The Royal Navy’s antics in the Gulf earlier this year may have finally put
the kybosh on the idea of Britain as a glorious seafaring nation, but in one
ocean-going field Britannia is still out in front.
Today the UK hosts the fourth race of the P1 powerboating world championship,
in which a British team is leading the field. More than 70,000 spectators
are expected to descend on Cowes on the Isle of Wight this afternoon for the
Powerboat P1 British Grand Prix.
The P1 championship was launched five years ago in an attempt to make
powerboating more spectator friendly – with the action closer to shore – and
its organisers hoped it would become the marine equivalent of Formula One.
Like motor sport, it attracts its share of millionaire (and billionaire)
racers drawn as much by the glamour of the off-course action and the pulling
power of a 2000bhp water-borne rocket as by the taste of victory. One
contestant compares the series to F1 in the 1970s – “More James Hunt than
Michael Schumacher”.
Cowes is the highlight of the six-grands-prix season that began in Valletta,
Malta, in May and concludes in Portimao, Portugal, on September 30. Today’s
circuit race covers just over four miles off the Isle of Wight coast, with
spectator stands offering close-up views of the action as the 17 teams tear
along Gurnard Bay at speeds that can exceed 100mph, leaping over the waves
and dodging each other as well as the choppy backwash from the ferries
chugging into Cowes.
Top-class boats pack more than 1000bhp – sometimes double – and riding one is
a sensation comparable to driving a car at 200mph over constantly shifting
potholes.
“You’re doing 112mph over an ever changing surface,” says James Sheppard, 40,
a businessman from Surrey, who drives the King of Shaves boat for the
Fountain Worldwide team (below) and enters today’s race as championship
leader.
“When the boats lift up then crash back onto the water it feels like hitting a
brick wall, time and time again,” he says. “They weigh 4.5 tons and you have
no brakes. If you come into a corner and someone does something silly in
front of you, you can’t stop.
“And when you’ve got the spray from a boat in front hitting your screen it’s
like being blasted with a giant fire hose. Visibility isn’t good.”
Like F1, it can all go spectacularly wrong. Sergio Carpentieri, an Italian P1
driver, was killed in an accident at the German Grand Prix in Travemünde
earlier this year.
Last year Sheppard was lucky to survive a 140mph rollover in his £1.1m vessel
while competing in the rival Class 1 race series at Plymouth.
“If the boat capsizes, all you can do is attach your breathing tube [there are
tanks of compressed air at the front of the cockpit], stay in your harness
and wait for the whole washing machine effect to come to a halt,” he says.
“It’ll be pitch black, but as long as you’re in your harness you at least
know where everything is and you can figure out what to do.”
The P1 boats compete in two classes – Evolution and SuperSport – and will
complete 13 and 12 laps at Cowes respectively over the course of about 1hr
20min, starting at 3pm. Evolution class boats – which include King of Shaves
and its closest rival, Austria’s Wettpunkt.com – are larger and more
powerful than the SuperSport vessels and are custom built, whereas
SuperSport competitors must use standard production models.
The SuperSport class, where top speeds are usually between 80 and 90mph, is
more accessible for privateers such as Jackie Hunt, 37, another British
driver, who won the championship in 2006 despite only taking up powerboating
about eight years ago. She is currently sitting in third place with Mike
Shelton, her husband and co-pilot, in Extremeboat.
While a SuperSport team can exist on a budget of about £100,000 (although most
use double or triple that figure), it can take £3m to build and run an
Evolution class vessel for a season including maintaining a crew of two or
three – driver, navigator/throttleman – and a technical team of as many as
20.
Some teams even track their boat’s progress and offer tactical advice from
helicopters with a bird’s-eye view of the action, although not during
circuit racing. Each grand prix has two elements, an “endurance” leg – which
took place at Cowes on Friday – followed by the circuit race, which is the
main draw for spectators.
The championship also offers some of the off-circuit high jinks lost in
modern, ultra-professional F1. “It has all the glamour associated with F1
but it is much more approachable and doable for the weekend warrior,” says
Miles Jennings, the British driver for the Wettpunkt.com team, owned by
Hannes Bohinc, an Austrian billionaire bookmaker.
“It’s a bit like F1 back in the Seventies. You can still set up a team and
rise to the top pretty quickly, and it’s still as much about the glamour as
the racing,” he says. “The people involved are usually wealthy
industrialists or businessmen, it’s a lifestyle thing. I don’t have a
supermodel on each arm right at this very moment, but it has been known.”
Jennings, 46, who won the P1 championship in 2005, drives a black Lamborghini
Gallardo, owns several companies based in and around Exeter, and took up
powerboating when he was 16, buying his first race boat before he could even
drive himself to competitions.
“My father raced Norton motorbikes in the Sixties and I suppose I got my love
for speed from him,” he says. “We had Johnny Herbert [the former F1 driver]
in the boat last week and he was blown away by how fast it is.”
Not quite as fast as the King of Shaves, though, judging by recent form.
Driving the slightly bigger and heavier vessel, Jennings will be hoping for
rough seas, which favour weight and power over speed and manoeuvrability.
“It’s going to be tough,” he admits. “A real boat breaker,” agrees his arch
rival Sheppard. “But we’re very conscious of flying the flag for Britain and
we’ll be going all out for a podium finish.”
GET WET, IT’S FREE
With more than 1,000 boats the Southampton Boat Show is the biggest
exhibition of its kind in Britain. InGear has 12 pairs of tickets to give
away for the event, which runs from September 14-23. Winners will be chosen
at random and the first name selected will also win a tour and lunch for two
on Queen Mary 2, courtesy of Cunard. To enter, e-mail your details including
a daytime telephone number to ingear@sunday-times.co.uk
by Sunday September 2.
The best of British
EVOLUTION CLASS
Position 1st
Team Fountain Worldwide Boat King of Shaves Driver James
Sheppard Throttleman Craig Wilson
Sheppard, 40, started powerboating aged 12. When not racing boats, he is
managing director of Millers Foods and a commercial property developer, and
is a test driver for Porsche Cup cars. Wilson, 27, used to play basketball
for Switzerland, having moved there from Britain aged nine. He is now
president of Florida-based Fountain Worldwide, the distributor for Fountain
Powerboats
SUPERSPORT CLASS
Position 2nd
Team Bullet Racing Boat Buzzi Bullet III Driver Drew
Langdon Throttleman Jan Falkowski
Langdon, 47, is a commercial property developer who has powerboated since he
was eight. Falkowski, 46, is a London psychiatrist, and holds the
prestigious Blue Ribbon cross-Atlantic record. The pair were runners-up in
the 2004 and 2005 SuperSport class and return to P1 having contested a
couple of 2006 grands prix
Position 3rd Team Extremeboat Boat Extremeboat Driver
Jackie Hunt Throttleman Mike Shelton
Hunt, 37, works in sales and is the only female driver in the championship.
She and her husband Shelton won last year’s P1 championship in the
SuperSport class. Having won the 2007 Malta Grand Prix, Hunt dropped to
seventh in the last race in Germany
Position 5th Team VoomVoom.com Boat VoomVoom.com Driver
Vahid Ganjavian Throttleman Charlie Williams-Hawkes
Azerbaijan-born, English-educated Ganjavian, 44, started powerboat racing
while a City broker. Last year he set up VoomVoom.com, which sells and
maintains power boats in Hampshire. This is his first full P1 season (he
took part in three races in 2006) with longtime racer Williams-Hawkes, whose
father Edward is also competing in P1 in the Evolution class with
Wettpunkt.com
Position 7th Team Team Sunseeker Boat Sunseeker
Challenger Driver Andy Wilby Throttleman Gavin Brown
Owned by Poole-based Sunseeker, this was the first maker-backed team to
compete in P1, achieving third place at the British Grand Prix last year.
Now competing in its first full season, the team includes driver Wilby, a
motor sport technician, and his father Mel as team manager
FACT FILE
Hull made of polyester resin, which is strong and light A carbon fibre and
Kevlar safety cell surrounds the cockpit to protect the driver and
throttleman in a collision Tanks of compressed air provide 30 minutes of
breathing time if the boat capsizes Seats have shock absorbers to lessen
impact when the boat slams down onto the water Driver and throttleman wear
fireproof race suits under buoyancy suits as well as helmets over fireproof
balaclavas Windscreen is made from inch-thick polycarbonate, similar to that
used in an F16 fighter plane
