Following seven days of intense on-water action for the Audi Hamilton Island Race Week, Triple Eight Race Engineering has docked in time to finalise preparations for next week’s L&H 500 at Phillip Island.

The team, made up of TeamVodafone staff and affiliates, spent a week at sea for the historic Hamilton Island races during what has been one of the biggest competition breaks in V8 Supercar history.

Although the teams boat ‘Jessandra’ was the smallest to enter the competition, it proved that size doesn’t matter when it breezed across the finishing line in an impressive fourth position.

Collaboration was a significant factor for the team of five, who hit the deck for hours each day to ultimately complete seven races, ranging anywhere from 16-40km in length.

The team was certainly the brightest of the bunch, sporting matching pink Hawaiian shirts to compliment the giant pink ‘Hogstar’ head printed on the boat’s sail.

Minus the bright colours, TeamVodafone’s Commercial Operations Manager Peter Jamieson said Jessandra was a real eye-catcher and received a number of comments on her good looks.

“The typical response was how pretty the boat looked. I think the exact words were “stunning”. Although we didn’t win on the water, we certainly were best presented on the dock.”

“Overall, we learnt a great deal about the boat and discovered that battling tides of 3-4 knots, in some instances, played a critical factor in race success. In some locations, we had to be on the right side of the tide, otherwise we would go backwards.

“We found out a lot about sailing Jessandra in a range of different conditions and, I believe, if the regatta was windier, we might have seen a few podiums as a result. Our teamwork was fantastic and there were no brawls on board,” he laughed.

Although barely rid of their sea legs, preparation is underway for TeamVodafone, who are eager to recommence the Championship for the much anticipated endurance races following positive results from the team and both cars.

The countdown commences to the opening of the L&H 500 at Phillip Island to be held on the 10-12 September. For breaking news and events on TeamVodafone, be sure to visit the team’s official website, Twitter and Facebook.