the results.

Here I am on my big boy Tonka truck, AKA boom lift. Total play for me when working on these things. And look at the rental RV trailers in the shot, got me to thinking, an extra way to earn a few bucks there, finding buddies that have an RV sitting doing nothing. As long as the logistics cost and labor pay for themselves with funds left over, then it is a win-win.

This is Fiesta beach, Monday after I got all the loudspeakers down, cable is all rolled up and in the trailer they live in. Now to get some waters ready, warm up the enging in my bus and head home.

Now to move it back a few days to Friday, 3 of Strong Racing boats here in the pits, U-9, U-8 and the little 1 litter two strong beast from hell. Love listening to these beasts firing up. If you have ever hear the old Kawi 3-cylinder two-stroke 500 adn 750cc fire up, same fun sound but kick it up a bunch for these things gots hella exhaust pipe on them, oh the smell of the racing gas and the sound, music to my ears. The smell reminds me of the cox race cars and U-Fly Um airplanes back in the day.

As you can see the pits fill up, the ramps are there and the cranes are ready to lift the boats off the trailer, slash work plateform and into the water.

U-8 is already in the water, U-9 is being lifted into the water. Two ropes hang from the boat, and the crew walk with the boat as it is lifted off the trailer and out over the rocks, water and set into the water. The spin the boat 180 degrees using the ropes, then once in the water, get the straps removed, driver suits up and the process of getting the driver into the boat and secured begings. Meanwhile other crew keep the boat from hitting the dock, and secured at the same time. This whole process requires massive teamwork, and there are a lot of bodies helping make all this happen.

And speaking of bodies, lots of people help in many different parts of this event. I can see this is an old school type of feller for sure, not many rag top Falcon out there even back in the day. So awesome to see one this guy used to get beer, grub, and maybe an asprin or two. This falcon did not have no inline engine in her either, from the sounds of it when I heard it running, its a fun sweet fast V-8 get gone in a hurry variety of power plant.

Now this fellew was not racing, but he sure was having fun.

Now this is what makes the H1 boats so fun, those things move some water and make hella roostertail. In this shot we are looking at Sea world park and Sea world turn. No idea what boat that is, but I sure love the roostertail

Heat # 1 crash

So this is video from Fiesta Island I found on YouTube.

Here is Heat # one Video from H1 YouTube Channel

Both of these show Strong Racing's boat U-9 crashing.

Cory Peabody was not hurt, I do wish I could find the news from local station, she interviewed him on the boat and even got to sit in the boat. She asked him what happens if they crash, how they get out and he told her the top lifts up and there is door panel in the bottom in which not long after he had to use to get out of the boat.

Here is heat # two I belive, if you like watching racing you will very much enjoy this. By the way, the commentator is the guy I help broadcast to 3 different beaches in live time. Maybe next season the guy I help on this even can pick up the livestream and we wil be part of that process also.

This is Monday night, I found me a park bench, played my 12 string ovation for a bit, like two beers then called it a day. Love what I get to do.

Here is the boat Sunday, they have removed the jet engine, it will have to be torn down to remove the salt water and replace damaged parts, if the engine is even rebuildable. Gentle man was telling me they have to keep the salt water spray out of the engines, otherwise the salt will destroy the blades. With the engine drinking a bunch of salt water I am not for sure how they will approach rebuilding that jet engine. Here they are cleaning it, by the end of the day they have new tail, engine, ducking or cowling cover on her so she looks legit and sexy for the drive back home.

Thats about it for this adventure. I did enjoy my drive home in my RV, then Tuesday power wash her and get her set back up at home.

Hope ya all enjoy my non-WA post, just a blog about my day job really but fun to do.