Offshore powerboat racing

[citation needed] In 1903, the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland, and its offshoot, the Marine Motor Association organised a race of auto-boats.

[3] The sport entered the modern era in the 1960s, with notable names like Jim Wynn, Don Aronow, and Dick Bertram competing in events such as the Bahamas 500-mile (800 km) race.

[4] Modern races are short, track style events with much improved viewing for the spectators, and the different categories of boats have multiplied far beyond the 4 classes that were common through much of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.

Shortly after its advent, Americans Jim Wynne, Dick Bertram and Don Aronow supported technological advancement, with Daytona, Mercruiser, and AeroMarine.

Don Shead's Aluminium monohulls, Italian manufacturers Picchiotti and CUV, and the James Beard-Clive Curtis Cougar catamarans set the record.

[citation needed] Fabio Buzzi made a large technological advance by introducing glass-reinforced polymer hulls, turbo-charged engines, and integral surface drives and the 90's subsequently saw the emergence of Michael Peter's design and Tencara and Victory hulls dominate, with Sterling, Lamborghini, Seatek and more recently, Mercury sharing the power battle.

The race was to be run around the entire coast of Ireland, beginning in Cork and ending in Dublin with multiple stops en route.

P1 SuperStock is approved by the sport's governing body, the Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM), as an international class of powerboat racing.

[8] Initially sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper, its success encouraged several countries in Europe and the Middle East to follow suit.

[9] In order to qualify as a championship heat, the race format was therefore changed and instead of finishing at Tor-quay, the fleet returned to Cowes, a pattern that remains to this day.

[citation needed] The most outstanding feature of this marathon race was undoubtedly the freak weather, it was called by most participants, for the first 700 miles to Oban the conditions were as near perfect as they could be, and the fog on the Inverness-Dundee run, and the rough seas of the Dundee-Whitby leg were greeted almost with glee.

Avenger Too, crewed by Timo Mäkinen, Pascoe Watson and Brian Hendicott, the Round Britain race was a success story from start to finish.

Their final victory, in a total time of just over 39 hours, represented an average speed, sustained over 1,381 nautical miles of racing, of 37.1 knots.

With famous racers such as Fabio Buzzi, Lady Arran, Colin Gervase-Brazier, Peter Armstrong, Ted Toleman and Renato DelaValle and many others the fleet set off on 14 July 1984, once again from Portsmouth on its 1,400 journey around the British Isles.

British hopes lay in the hands of Double Two Shirts, a 40 ft (12.1 m) Shead-designed, Planatec-built racer with Sabre Diesel power, lying two hours back.

Over a distance of 157 miles White Iveco averaged 69 knots, though Buzzi dismissed this with a typical Italian shrug saying, "In Italy this is just a cruising boat."

Significantly, Motorboats and Yachting commented that the number of retirements demonstrated that though undoubtedly fast, some Class I craft had proved themselves to be unsafe in anything other than calm waters.

After a period of 24 years another ex-powerboat racer and businessman now retired, Mike Lloyd, made the decision in 2006 that this great race should be brought back to life.

The leg to Plymouth was won by a British crew Silverline (owned and driven by offshore racer Drew Langdon with the Norwegians "Lionhead" second and the surprise of the day the Greek boat Blue FPT third.

We can only hope that someone will pick up the mantle left by the only man alive to have organised one of these huge events, Mike Lloyd, and attempt another re-run of this great race sometime in the future.