Isle of Wight News on Ventnor Blog

RIBEX returns to Cowes this May for its 11th year and announce today that its official charity for the boat show will be the Independent Lifeboats of Great Britain.

This Suzuki are sponsoring the event at Cowes Yacht Haven which this year will also feature an open air concert on the Saturday night.

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World famous sailer, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, has announced that he’ll be swapping his sailing boat for a powerboat at the end of the month to take part in the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes on 29th August.

He’ll be racing as Team Scorpion along with Shelley Jory as the driver, who suggested the idea to him just two weeks ago.

The 70 year old is always keen to take on a challenge and this race certainly will be, it’s the longest and toughest one-day endurance powerboat race in the world.

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The Cowes-Torquay-Cowes powerboat race which was due to be resurrected last year, but cancelled due to low attendance, has been confirmed to be taking place this year summer.

It is part of a four race event which kicks off in May in Poole and the Cowes – Torquay – Cowes race will take place over the weekend of 28th 29th & 30th August.

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Nigel Howell, founder of White Air, has exclusively told VentnorBlog that White Air, the extreme sports festival, is to leave the Isle of Wight next year and move to Brighton.

This news is all the sadder due to White Air having just delivered such a great festival last weekend, enjoyed by 10,000 people.

It’s clear speaking to Nigel that the IW Council could have done more in supporting the event.

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Hybrid Marine, a company based at the IW Enterprise Hub in Newport are, we hear from the Economic Partnership, launching a new product at the Southampton Boat Show.

We’re no expert about these things, so the prospect of a new diesel-electric hybrid marine propulsion system for leisure craft is not something that excites us immensely, but seeing new innovation coming out from the Island is something we’re always happy to celebrate.

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The Square to Square Charity Cycle Challenge 2008 starts tomorrow.

The challenge will see a team of Isle of Wight Firefighters cycling 1,400 miles each over 14 days from St Thomas’ Square, Newport, Isle of Wight, Great Britain to St Peter’s Square, Vatican, Italy.

The Square to Square Charity Cycle Challenge 2008 Appeal is raising money for the diagnosis, treatment and care of Isle of Wight cancer and leukaemia patients.

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It was with great dismay last year that we learnt the P1 Powerboat Tournament would not take place at Cowes this year, but at least the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes race was due to be resurrected after a three year break.

Sadly today, Powerboat P1, have announced that due to inadequate number of entries, the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes will not go ahead this year.

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Tickets are now on sale for The White Air Festival as it celebrates its 12th year in style with more sports, more public interaction and more music art and parties than ever before!

A whole host of sports events will make up this extreme festival from Thundercat European Championships, Windsurfing UK Freestyle Championships, Kitesurfing, Surf, SUP, Skate Ramps and street with Suso, BMX on the ramps, Parkour, European Mountain Board Freestyle on the radical RAF White Air ramps, FMX shows its face for the first time, Sailing, Kayak, Mountain Bike freestyle and trials, Flatland BMX, Turfdogs land Windsurfing, Jet Ski, Frisbee, Inline, Land Yacht, Jet Ski, Digital dj mixing, Hard Grafft, and loads more.
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With news of the P1 Grand Prix of the Seas moving elsewhere this year, it reminded us that we still had one more podcast from last year’s event to publish.

Whilst getting very excited over the large engines being revved in the harbour, Simon caught up with Martin Lai who was part of the Sun Llik team and managed to pick up second place in the Round the Island Race in the Supersport class.

Martin has been racing in the national championships for five years, with 2007 being his second world championships.

As you can imagine, being sponsored by a beer company has it’s advantages when it comes to the after parties!

We look forward to seeing Martin again when we hope he returns for the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes race in August

Click on the arrow to listen to the podcast

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It’s not all bad news though, because despite the Grand Prix going elsewhere, it’s just been confirmed at the London Boat Show that the most famous endurance race in powerboating, the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes (CTC), will be returning to the Island this year.

The race will take place over the August Bank Holiday weekend and as with the previous P1 Championships, will attract worldwide interest to the Island.
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Shock news has just arrived in our inbox that Cowes will not be hosting the Powerboat P1 Grand Prix this year.

It’s a great shame for Cowes and the Island as a whole, because events like this attract worldwide attention to the Island but it appears that there were many better alternative offers on the table and the management team had no choice but to take the Grand Prix of the Seas elsewhere.
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We notice on the Motor Boat and Yachting website, that this weekend sees a round the Island powerboat race.

The purpose of the race is to raise cash for a young lad who was seriously injured two years ago in a powerboating accident in Weymouth.

Ben Ridd’s boat collided with another during a race in Weymouth and resulted in him being in a coma for three and a half weeks. He’s made an amazing recovery, despite battling with partial paralysis and speech problems.
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You may remember an interview we did with Nigel Hook after the first day of racing at the Powerboat P1 in Cowes.

You’ll tell from listening to this brief chat that Nigel was really rather pleased – and why not after the team had won both of the Evolution Class races in the British Grand Prix of the Seas, at the home of powerboat racing, Cowes?

He’d just got off the podium after having received the Beaverbrook Trophy from the current Lord Beaverbrook himself.

Not to mention a champagne-soaking.

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After winning both of the races of the British Grand Prix of the Sea in their SuperSports class, on their home water, Jackie Hunt and Mike Sheldon were in a buoyant mood.

We stood on a pontoon as the sun started to drop in the sky, just out of earshot of the celebrations and chatted about their success in their boat, that boasts twin V8 engines, giving 1050 HP at the control of their throttle in the boat that they call ExtremeBoat.com.

Among other things, I thought it would be interesting to know what, in such a male-dominated world such as P1, the reaction of the other male-only teams had been, when they found themselves losing to a team with a woman in it.

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There’s load more details about them on their site, ExtremeBoat.com

Taking place on the same course at the same time and finishing just 15 minutes ago was the Supersport class.

Extremeboat took first, followed by

Sun Lik Beer
Roscioli Hotels Roma
Buzzi Bullet III
VoomVoom.com
Sunseeker Challenger
Chaudron II

It was an exhilarating race of 15 laps, with King of Shaves in the lead for the first few laps, but the clear champion, taking the lead after just five laps and then maintaining the lead was Lucas Oil’s Outerlimits with Mike Fiore and Joe Sgro.

Second: King of Shaves
Third: OSG
Fourth: Wettpunkt
Fifth: Searex
Sixth: Kiton

If you’re a reader of this week’s County Press, the odds are that you’ve got no idea that the Powerboat P1 is taking place in Cowes this weekend.

The CP gave it a couple of para at the very back of the Weekender supplement. A strong contrast to the Skandia sailing event of a few weeks back, which had its own separate supplement!

Isn’t the CP supposed to be the newspaper for the Island? By not making more of important Island events like this, they’re letting down lots of people – the P1 people who go to a huge effort to bring the P1 to Cowes; the population of Cowes, by not making the most of having the event in town; and the residents of the whole Island. By not telling them it’s on, the CP is effectively robbing them of an enjoyable weekend out – one that doesn’t cost anything to spend time at as well.
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The Powerboat P1 British Grand Prix of the Sea comes to a close today with the 8th round of the World Championship taking place at Cowes this afternoon.

You’ve still got time to catch the Thundercats and Jet Skis racing off Egypt Point, but it will be the final rally at 3pm that will be unmissable.

According to The Times, it is pipped to attract some 70,000 spectators (so it might be wise to take the bus if you’re thinking of going).
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There’s very little that can quite prepare you for the sound of a powerboat P1 engine firing up and revving when you’re standing alongside.

There’s something almost visceral about it. Your internal organs rearrange themselves in changing patterns trying it fit around the throbs as the V10 engine pumps fuel into itself, in an attempt to stay up with the spark plugs which are exploding it.

It’s loud. Very loud.

Such was the experience on the pits/pontoons. By the miracle of technology you can share the experience by listening to the recordings we made.

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You might’ve heard the powerboats roaring past yesterday (and if you didn’t you can here) as they took part in the Round The Island Endurance Race.

Whilst up in Cowes at the Powerboat P1 event this afternoon, we were lucky enough to grab some time with Nigel Hook (podcast below), he being the throttleman for Outerlimits, Evolution class P1, that gurt big red one was way out in front as it passed Ventnor.

He went on to win to race and along with fellow pilot Joe Sgro, they managed to set the lap speed record, reaching 97 mph.

That’s quite some speed, I’m sure you’ll agree, and gave them an average speed for the entire race of 86 mph.
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An action packed event on at Powerboat P1 Cowes today. Loads of variety – JetSki and RIB endurance races. A P1 testing session and a couple of races in the Honda 4 Stroke Series.
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Some of the P1 Powerboats run on diesel and others go for petrol.

The current championship leader has two 11.3ltr turbo-charged diesel engines providing an impressive 1760 hp and one of the challengers, King of Shaves, plums for petrol, with two 8.3ltr V10 giving 1250 hp.
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Yes – you heard it … some of the Powerboat P1 just went past us in Ventnor (complete with helicopters) only 25 minutes after they set off from Cowes! Makes the sailing Round the Island look like snails, doesn’t it?

If you didn’t hear it, we got a couple of recordings of it, for your pleasure.

First the Evolution class

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Next the SuperSport class

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You’ll here one of the later boats had some problems with their engine misfiring.

Explanation of the P1 classes

Powerboat P1 has two classes of boats that take part, both of them as cool as you like.

Here’s the break down.
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As you may have seen yesterday, the Powerboat P1 has arrived in Cowes and will be featuring all things speedy on the water over this weekend.

The lineup for today is light compared with the other more varied ones on Saturday and Sunday – but looks good none the same.
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