Speedboat aka Virgin Money is an exciting boat,an engineering marvel, elegant, extreme, powerful, fragile. Not particularly useful as its purpose can only really be to set or break distance records. Yet she requires a great deal of attention.
Below she reminds me of Windward Passage the 72 foot 1968 design by Alan Gurney, a practical sensible layout. Both were ahead of their time. Once again, if only today’s materials had been available to Alan; who knows what he might have created. the thought process was similar; go fast.
There is a difference in that Passage was built on the beach, There were limits to what someone would spend for a yacht. From that comparison the owners of Passage got a lot of bang for their buck. She was durable, still sailing, looking better than ever. In today’s world she is heavy and under canvased. I expect she will still be sailing after Speedboat is only a memory.
That said, Speedboat will soon leave to make an attempt on the Trans-atlantic record for a monohull. I would love to be part of that. After all it will only be six days; hardly time to establish a rhythm.
