Cowes Offshore Endurance Race Expanding and Rebranding

For the past 62 years, the 210-mile Cowes-Torquay-Cowes offshore powerboat endurance race in the United Kingdom has been the toughest event of its kind. That won’t change for the 63rd annual event, which is set for August 24-25. But thanks to a marketing partnership between Powerboat P1 and the British Powerboat Racing Club, the name of the event already has.

Miles Jennings and Drew Langdon claimed top honors in their Outerlimits at the 2023 Cowes event. Photo courtesy/copyright Rob Clifford.

To go along with its new the Cowes Powerboat Festival handle, the Union Internationale Motonautique-sanctioned event also has a new presenting sponsor. As previously reported on speedonthewater.com, Experience Kissimmee, a tourism and marketing organization for the Central Florida city near Walt Disney World Resort and several other theme parks, has signed on for the role.

The sponsorship deal is a by-product of Powerboat P1’s relationship with the city, which hosts an annual Aqua-X personal watercraft event produced the United Kingdom-headquartered P1 group.

“With our worldwide head office in England and our international race headquarters in Florida less than 40 miles from Kissimmee, these twin partnerships are an exciting development for us,” said Azam Rangoonwala, the chief executive officer of Powerboat p1, in a press release this morning.

Added British Powerboat Racing Club vice-chairman Christian Toll, “We are delighted to be working with Powerboat P1 and Experience Kissimmee this year for the running of the longest, toughest and most famous offshore powerboat race in the world.”

Luminaries at the organizational level include Steve Curtis, the best-known offshore racer from the United Kingdom in the history of the sport. Curtis, who earned his first UIM Class 1 title when he was just 21 years old, grew up watching the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes event with his father, the late Clive Curtis, who founded famed Cougar Powerboats in England.

The senior Curtis was the then-named Cowes-Torquay-Cowes event winner in 1969.

“It’s always been a big part of my life,” Steve Curtis said in the release. “To have the race back under the UIM banner and partnering with P1 is a great move and exciting for powerboat racing in the U.K. Remember that this is the most famous marathon race in the world—it’s been running every year since 1961.”

Powerboats in an array of classes compete in the 62-year-old endurance race. Photo courtesy Cole McGowan

Though Curtis exited the Class 1 ranks at the end of the 2023 season when his team’s sponsor backed out of the sport, Alex Pratt, one of his former competitors and the current driver for the Class 1 dfYoung Good Boy Vodka team, of the United States will return to the event this year. Pratt ran it in 2023 with Good Boy Vodka team owner Rob Lockyer of the United Kingdom in Lockyer’s 52-foot Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats V-bottom.

August will be busy for the 29-year-old racer and Good Boy brand founder, as the third race of the 2024 UIM Class 1 World Championship promoted by Powerboat P1 happens earlier that month in Sheboygan, Wis. But Pratt remains eager to compete again in the grueling endurance contest.

“I’m very happy to see P1 partnering with the British Powerboat Racing Club,” Pratt said in the release. “They do an outstanding job and we as racers truly appreciate their role in the sport. I will be back to compete in the Good Boy Vodka boat and I’m hugely optimistic about our chances.”

Rob Lockyer’s 52-footer is seeing plenty of offshore endurance racing action in the United Kingdom this season.

As reported yesterday on speedonthewater.com, yet another North American, Michael Howe of Maine, plans to compete in the event. Howe is using next month’s 80-mile United Kingdom Offshore Racing Association Solent 80 endurance event off the Isle of Wight, to tune up for the Cowes Powerboat Festival in Lockyer’s 52-footer. He’ll be joined in the cockpit by fellow American Tim Linden.

Howe plans to team up with Linden again for Cowes Powerboat Festival, though in another raceboat that has yet to be publicly revealed.