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Displaying items by tag: Allblack Racing

#Power - Irish powerboat racing team Allblack Racing claimed a new record on the Cork-Fastnet-Cork route this past summer.

The team’s Allblack SL44 powerboat set a time of two hours, six minutes and 47 seconds, with an average speed of 100.99 kmh in moderate to rough Atlantic conditions. The new record was ratified on August 29 by the Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM).

And the Irish Powerboat Club has since commissioned the FPT Allblack Trophy in the event the record is broken in the future.

For now, the trophy will be kept at the world’s oldest yacht club, the Royal Cork.

Allblack Racing’s record-breaking powerboat is powered by two FPT Industrial N67engines, which have a 6.7l displacement, four valves per cylinder and a maximum power of 560hp.

The Arklow-based team, headed by team driver John Ryan, already holds another world record for the Round Ireland route. More recently, they placed third at the Cowes Torquay Cowes 2017 UIM Marathon.

Last year the team set its sights on completing 11 world records in offshore speed and endurance by 2020.

Published in Powerboat Racing

#Powerboats - An Irish-based powerboat racing team is aiming for a full 11 offshore endurance and speed records over the next three years.

“It’s ambitious, but it’s do-able,” as Red Bull hears from John Ryan, team driver and throttle man with Allblack Racing and an Afloat.ie Sailor of the Month in his own right for Team Hibernia’s record-smashing Round Ireland powerboat run.

The 11 challenges of the Union International Motonautique (UIM) offshore ocean endurance long distance and speed records represent a step beyond for Ryan and his team mates.

Allblack Racing will take to Irish waters again for the Cork-Fastnet loop and the Round Britain and Ireland challenge, as well as the Round Anglesey run in the Irish Sea and Menai Strait.

The team will also tackle various taxing European routes such as an Italian speed trial from Naples to Capri, a blast between the Channel Islands and the Isle of Wight, and a straight 60-hour run from London to Monte Carlo.

That’s not to mention the epic routes from London to St Petersburg and Miami to New York that will complete the list — all raced on the team’s Swedish-designed Allblack SL44 that's been specially adapted for extreme racing.

Allblack from Konjow Films on Vimeo.

What’s more, there’s an opportunity for additional passengers to join Ryan and his team mates Philip Fitzgibbon and Ant Middleton — if you can bring funding for the demands of each record, you could get trained up and listed as co-driver for the fourth seat on the boat.

Red Bull has much more on the story HERE.

Published in Powerboat Racing

About Conor O'Brien, Irish Circumnavigator

In 1923-25, Conor O'Brien became the first amateur skipper to circle the world south of the Great Capes. O'Brien's boat Saoirse was reputedly the first small boat (42-foot, 13 metres long) to sail around the world since Joshua Slocum completed his voyage in the 'Spray' during 1895 to 1898. It is a journey that O' Brien documented in his book Across Three Oceans. O'Brien's voyage began and ended at the Port of Foynes, County Limerick, Ireland, where he lived.

Saoirse, under O'Brien's command and with three crew, was the first yacht to circumnavigate the world by way of the three great capes: Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin; and was the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world's ports and harbours. He ran down his easting in the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties between the years 1923 to 1925.

Up until O'Brien's circumnavigation, this route was the preserve of square-rigged grain ships taking part in the grain race from Australia to England via Cape Horn (also known as the clipper route).

At a Glance - Conor O'Brien's Circumnavigation 

In June 1923, Limerick man Conor O’Brien set off on his yacht, the Saoirse — named after the then newly created Irish Free State — on the two-year voyage from Dun Laoghaire Harbour that was to make him the first Irish amateur to sail around the world.

June 1923 - Saoirse’s arrival in Madeira after her maiden passage out from Dublin Bay

2nd December 1924 - Saoirse crossed the longitude of Cape Horn

June 20th 1925 - O’Brien’s return to Dun Laoghaire Harbour

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