I don't necessarily "blame" him of course... without his weight the express would be a wild ride. Even our (his ) mistakes wouldn't have made up the 4 hr time difference. Oh well, more to learn.
As an aside, my wife got me a Suunto GPS watch... really kind of cool to be out on the trap and look at my wrist to see how fast we were going (and if the changes we made changed anything- like velocity made good on downwind legs etc)