Saturday, March 30, 2024

Cow and horsepower

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Stratford dairy farmer Robert Thompson has been involved in three high-speed jet boat crashes that have left him upside down and underwater.
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“You can’t help but panic, I don’t care who you are,” he said.

“But if you’re belted in properly and your safety equipment is all good it’s likely you’re going to be all right after the initial crash.”

The 56-year-old has raced at the top end of the jet boating world competitions and he and former competitor turned great mate Mark Cromie are mounting a campaign to bring the world jet boating title back to this country for the first time in six years when the world event is held in Canada next year. They hope to race in this year’s world title contest in Mexico and to that end are planning to leave for races in Idaho in the United States then Edmonton, Canada, in May and June to test the competitiveness of a boat still under construction.

A brand new hull should be fitted out and ready for the water by the end of this month including the installation and fine tuning of a gas turbine helicopter motor capable of churning out about 1000 horsepower.

Robert was born in Midhurst, about 6km from where he and his parents have farmed about 85ha, just 4km out of the Taranaki town of Stratford, since 1969. They sit in the lee of Mt Taranaki and the distance from the mountain has a huge impact on the rainfall they get and the way they have to handle the land.

“We get at least 150mm of rain more than they do on the other side of town just four to 5km away. We get about 1900-1950mm a year and on the farms on the other side of town they get 300-400mm less.”

A lot of that comes in September, as much as 400mm in the month, ruining the pasture and stunting spring growth.

“Some years it doesn’t come right until December. I usually reseed the paddocks after that but this year has been different, very different.

“This year I’ve used about one-third of the grass seed we usually put down and the pasture is still better looking than it usually is at this stage. On top of that we’ve had a really good season, cutting silage in particular because we’ve had so much growth on the farm and on the runoff.”

That’s another 15ha close by. They generally don’t need supplements to produce one of the best per ha returns in the district, sending about 110,000kg milksolids to Fonterra each year. 2014 will be better, for sure, given the weather the farm has enjoyed.

They run about 200 Jersey cows and 60 Friesians. He likes to have the two breeds mixed so he can judge performance but is not into crossbreds.

“I like to keep them separate. The first cross can be good but a couple down the line you get a real monkey.”

When it comes to Fonterra he’s right in the middle.

“I’m neither a rabid supporter nor a nay-sayer but I reckon they do a pretty good job and the overall strategy I think is pretty right.

“I was impressed at the level of integrity they showed with the botulism scare. The action they took was impressive and quick and I wonder how many other major food corporations around the world would have reacted so well.”

Robert and wife Audrey now run the farm business alone with some labour. They have no children.

“Jet boating hooked me in about 1986 and we agreed that if I was going to have a serious shot at it that’s what we had to concentrate on.

“She comments sometimes that we’d own a lot more land if we hadn’t concentrated on jet boating but, hey, what do you want from life, a lot of land or to be happy?

“I know farmers who are so totally consumed by their work. We’ve had a lot of fun along the way.”

He’s run four campaigns in the US and Canada but after Robert was in a serious crash in the US in 2008 Audrey hasn’t been able to watch. This year’s shot in Idaho and Canada will be the first time she’s accompanied him to attend the racing ever since.

The boats he started racing were driven by 350cc Chevy engines and the beginner’s classes still are. Cromie, who owns the Holden franchise in Whangarei, has a son in training in that FX class today with the idea of following in his father’s footsteps.

Robert is content with supporting their efforts as drivers and sometimes acts as navigator, but is less keen on the racing itself after his crashes. He’s the logistics man and a world championship campaign takes a lot of organising.

He was attracted to jet boat racing simply because of the speed and the lack of limits.

“Whatever you want to race, there’s a class for it. You can use any sort of engine you want. That appealed to me and I enjoy playing around with motors and the engineering side of things. I love the challenge of building the engine. You can experiment with the engine and the design.”

The boats he’s been racing in and the one being prepared for the shot at the world title are up to 7400cc.

“There is no other sport like it. Do you know any sport where you can strap yourself to a 1000hp motor and put your foot to the floor? You can reach 180km/h within seconds. And it’s all legal.”

In 2007 Robert ran out of fuel close to the finish line in a world champ event in Canada. Thirty years earlier the first-ever world jet boating championship was won by Kiwi Reg Benton. That start still drives Kiwi racers. Robert was on that path when he crashed badly in the US.

“Usually you don’t go near a standing wave on a river because of what’s on the riverbed, you drive around the side of it. We didn’t know what happened at the time but we hit the wave front-on at about 98km/h and the boat stopped dead. Then it flipped end-to-end twice and then it rolled three times.”

He believes the standing wave suddenly shifted sideways because something moved in the riverbed.

Robert was rolled head-over-heels numerous times as he was carried about 250 metres downstream from the crash site.

His co-driver broke ankle ligaments in the crash and Robert was lucky to survive.

“I got rolled so many times I took water in the lungs. I was very close to drowning.”

He’d had two previous experiences of flipping upside down and having to escape underwater but “you don’t get used to it”.

“I’m supposed to be in the boat with Mark this year but to be honest I’m hoping someone else will.”

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