News
News and Updates
Gone but never forgotten
Over the last few months we have lost four members of our powerboat family.
It is with sadness we anounce the passing of
Andy Elliott
Derek Lee
Brian Grimshaw
and
Wilf Gregory
2020 Bristol Event Cancelled
Due to Covid-19 our plans for 2020 were put on hold.
The possibility of a Bristol event happening in 2021
will be dependant on the lifting of restrictions.
Watch this space or check out the magazine for updates.
Latest Acquisition
In the last few weeks we acquired a 1950s Wilson hydroplane, which is in amazing condition as it has been stored in the dry ever since it finished its racing life. Still fitted with its original steering wheel and throttle control.
We believe it was previously owned and possibly raced by Wing Commander Ken Wallis, who is famous for his work with gyrocopters (he flew the gyrocopter in the 1967 James Bond film, 'You Only Live Twice'). Wallis sadly passed away on September 1st 2013, aged 97.
A few year's ago we were given a Burgess hull by Sean Newstead, who raced it for a while at Oulton Broad. This Burgess is the boat that John Hill won the 1990 Formula 1 World Championships in.
With the support of Alex de Boom, whose company, Arie de Boom, orginally sponsored the boat, we were 
able to have her fully restored back to how she would have been in 1990.
able to have her fully restored back to how she would have been in 1990. She needed a new right hand deck, which when removed showed damage from a previous crash that meant there was some internal repairs to undertake. We had the deformable pickles removed and the original pickles rebuilt. This work was undertaken by Nigel Ringwood.
The next part of the renovation involved removing all the black paint that had been applied top and bottom, which when removed revealed some areas at the back of the tunnel that needed attention. The whole hull was then stripped back before varnishing the underside; priming, sanding, priming again, sanding and then adding the final top coat. this was undertaken by Nigel Hall.
The final process was to replicate the original livery. John Hill, using his signwriting skills did the original livery by hand but here we had to turn to modern technology and used vinyl cutting. Before we could create the vinyls we had to produce Vectors for each piece of livery and we thank Mick Richardson for creating the Vectors. It was then left to Tony Bayliss to cut and apply the vinyl.
Below you can see the process of getting her back into shape.
