In one of my previous posts I listed top of the fastest sailing boats in the world - the post included such boats as l’Hydroptere, Vestas SailRocket, Groupama 3 and Sodeb’O. I noticed that people have been finding my post not only when they were looking for the fastest sailing boat in the world but also when they were looking for the fastest boat in the world in general. So I got interested myself - what are those of the fastest boats in the world and how much do they speed differ from the sailing boats. The most amazing thing here is that water speed record has not been broken in over 30 years! Many men have tried to do it and it has become a lethal challenge for bunch of them.
A record for the fastest man driven speed boat was set back on the October8, 1978 when Ken Warby piloting “The Spirit of Australia” set the world water speed record of 317.6 mph (511 km/h) on the Tumut River near the Blowering Dam in Australia.
Warby designed and built Spirit of Australia himself, using balsa wood, fiberglass, and Westinghouse J34 jet engine. The engine was developed by the Westinghouse Electric Company in the late 40′s and used for jet fighters and other aircraft. The Spirit of Australia is displayed permanently at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour, Sydney, New South Wales.
Below you can view a video of Ken Warby setting the world water speed record.
Ken Warby and the fastest boat in the world - Spirit of Australia
Despite the high fatality rate there were couple of projects that have been planning to break the water speed record of Ken Warby but for now they seem to be dead or frozen as do they outdated websites (see The British Quicksilver and The American Challenge project).
Recently in year 2010 the new speed boat called Phenomenon was unveiled at the Miami International Boat Show boasting the title of World’s Fastest Speedboat. The 12,000 hp beast can do over 250 mph thanks to four T-55-L-7C Lycoming turbine engines kicking out 3,000 hp each. Engineers from NASA and Boeing and former US military naval architects collaborated on the 56-ft. craft with the aim of breaking the world’s propeller speedboat record, spending millions of dollars in the process. The lightweight craft is made of carbon fiber and fiberglass over airex foam cores. The cockpit is a separate high-strength composite capsule with extensive all-carbon fiber window mullions and frames, fitted with custom carbon fiber NASCAR seats. Phenomenon belongs to Al Copeland, Jr., owner of the Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits chain. No speed records for this boat are recorded though.
More information about the Phenomenon you can view on its own rather ugly and outdated website - http://www.copelandsphenomenon.com/
No Comments