‘Good Boy Vodka’ smashed the ‘Round the Island’ speed record in winning the opening race of the UKOPRA Offshore Powerboat Championship.
The previous record held by Chris Parsonage back in 2005 was with an average speed of 111mph, this was easily surpassed by British driver Rob Lockyer and the American Tim Linden on Saturday (18th May 2024) in a 47 ft Outerlimits Hull at a staggering average speed of 118.04mph in a time of 30 mins 18 secs.
20 powerboats took part
Twenty powerboats, from as far away as Sweden, were blessed with flat conditions from the off, which continued around the 360-degree 51.8 nm course.
Second place went to Falmouth based team ‘Double Trouble’ with also an incredible average speed of 104.27 mph in a Fountain monohull, third place also went to a Class 1 Fountain hull for debutant team ‘Laa Laa’ with Southampton based racing driver Dean Stoneman at the helm.
New offshore class
‘Oceanus Racing VT’ with Rich Truscott took line honours in the new offshore Class of 1L with an impressive 82.86 mph for a single engine boat, Class 2 went to the first Catamaran home for Poole based ‘Assagai’, a class where all the teams completed the race.
Class 3 debutants, and the youngest drivers to race in UKOPRA history from Bembridge, Isle of Wight were Baylan Blanks and Harry Pink who won in Class 3B with a Phantom 19G race hull called ‘Motorvated Racing’.
More impressive that they only managed to get the engine fixed an hour before scrutineering closed the night before the race.
A very competitive class
The very competitive Class 3 saw wins for Jason Field and Tom Trotman in ‘KMO Racing’ in a 3D Class Cougar hull, 3C went to ‘Lovely Jubbly Bubbly’ of Chris and Jamie Owens racing in the beautiful yellow Argo Catamaran for the first time.
Class 3E saw a battle between two Isle of Wight based teams which ended with the 51-year-old Bertram monohull ‘Thunderstreak’ driven by team principal Hugo Peel starting where they finished off in 2023 with a win. Peter Hall with ‘Mango Crazy’ yet again finished second in the classic Hunton hull.
On to Poole
The fleet then moved on to Poole on Sunday June 16th a classic offshore course around Poole Bay and the Needles.
All the race times and race calendar can be found at the official race website.
Watch the video
Regular News OnTheWight contributor, Paul Knights, managed to capture the boats as they passed Ventnor on Saturday. Watch his video on YouTube.
News shared by Steve on behalf of UKOPRA Offshore Powerboat Championship. Ed
