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Top 10 powerboat racing icons that helped make boating what it is today

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Hugo Peel explores the top ten power-boating events, people and inventions that have influenced today’s sportsboats...

Powerboat racing may seem a world away from the type of cruising most of us do but the sportsboats we enjoy today wouldn’t be half as good as they are without the racers, designers and builders whose heroic efforts helped shape them.

Auto-boat racing, as it was originally known, traces its history back to the late 19th century and for a brief period was even an Olympic sport, with races staged off the Isle of Wight in 1908. However, it wasn’t until the 1960s and 1970s that the sport exploded in popularity as developments in engineering, materials, speed, safety and propulsion really took off.

Racing was the anvil on which these promising technologies were forged. So what are the ten most significant events, inventions and people that have contributed to today’s impressive levels of performance, safety and utility?

While many of these names and events may be unfamiliar now, they are the stuff of legend to all who recall the glory days of British powerboat racing.

1. The Cowes-Torquay-Cowes offshore powerboat race

Many people regard offshore powerboat racing as the ultimate challenge for craft and crew. Arguably the most challenging race of all and certainly one of the oldest is the legendary Cowes-Torquay competition.

Initiated in 1961 by Daily Express newspaper magnate and keen yachtsman, Sir Max Aitken, who foresaw it would help grow the UK marine industry, it bred a string of British and international heroes and brands. This 200-mile race, now known as the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes, and its coveted Harmsworth Trophy, intermittently awarded since 1903, is still the one all top powerboat racers yearn to win.

The marathon Round Britain Powerboat Race started and finished off Portsmouth

2. The marathon Round Britain Powerboat Race

If a 200-mile race sounds challenging, the 1,500-mile endurance marathon that is the Round Britain Race is on an altogether different scale, yet it proved so appealing that it has been run three times over four decades.

The first BP-sponsored race in 1969 comprised ten stages over 1,459 miles and was won by Timo Mäkinen, a champion Finnish rally-driver in Avenger Too propelled by triple Mercury outboards – he averaged 37mph.

The 1984 race was sponsored by Everest double glazing and attracted famous names, including Italian racer/designer Fabio Buzzi driving White Iveco , a single-step GRP monohull with four 600bhp Iveco diesels. Against him was fellow Italian Renato della Valle in Ego Lamborghini , an aluminium-hull craft powered by two ear-splitting 800hp, race-tuned V12 Lamborghinis.

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Victory went to Buzzi who, after the 157-mile Dundee-Whitby leg, during which White Iveco averaged a staggering 69 knots, dismissed it with shrug saying: ‘In Italy, this is just a cruising boat.’

The race was revived in 2008 attracting a field of 47 raceboats old and new, including a number of production RIBs and sportsboats from companies like Scorpion , Goldfish and Scanner. The favourites included Fabio Buzzi again in his classic four-engined Red FPT , and Austrian casino millionaire Hannes Bohinc in another Buzzi-designed monohull Wettpunkt .

This time the overall winner was a Greek entry Blue FPT navigated by Britain’s Dag Pike, who at 75 years old, was the event’s oldest competitor. Many of the production boats also did remarkably well, showing just how far they have come in recent years.

Steve Curtis MBE is powerboat racing royalty

3. Powerboat racer Steve Curtis

If the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes is the benchmark, surely the top driver must be found among its winners? Home-grown contenders must include Tommy Sopwith, a winner in 1961, 1968 and 1970 and the Gardner brothers, Charles and Jimmy, who clocked up victories in 1964 with their Bertram 31 Surfrider , and again in 1967 in the iconic Sonny Levi-designed Surfury .

On the worldwide stage, Italy’s Renato Della Valle won four Cowes Torquay Cowes races in a row from 1982 to 1985. Hannes Bohinc collected the trophies in 1995 and 2003 and another German, Markus Hendricks, whose boat sank on the 2008 Round Britain, took a re-engined 34-year-old monohull, Cinzano , to victory in 2009 and 2011.

They are all brilliant in their way but how could this category ignore the UK’s Steve Curtis MBE, owner of Cougar Marine, with no fewer than eight Class One powerboat racing world championships in fearsome 175mph catamarans? Curtis’s 2016 victory in the roughest ever Cowes Torquay Cowes race, in a 30-year-old aluminium boat sealed his place in the history books.

4. Lady Violet Aitken – the first lady of fast

The field of legendary female powerboat racers may be smaller but is no less worthy for it with three principal candidates – two titled British ladies and an American grandmother.

From the USA, Betty Cook – focussed, smart, and tough – arrived with her 36ft Cigarette Kaama and blew away the opposition in the 1978 Cowes Torquay Cowes race. She went on to secure two world championships.

The British aristocracy provides the eccentric and brave Countess of Arran, who fielded fast if unconventional designs of three-pointers like Highland Fling among others. She was described by The Guardian in her obituary as ‘beautiful, vivacious, funny, fun and entrancing’.

But our top female driver is Lady Violet Aitken, wife of Cowes-Torquay founder Sir Max Aitken and Ladies’ Trophy winner on several occasions. Racing is still in the blood as her daughter Laura and granddaughter Lucci are both keen powerboat racers.

Buzzi’s legendary status stems from 40 years of work in the marine industry

5. Powerboat designer Fabio Buzzi

The late Fabio Buzzi is a legend, both behind the helm and at the drawing board. In more than 40 years of activity, his company FB Design has won a staggering 52 world championships; seven Harmsworth Trophies; two Round Britains; and set no less than 56 world speed records in both European and American classes.

Buzzi designed the boat that has won more races than any other powerboat in history, the quadruple-engined, be-winged 44ft Cesa/Gancia dei Gancia . Today, the descendants of these monohull designs are found in service with government and military agencies all around the world, as well as leisure craft like the Sunseeker XS2000 and Hawk 38 .

But the competition is hard-fought. Sonny Levi’s delta-shaped race-boats A’Speranziella , Merry-go-Round , Alto Volante , and Surfury leave lasting memories by their sheer performance and poise. And their legacy, the Levi Corsair, is still made today.

The UK’s Don Shead also runs Buzzi close having designed ten Cowes-Torquay winners and the 1984 Round Britain race winner. The early Sunseeker ranges also came from his drawing board.

Peter Thornycroft and Alan Burnard merit attention as designers of the iconic Nelson and Fairey hulls respectively, many of which are still in service today. But the sheer scale of Fabio’s achievements trumps them all.

The Mercury V8 took powerboating to another level

6. The Mercury V8 engine

Early racers only had American petrol V8s for choice, mainly Ford Dearborn Interceptors, tweaked to deliver big torque and 300-400bhp. There were also a few marinised Jaguar straight-six engines, which consumed oil at a terrifying rate and were fragile. Then Carl Kiekhaefer, head of US outboard giant Mercury, refined numerous Mercury Racing V8s and Lamborghini V12s providing up to 850bhp and things took off. Literally.

To this market came car racing engineers Ilmor in the 1990s with a tuned Dodge Viper V10 engine, pushing out a reliable 700-800bhp. The Italians, at the behest of Fabio Buzzi, developed the 16-litre 1,000hp Seatek diesel for ultra-marathon events, providing unparalleled torque with (relatively) light weight and reliability.

A special mention for the maddest motors must go to Tommy Sopwith, who put a pair of helicopter turbines into a 44ft Don Shead hull delivering over 1500bhp and Domenico Achilli, who ‘glued’ two Subaru flat-four rally car engines together, and split our eardrums while winning the 1990 Cowes Torquay Cowes race.

But for sheer consistency and the countless number of ever-faster, smoother, more reliable production engines its powerboat racing successes have spawned, Mercury and its big displacement V8s have to take the crown.

Offering horizontal thrust and reduced drag, the sterndrive greatly increased the speed and efficiency of both race and pleasure craft

7. The sterndrive unit

Early shaft-driven race-boats normally placed engines amidships with straight shafts to the propellers. Then the vee-drive option enabled engines to be moved astern for better weight distribution but, in both cases, the angle of thrust was still pushing the hull ‘uphill’.

With the arrival of the sterndrive came horizontal thrust to harness the growing power of engines, and hugely reduced hydrodynamic drag by doing away with separate rudders, shafts and P-brackets. This greatly increased both speed and efficiency while the ability to trim the angle of thrust also enabled drivers to adjust the boat’s trim to suit differing sea conditions.

Surface-drives from Arneson and Trimax reduced drag even further but at the cost of low speed manoeuvrability and we mustn’t overlook the impact of the outboard engine on both race and leisure sportsboats.

However, for sheer versatility, the impact it has had on both powerboat racing and leisure craft, and its ability to work equally well with both petrol and diesel engines, the sterndrive has to take it.

Hunt’s deep-vee design proved a powerboat game-changer

8. Racing hull designer Ray Hunt

The most successful hull builders embraced the fast-developing world of engineering and materials as well as developments in design. Cold-molded mahogany plywood gave way to GRP, which in turn surrendered to carbon-fibre reinforced by Kevlar.

However, it’s hard to think of a bigger leap in hull design than Ray Hunt’s deep-vee concept, demonstrating an immediate and staggering superiority over previous hard and rounded chines. Nothing underpins this assertion better than Dick Bertram’s 1961 Miami-Nassau victory in his prototype Moppie – finishing a whole day ahead of the third-placed boat.

The likes of Levi, Shead and Bertram all helped refine the concept but the winner has to be Ray Hunt who, along with Dick Bertram’s investment and encouragement, became the grandfather of today’s sportsboats.

Peter Dredge skims Vector Martini to an average speed of 94.5mph during the 2015 Cowes Torquay Cowes race. Photo: Alamy

9. Speed record breaker Peter Dredge

World Water Speed records set by the likes of Donald Campbell’s Bluebird and Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Challenger II are momentous achievements in their fields but their designs have bred few, if any, current sportsboats. Offshore powerboat racing records may not be as well publicised but are arguably far more relevant.

The average speed records of historic races like the Cowes Torquay Cowes race are a perfect demonstration of the improvements made in powertrains, hull design and strength. The first race in 1961 was won by a 24ft wooden Christina averaging 24.5mph. It took another two years to break 40mph, and a further four to exceed 50mph. In 1969 the record tumbled again with an average speed of over 60mph.

A gap of six years then ensued before the record climbed over 70mph and a further 13 years for technology to reach an average exceeding 80mph. A very calm race in 1990 saw the Italians hit over 90mph average – and then we waited 25 years before that speed was finally exceeded in 2015.

So until that record is beaten, preferably with a speed of more than 100mph, our winner is the current record holder Peter Dredge who propelled the awesome 1,500bhp, 44ft Vector Martini to victory at a remarkable average speed of 94.5mph.

Dag Pike, the brains behind so many great powerboat victories

10. National treasure Dag Pike

No top ten list could be complete without mention of those quiet but significant contributors to the sport of offshore powerboat racing. Among those names must be Class-3 racer, commentator, sport historian and MBY ’s longest-serving contributor Ray Bulman, who passed away last year .

The racer, organiser, enthusiast and flamboyant, chain-smoking Tim Powell also has to be in the running. Other characters like Commander Petroni of Italy’s Tornado Racing Team and Tommy Sopwith’s regular crew Charles de Selincourt, who guided him to victory in several Cowes Torquay Cowes races also deserve mentions.

But my National Treasure award goes to Dag Pike; writer, raconteur and navigator extraordinaire who has been the brains behind countless race wins for dozens of different drivers. Having been shipwrecked eight times himself but also having rescued more than eight people in his long career offshore, he has in his own words ‘balanced the books’.

The last word

As with any top ten list it can never be comprehensive and will always be open to differences of opinion but that’s not the point of this article. We simply invite you to ponder that, whatever boat you drive and whatever propels it, its performance and seaworthiness possesses at least some of the DNA of the many great raceboats, designers, engineers and technologies, forged in the heat of offshore battle.

First published in the June 2019 issue of Motor Boat & Yachting.

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The Excitement of Running a P1 Offshore Race Boat

• By Charles Plueddeman
• November 16, 2023

In this age of 70 mph pontoons , 90 mph center-consoles and 150 mph sport cats, it’s pretty easy to experience eye-popping velocity on the water. So, there you are, the wind flapping your cheeks as you hold that throttle to the stop, one watering eye on the speedo as you bump the trim hoping to squeeze out the last bit of speed it will take to be the first boat to the poker-run card pickup. Maybe you even imagine that’s Reggie Fountain , Steve Curtis or Shaun Torrente at the helm of the boat you are pursuing, and instead of a king of hearts, there’s a big trophy waiting at the finish line. Well, dream on, Speed Racer. You’re going fast, but you are not racing, and your production-built motorboat is no race boat.

Steve Curtis throttles a real race boat. The Victory catamaran Huski Chocolate carried Curtis and drivers Travis Pastrana and Brit Lilly to the 2022 UIM Class 1 championship in the Powerboat P1 Offshore series. Last summer, we met Curtis and this boat, now rechristened Huski Ice Spritz, at the Mercury Racing Midwest Challenge in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the fourth event on the five-race 2023 P1 schedule. The boat is owned by SVEA Racing Inc., based in Stuart, Florida, regarded as the benchmark in professionalism and experience in Class 1 and led by technical director Gary Stray, director of operations Scott Colton and crew chief Patrick Cleaveland.

Curtis, a 59-year-old Englishman and the son of Cougar Powerboats founder and racing catamaran innovator Clive Curtis, claimed his first Class 1 world championship in 1985 in Key West when he was 21 years old. In his career, Curtis has throttled more than 20 world champions. Who would be better to show us under the cowl of a Class 1 race boat than the acknowledged master of throttling racing cats?

Class 1 is the premier category of international offshore powerboat racing. A P1 Offshore event can include a number of classes, but only the Class 1 Championship is sanctioned by the UIM (Union Internationale Motonautique), the world governing body for all ­powerboating activities. Basic rules for Class 1 dictate a minimum boat length overall of 12 meters (about 39 feet) and a minimum weight of 5,400 kilograms (just over 11,900 pounds). There have been seven boats in the Class 1 field in 2023, ranging in length from the 43-foot Skater Monster Energy/MCON to the 51-foot Mystic dfYoung. The Huski Ice Spritz/SVEA Victory is 47 feet length overall, with a running surface of 41.5 feet, according to Curtis, and a 12-foot beam. Curtis explains that the bigger boats often have an advantage in rough conditions, but the smaller boats can be nimbler in a current on flatter water in a tight, multiturn closed course—the 5-mile course at Sheboygan had 10 turns.

“Courses have become smaller to make the event more spectator-­friendly,” Curtis says. “We used to run 40-mile laps and 200-mile races.”

The age of the Class 1 fleet is also surprising. Huski Ice Spritz/SVEA was built in 2007 by the Victory team in Dubai to a ­Michael Peters design.

“The boat has been rebuilt and repowered a number of times,” Curtis says. “I believe it was originally powered by Lamborghini V-12 engines. The boat has been crashed and repaired. The entire deck has been replaced, and the running surface adjusted as the engine package has changed.”

Carbon, Of Course

The overall theme of a race boat is that every element is functional, and this is the key difference between Huski Ice Spritz and your go-fast rig. Speed and safety are all that matter. The hull and deck are laid up with a combination of carbon fiber and Kevlar composite, with foam coring of various density. Bulkheads are carbon fiber, molded in a combination of triangulation and U-channel shape, and bonded within the hull. Each sponson has a pair of steps that are about 1.5 inches deep and a single strake. The tunnel between the sponsons is designed to trap and compress air, which lifts the boat at speed. The tunnel is about 33 inches deep at the bow but only 22 inches deep at the transom.

A V-hull boat could run in Class 1, but the catamaran offers a significant advantage, according to Randy Scism, who helped establish the Victory team as a force in offshore racing before returning to the United States in 1998 to start performance boatbuilder Marine Technologies Inc.

“A comparable V-hull boat will be 20 to 30 mph slower at top speed,” says Scism, who designed the 48-foot MTI Class 1 cat ­XInsurance/Good Boy ­Vodka. “In some conditions, it might corner better, but it could never make up the difference in total lap time. The air cushion under a cat can carry 30 to 35 percent of the boat’s weight, so the bottom is not even touching small waves and chop.”

Builders seek to produce a boat that is significantly below the class minimum-weight specification. This allows each team to make weight using lead ballast—water ballast is not allowed—that can be positioned right on the stringers to keep the center of gravity as low as possible to enhance handling and help trim the boat. Weight, either lead bars or bags of lead shot, can be placed aft to lift the bow in calm conditions or forward to hold the bow down in rough water. Fuel tanks are located directly on the boat’s center of balance so that balance does not change as fuel is consumed. At race venues, a crane fitted with a scale lifts the Class 1 boats from the trailer to the water; this way, each boat is weighed every time it goes in and comes out of the water to prevent cheating.

At Class 1 speeds, aerodynamics becomes critical. The boats literally fly over the water, and the deck is flush with the top of each sponson. The enclosed cockpit is a teardrop blister, hatch latches and cleats are carefully recessed and faired, and air intake is accomplished with low-drag NACA ducts. When conditions are ideal, these huge boats appear to levitate with a grace that belies the brutal thrust required to reach speeds that can exceed 160 mph on the open ocean.

Prescribed Power

There are no surprises below the engine hatches of a Class 1 boat. Since P1 led a revival of the class in 2019, the Mercury Racing 1100 Competition engine has been standard power, a spec engine for the class. The 9.0-liter V-8 engine features Mercury Racing QC4 quad-valve cylinder heads and is boosted by twin turbochargers. Power output is 1,100 hp and 1,100 lb.-ft. of torque per engine on 93-octane pump gasoline. Each big V-8 turns 6,000 to 6,500 rpm. The transmission is the stout model designed for the Mercury Racing 1750 engine with a stronger input shaft and ­internal components.

“Before the switch to the Merc 1100, we were running engines making 1,850 to 2,000 hp at 7,500 rpm,” Curtis says, “and top speeds pushed 190 mph. Those engines needed a rebuild after each race.”

The point of a specified engine for the class is to reduce cost and ensure power parity among teams with unequal resources. With that in mind, the engines are tightly controlled. Teams are not allowed to make any adjustments or modifications to the engines. With the exception of the valve covers, the engines are sealed with special fasteners. At the beginning of each race weekend, the Mercury Racing support team delivers propulsion control modules (PCM) to each team. The PCM units are painted bright ­yellow so they are easy to identify. ­Mercury ­Racing also installs a data logger on each engine.

“After every practice and ­every race, we download the data to make sure it makes sense and that nobody has tweaked on the engines and turned the power up,” says Steve Wynveen, Mercury Racing manager of development engineering. “The idea of Class 1 now is that winning is dependent on driving and boat setup, not on who has the most money to throw at an engine.”

The expectation is that if teams don’t abuse these engines by constantly banging into the rev limiter, each can last the season with just basic maintenance. Teams will put between two and three hours of run time on the engines at each race weekend. Teams are free to install their own PCM for testing between races.

The Huski Ice Spritz/SVEA team engineered a number of quick-disconnect fittings that allow it to remove an engine in about 20 minutes, according to Curtis. This team pulls its engines after each race for maintenance and inspects the bilge and engine mounts below the engines. Typical maintenance includes an oil and filter change, checking the valve lash and adjusting with shims, a compression and leak-down test, checking the turbocharger ­waste-gate adjustment, and ­torquing all fasteners and clamps.

Six of the boats in this Class 1 fleet use surface drives based on a BPM model to put power to the water. The Italian drive only articulates in the vertical plane, which provides a limited range of trim, generally less than 15 degrees or, according to Curtis, about 1.5 inches at the propeller. The prop is located about 58 inches abaft the transom. A drop box located on the exterior of the transom allows teams to quickly change gear ratios to best match engine torque to the prevailing conditions. Curtis explains that on today’s short courses, ­acceleration out of turns is often more important than top speed. Teams using a surface drive are limited to three prop sets but have unlimited gear ratios. Steering is accomplished by a center-mounted rudder—a knife-sharp polished stainless Italian Flexitab model on Huski Ice Spritz—and teams can change rudders based on water conditions.

A sterndrive is also permitted in Class 1, but if the sterndrive can steer, the boat is not allowed to use a rudder. The MTI XInsurance/Good Boy Vodka boat is rigged with modified Mercury Racing M6 sterndrives. Trim is retained, but the skegs are cut off and steering is locked. The boat is equipped with a rudder. Teams running sterndrives are allowed an unlimited number of propellers.

“The problem with trying to steer these boats with the sterndrives is that when you turn the drive, one prop is pushed into water and the other into the air coming through the tunnel,” Scism says. “The prop in the air loses thrust. You want to keep both props centered behind the sponsons. I prefer to use the M6 drives for the added trim authority. That drive is plenty rugged for these engines.”

Read Next: How to Boat Safely at Any Speed

Curtis throttles with his right hand gripping a pair of Mercury Zero Effort controls topped with red plastic knobs molded to the shape of his hand. To his left is a fixed, molded grip with radio/intercom control buttons, trim control, and a button to change the screen display. Curtis can communicate with his team using VHF and UHF radios, and a cellular connection. Below is a pair of Mercury ignition keys, which we were surprised to see.

“When we went to the standard Merc 1100 engines, we wanted to retain the entire stock wiring harness to prevent any sort of tampering,” Curtis says. “So, there are the keys, just like on your fishing boat. It was the ­easiest solution.”

Facing Curtis are a pair of Livorsi turbocharger boost gauges, a Livorsi trim indicator, and a multifunction display usually showing tachometers. In the center of the dash is a Garmin MFD split between navigation and a rearview camera. The driver sits before a quick-release steering wheel with a lap counter on top of the dash, which will also display a yellow-and-red flag signal from race control.

I wish I could describe the ­sensation of driving Huski Ice Spritz at speed while looking through the slit of a windscreen. But as it turns out, there is not enough liability coverage or legal cover to ever make that happen. Scism says MTI will build you a new 48 Race model to Class 1 specs, with a price tag of $2.2 million to $2.4 million with power. A $500,000 budget will cover a bare-bones Class 1 team for a season, Curtis says, with a well-financed team spending more than $1.5 million. SVEA Racing Inc. brings a crew of 10 to each race with a 70-foot race trailer, a tilting boat trailer and its Kenworth hauler, and a world-champion throttleman. They are not going to a poker run.

Safety First

When Steve Curtis won his first Class 1 championship, he was standing in an open cockpit. “There was very little concern for safety in those boats,” Curtis says. “If you stuffed the boat, it was very likely you’d be killed.”

Today the driver and throttle work in an enclosed cockpit that is all business. This is not your pleasure boat—there is no Alcantara upholstery, no bass-pumping audio system, and no LED-illuminated drink holders. Cockpit entry is through a hatch secured with four sliding bolts like a bank vault. In Huski Ice Spritz, Curtis throttles from the port seat, and the driver is at the wheel to starboard. Deep bucket seats have 2 inches of suspension travel, and the crew is strapped securely in place. “During a race, it can actually get rather violent in here,” Curtis says. “It’s not very noisy, but there is a lot of vibration, even in smooth water, because the boat is so rigid. We can feel pretty beat up after a race.”

A cage of carbon channels surrounds the cockpit, which Curtis says is backed by a very thick bulkhead. Crush zones around the cockpit are designed to absorb energy on impact. The interior is raw and black, with no thought of cosmetics. The forward portion of the cockpit structure is formed by a ¾-inch-thick polycarbonate shield modeled after a fighter-jet canopy. The clear portion is minimized for further crew protection. There’s an emergency escape hatch in the floor for egress if the boat flips. The driver and throttle have a 10-minute emergency air supply.

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Alex pratt returns to class 1 with dfyoung, 222 offshore take class 1 world title, this year’s uim class 1 world championship showcased the sport at its absolute best, with 222 offshore’s darren nicholson and giovanni carpitella delivering a near faultless, season-long campaign to win the title and the sam griffith trophy, the most coveted prize in world powerboat racing., doug wright powerboats to race in uim class 1 next year.

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Roar Offshore Fort Myers Beach Scrubbed For 2024

Though Hurricane Ian careened into Southwest Florida a year-and-a-half ago, infrastructure recovery from the Category 5 storm—particularly in decimated Fort Myers Beach—is far from complete. That fact has forced lead organizer Tim Hill and his team to postpone the October 11-13 Roar Offshore Fort Myers Beach races—the final regular-season event on the 2024 Offshore Powerboat Association schedule—until 2025.

Fans of Roar Offshore Fort Myers Beach will have to wait another year for powerboat racing to return to the area. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix .

The majority of infrastructure concerns, said Hill, revolve around the wet and dry pits. Severe damage and outright destruction of Fort Myers Beach hotels from the storm also led to concerns of lodging scarcity during the event.

“We understand the disappointment this may cause, but the safety and quality of the event are paramount,” said Hill in a press release from Roar Offshore Fort Myers Beach. “Being full-time residents of this resilient community, we understand the importance of an event such as Roar Offshore to help in the return to normalcy.

“As we approach critical planning stages for the race, unfortunately the land, docks and lodging needed for this large-scale, multi-day event just are not in place,” he continued. “We appreciate your understanding and continued support of Roar Offshore Fort Myers Beach Power Boat Races.”

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Mod-V Class Series Returning With $120,000 Purse

• APBA Offshore Championship
• Asia Powerboat Championship
• Australian Offshore
• Bermuda Offshore
• British Offshore Racing
• P1 Offshore
• P1 Superstock
• P1 Superstock US
• Race World Offshore
• Raid Pavia Venezia
• Super Boat International
• UIM Awards Giving Gala
• UIM Class 1
• UIM Marathon
• UIM Pleasure Navigation
• UIM V2 World Powerboat Championship
• UIM XCAT Racing
• UK ThunderCat Racing

• Australian V8 Superboat Championships
• Circuit Powerboat Association
• E1 World Electric Powerboat Series
• F1 Powerboat Championship Series.
• Powerboat GP
• UAE F4 Championship
• UIM OSY400 European Championship
• UIM World Circuit Endurance
• Unlimited Hydroplane Racing
• F1H2O Nations Cup

• P1 AquaX Bahamas World Championship
• UAE Aquabike Championship
• UIM-ABP Aquabike World Championship

Powerboat Racing World

Frode Sundsdal

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Sharjah International Marine Sports Club, in cooperation with the UAE Marine Sports Federation, is ready organizing the UAE Class-3 offshore Powerboat Championship again.

Date is not yet confirmed, it depends on the international calendar – but if your interested you should sign up !

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