Maritimo set to dominate offshore racing with new boat

Following on from its world championship offshore powerboat win late last year Gold Coast based luxury cruiser manufacturer Maritimo is putting the finishing touches to a new $1 million offshore powerboat that it hopes will take the national and international scene by storm.

Maritimo Offshore Racing spokesperson Kurt Davies said the new boat was like a Formula One race car on the water and featured refinements and design changes that the team hoped would give them the edge.

“Obviously we don’t want to divulge too much and alert the competition, but this boat is shorter that our world championships winning boat and we are confident will be capable of speeds of almost 150 miles per hour,” he said.

“We have also created a trim system that uses accumulators which store energy in canisters and can deliver pressures of around 3500 psi enabling us to go from minimum to maximum trim and back in one second.

“This should mean we can take the corners around the drums on any circuit at full speed and cut valuable seconds of our times.

“We have come up with some other refinements also that are extremely exciting, but we won’t be giving too much away at this stage.”

Davies said the new race boat had been about 18 months in the planning, design and construction stages, but only really active in the last five months.

He said its first hit out would be in the supercat series in Hervey Bay in November this year running two Mercury 525 hp engines.

In 2014 or 2015 the boat will compete internationally running a UIM engine rated at 850 horsepower.

“The boat has been designed by Michael Peters and overseen by Bill Barry-Cotter and the fine tuning and adjustments that have been made to increase its performance have come from Bill and until his recent passing Phil Frazer,” he said.

“When you race internationally it is the cost of getting everyone and everything to the race that is the majority of the spend, it is not the actual racing, so you have to ensure that the chances of breakdowns or failures are at an absolute minimum.

“With the new boat we will take it out in the next few weeks and do a mechanical shake down run to see if there are any adjustments we need to make or issues we need to fix.

“We won’t run it flat out for some time until we get everything right. “Hervey Bay will be its first real test and we can’t wait to get it into a race scenario and see what she can do. “It will be quick trust me.”

Long term Maritimo skipper Ross Willaton will control the throttles and Davies will be responsible for steering.

Maritimo sales and marketing manager, Greg Haines, said the expertise gained through the race team ultimately transferred over to the production boats.

“Steering systems in our production cruisers have already benefit from race team experience and engine positioning to lower the centre of gravity and minimise shaft angles also stems from the race shop,” he said.

“Bill’s skills and expertise and ability to think way ahead of the pack in the race environment with the set up of the boat and innovative features are all tested in race conditions and then ultimately make their way through to production”.

“This is Maritimo’s point of difference and something that none of our competition can lay claim to.”

“The lessons learnt with this new race boat will ultimately benefit our customers when they purchase a family cruiser.”