Maritimo full of confidence

Maritimo’s Offshore Racing Team is confident is has ‘ironed out a few of the bugs’ with its new million-dollar-plus offshore race boat after winning the recent Offshore Superboat Championship event at Bowen and again last weekend in Townsville.

Maritimo is competing in two boats in the national Superboat Championship races and is using the series as a warm-up for the world championships in Europe next year.

In the last two races, Maritimo Australia was crewed by Ross Willaton and Travis Thompson and the second boat, Maritimo Hunter Storage, was raced by Darren Nicholson and Peter McGrath.

In Bowen, the main Maritimo entry won pole position and won the first race outright with Maritimo Hunter Storage coming second. In the second race Maritimo Hunter Storage was in a commanding position when it had problems with a propeller blade.

In Townsville last weekend, Maritimo Australia won the Supercat Extreme event with Maritimo Hunter Storage coming second.

Maritimo’s founder, Bill Barry-Cotter, who plays a key role in the operation of the Offshore Racing team, said the recent performance of the two boats augured well for Europe.

He said the Australian championships are run on a weight for horsepower basis and Maritimo has both bases covered.

"Basically the rules stipulate that the weight per horsepower ratio has to be 2.848 kilograms per one horsepower," he said. "In Maritimo Hunter Storage  we are running 868 horsepower motors with a total weight of 4950 kilograms and in the new boat we are running 790 horsepower motors with a boat weight of 4500 kilograms.

"In effect we have all bases covered because the advantage of less horsepower is that you need and burn less fuel and have a better power to weight ratio at the start with 800 litres of fuel in the 868 horsepower boat and 500 litres in the 790 horsepower boat.

"The handling issues in the new boat have been fixed, but we still have some acceleration issues we are working on."

Mr Barry-Cotter said Maritimo would be very competitive in the European series next year.

He said Maritimo was building Darren Nicholson a new boat to race in Europe.

The Maritimo and Hunter Storage teams have the advantage of having some of the most sophisticated engine analysis equipment in Australia at their disposal with the race shop’s $350,000 dyno one of the best in the country.

Mr Barry-Cotter said the machine was state of the art and was used by both motorsport teams and ski boat race teams.

"We can take a diagnostic readout of any race we have competed in and basically replay the whole event monitoring what the motors were doing right through the race," he said.

"The precision art in power-to-weight ratio racing is that you cannot go above the permitted horsepower limit for more than two seconds in the whole event so it is crucial to get as close to the allowable limit and maintain it without going over. We can usually get to within two horsepower of the maximum and maintain it.

"Between us and Maritimo Hunter Storage we will give the Superboat Championships a good shake again this year."

The national series would wind up in Hervey Bay in November.