Disaster nearly marred Sunday’s powerboat racing at Ferry Reach after a pleasure craft ventured on to the racecourse.

Competitors were forced to take evasive action to avoid colliding with pleasure craft which ignored calls from race officials to stay clear of the racecourse, actions that could have resulted in serious consequences.

“When we raced on Sunday we had a couple of near-misses with pleasure craft,” Bermuda Power Boat Association commodore Robert Cardwell told The Royal Gazette. “Pleasure craft were passing over the racecourse and disobeying crash-boat personnel who were trying to keep the racecourse clear.

“We encourage powercraft operators to avoid the BPBA racecourse. This is specially important as we go into Round the Island.

“Passing over the racecourse is dangerous. The powerboats are travelling in excess of 100km. This is a dangerous practice and a collision is inevitable.”

The association staged one timed race featuring eight entries spread across five classes. Junior drivers competed in a seven-minute inshore race and seniors in a 30-minute offshore race.

Aaron Sims and co-pilot Steven Bridges were the top guns in the S class, while Craig Nesbitt Sr and Jr reigned supreme in the D class, Chad and Graham Sutherland in the C class, Jody and Tony Carreiro in the B class, and Shane Madeiros and Lawson Williams in the A class.

Santiago Rowse won two of the four junior races contested, with E’Mari Ingemann and Ryan McLean taking the chequered flag in the remaining two.

“We had an excellent day of racing,” Cardwell said. “We are seeing more skills within our juniors and competition is rife among them.

“Our seniors took to the water and it seemed all boats were running very well. It was unfortunate S22 [Andrew Cottingham and Henry Talbot] had a mechanical failure and did not finish.

“I do believe all the boats have been geared up for Round the Island on August 7. We saw some hot competition.”

• Video 2 courtesy of Andrew Fubler