Powerboats thrill race drivers

Press, 30 August 1989, Page 34

Powerboats thrill race drivers

TIMOTHY COLLINGS

of Reuters

Few sports can be as exhilarating or as frightening as international offshore powerboat racing.

It is high-speed, spraysplashed motor sport on water. High-powered catamarans and monohulls backed by up to 800 horse power and capable of topping 190 km/h career across the sea to leave first-time participants with knuckles whitened, fists clenched, nerves stretched and hearts pounding. Often dismissed as just a rich man’s hobby, powerboat racing has developed in recent years into a potential rival to international motor sport as the favourite marketing arena for some of the most wealthy sport-spon-soring companies in the world.

In Italy this year a crowd of more than 100,000 people watched the Rome leg of the newly created world series for class one powerboats. Italian companies have

been impressed and the sight of a pack of these extraordinary vessels racing around their shores has led to hugely increased support for the sport.

Former class one world champion Steve Curtis, of Britain, has been one beneficiary. Italian backing has enabled him to become a professional powerboat racer and a leading symbol of the sport’s rapid growth.

“The Italians are mad on it,” he said. “They love it and it gets terrific coverage on television and radio and in the newspapers. It is growing fast there and also in France.

“The sport has changed a lot. It’s getting very competitive and very serious and it’s too tough now at the top for anyone who only wants to mess about or pose. It’s really very fast and very dangerous.” Curtis was speaking on the inland of Guernsey where he had been asked to help to demonstrate the

sport ahead of next month’s class three twolitre world championship.

Rounds of the class one and class two world series are also scheduled to take place during the championship between September 2 and 10. The class one world championship is being held in Atlantic City in October.

Curtis, a tall, grinning athlete with a wild mane of blond hair cheerfully acknowledges the mindbending dangers of his chosen sport but firmly believes its growth will continue to be rapid. “It has developed very quickly in the last few years and is now getting better organised on an international scale with sponsors and events and the regulations are being streamlined,” he said.

“It is really only a matter of time before the television side of it gets properly sorted out with

the development of the world series. Then the sport will take off.” Taking off is one of the first sensations of powerboat racing, as the boats crash against the swell and rise and dive in the waves.

Each boat carries two people — one on the throttle, who controls the speed and steering, and the other navigating. With the boat dipping violently and then jumping out of the water at high speed it is virtually impossible at times to do much more than hang on for survival, let alone keep a sure eye on important landmarks, passing traffic and a compass. Hand-waving is the only reliable form of communication between the two as they race across the waves, helmets often bumping uncontrollably on sharp turns around the corners of the racing course marked out by

buoys. Curtis’s success has led several other Britons and a host of local Guernsey enthusiasts to seek glory in this year’s powerboat week — but few expect to overcome the professional challenge from the Italians.

One who does, however, is Mark Sauvarin, a 33-year-old car sales director who has been racing powerboats for nine years.

His current model is a class three two-litre monohull in which he hopes to add a world title to his two Guernsey championships won already this year. “I love it,” he said. “I left Guernsey once to live in England but soon came back. The lure of the sea and the racing was too much. It gets in your blood and you can’t let go. “Once you have really experienced it, you know exactly what I mean. There is nothing else like it at all.”