Offshore Superboat Championships: Round 3

Round three of the Offshore Superboat Championship was staged at Townsville over the weekend of July 3 to 4, with Gold Coast-based boat Maritimo

(Peter McGrath and Ross Willaton) triumphing on the Sunday.

The two-race format was once again in effect, which seemed to please race crews and the public alike. Sadly absent from the Sunday’s proceedings was The Good Guys (Chris and Brendan Frier) — the brothers had rolled their Supercat in the Saturday’s pole position shootout, and though unharmed, were relegated to the sidelines for the rest of the round.

The first Class 1 race saw Maritimo involved in a close tussle with international entry Qatar 96 (Sheikh Hassan Al-Thani and Steve Curtis), until the latter dropped out, leaving Maritimo to take the win ahead of Trojan Steel (Colin Craven and Simon Isherwood) and ACME Racing (Chris and Andrew Searle). Race two saw Qatar’s fortunes turn, the Victory-built craft leading from start to finish with Maritimo home second — Trojan Steel and ACME Racing failed to finish.

Two close races in Supercat 1025hp class saw Global Racing take the win ahead of Team 3 (Steve Nugent and Travis Thompson) and Mazlin Electrical (Scott Kittle and Carl Mazlin), while Saracen (Nigel Craven and Anthony Defina) dominated Supercat 600 — neither SUV Dodge Ram (Brett Luhrmann and Cameron Davis) nor Kwozzy 2 (Jim Harris and Adam Nicolls) managed to finish either race.

That left the Supercat 400hp class, where FGI Offshore Racing (Mick Walker and Gary Smith) triumphed over Berwicks HF Marine (Graham Fraser and Ian Harris) in race one. The positions reversed for race two, where Hogs Breath Offshore Racing (Paul Gibbs and Paul Fowlds) came home in third.

Round four of the Offshore Superboat Championship now moves to Redcliffe, Qld, for the weekend of September 18 to 19. Visit www.superboat.com.au for more information.