Back in Sweden I made a deal with my best friend and the always hard racer Bo Nilsson to go to the race in
Cardiff, Wales/UK and later Amsterdam.Took my trailer to a welding shop and they spent a week to change the trailer into a two stacker boat trailer and it turned out pretty
good.
We had never been to England before so I called Thor Line and made
a really good deal for tickets on the big ferry.

Pretty expensive at that time with car and the trailer.
It is a 24 hour trip so you need a cabin to. Everything was at the last minute, and we was running late to
Gothenburg and the Thor terminal. The big heavy trailer slowed my Opel
station wagon down. We got to Gothenburg just in time to see
the big ship leave..without us.A very bad start.. we went to a Cargo Line Company and they promised us to make space for our car and trailer on board.
The ship left a few hours later, but this ship was heading somewhere else in GB, and there was no cabin available so we had to sleep in the Opel.

The captain of the ship was friendly and he promised us that we are going to be the first ones off the ship.Driving to Cardiff was a long distans.. and we where already late,
because we missed the first ferry. Docked in England I was ready to go and Bo was reading the map.
We left the ferry as the first car and I was
driving through the big port. Got the big surprise a few minutes
later, when we found out we was driving on the wrong side of the road….

Bad mistake, but driving on the left side of the road was a new thing for me and we
was in a hurry.
We arrived in Cardiff just in time to make the race.
Well, the race was in a big dock like a giant swimming pool and my
boat was not set up for that extremely ruff water and no time to change that
before start

After 10 minutes in the race I parked the boat to watch Bo
race, but he parked next to me and we watch the SE race together.

This was not a big race for the SE class, but the ON World Championship took place at
the same time and was part of the reason we went to Cardiff

As a big Evinrude fan I wanted to see Cees VD Velden, that just switch from Mercury to
Johnson win the race.
I think this was the first race OMC used a new type of mid section, instead of the old kind of ugly looking longer mid section.

I remember Renato Molinari and Bob Herring had the new look
Molinari boats, really low and smooth

Cees did pretty good but I think
he had a bad incident and damage the boat Saturday, but was allowed
to take off the engine.  Bring the boat somewhere else overnight to have it
fixed.

Sunday morning Cees was ready to race again and the rough water was also
a problem for the bigger boats.
After a really good race Cees VD Velden was the new ON World Champion.
I remember being invited to a party at this big fancy building with the Lotus F1 owner
Colin Chapman. Well.. my race weekend was nothing to brag about but I fell in love with Boat racing in UK.

That was the start of many good races for me in UK.
After the race, we stayed in London for a few days, before Bo and I was heading to
Amsterdam to try to stay out off trouble…..
Lots of race boats at the Amsterdam 3 hour race.. I spent the 3 hours just in front of  Bo and took the checkered flag.

.
Here is a few picture from Amsterdam..My boat is #71..Bo is # 69..

Next story here…https://svera.se/blogg/racing-historier/four-european-championship-titles-in-a-row/

 

From a news paper in Amsterdam..red arrow my boat..blue Bo Nilsson..

The start of the Amsterdam 3 Hour race 1975.