Steven Bridges and David Selley continued their promising start to the year at the Thunder on Cocoa Beach offshore races in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Saturday.

The local professional powerboat racers overcame major setbacks in the Super Stock class in their 32-foot twin-engined catamaran, S 25 Team Bermuda/GL Construction on the way to finishing fourth in the eleven boat racing fleet.

“The race did not start out very good for us, but we ended up with a fourth-place finish,” boat owner and throttle man Bridges told The Royal Gazette.

“At the start, we were hit by two boats and forced out of position. We had to back out of it and got sprayed down, so we could not see where we were going.

“We then struggled with speed for the rest of the race and not seeing the normal speed we know the boat runs at, but we kept pushing hard and lucky for us other boats dropped out of the race and allowed us a good finish.

“When we got back to the pits, we discovered we had one cylinder down on a motor, so overall not a bad result out of eleven boats, which gives us decent points.”

The local team’s preparations were also hindered after they encountered mechanical issues in the build up to the event.

“We went testing and caught an issue on one of the motors, so we were glad we took the time to run before the weekend,” Bridges said.

Bridges and driver Selley are fourth in the overall Super Stock season points standings, with the Thunder on Cocoa Beach offshore races forming part of the Space Coast Super Boat Grand Prix, which features some of the top teams in the world competing in the world’s biggest and fastest boats in various classes, with Class 1 competitors exceeding speeds of 175mph.

Bridges and Selley were high on confidence heading into the event after securing their first podium finish among the professional ranks when claiming the silver medal on their debut in last month’s 7 Mile Offshore Grand Prix in Florida with a time of 39 min 02.2 sec.