While that was going on, we were able to

tackle a few issues that we had to deal with at

the north end of the lake. We had to see how

well I would float wearing motorcycle leathers

and a helmet, and the answer, if I lay back in

the water, was ‘very well indeed’. The Osprey

lads practised hauling me out of the water and

we even had a few trial runs with the Suzuki.

Even though the angle of entry was all wrong,

I managed to hydroplane for around 40 metres

and Osprey got to grips with recovering a very

wet Suzuki from the lake. The water here,

however, was only about waist deep – not deep

enough for the record attempt – and Guinness

really wanted us to do at least 100 metres to

establish a proper record.

To that end, surveyor Mike Hopkins from

Storm Geomatics was out on the water with

an echo sounder measuring the depth of the

lake and positioning buoys using GPS and a

laser theodolite to mark out the run I would

take from the Pant Yr Onnen shoreline. Mike

was also working out where he needed to place

his equipment to measure exactly how far I

managed to get on the record run.

While I was practising dunking myself in

Bala Lake and sitting around in wet leathers,

Graham, Charlie, Dave and Richard were

practising emptying water out of the bike. I

suppose that I should have sat and had a mug

of tea while all this was going on, but I couldn’t

really do that while they were taking a bike to

bits, could I? Believe it or not, we could strip

the bike down, drain the fuel and the oil which

were both contaminated with water, empty

out all of the water, dry out the electrics and

the filters, put the whole lot back together and

replace the fuel and oil – all in less than half an

hour! And with a bit of pumping on the kick-

start, the Suzuki was up and running again.

Top: Sitting around in
wet leathers, I could do
with a nice cup of tea.

Bottom: The team
getting the bike ready for
the first record attempt.

Following page: The Osprey
guys ferrying me back to the
beach, having fished me out
of Bala Lake.

the moment of truth   189