Howe To Race Super V In Key West

Within moments of a social media reel created by the producers of the hugely popular How2Live YouTube channel video series going live today, my phone blew up. OK, I only wish it would blow up sometimes—especially on Sundays. But within seconds of the video going live I received three messages, two from speedonthewater.com team-members and one from an advertiser—that included the link to the reel announcing Michael Howe’s entry into the Super V ranks.

The fun starts early next month with the Race World Offshore Key West World Championships.

Howe and Lockyer co-own the rare 40-footer, which make its U.S. debut in the Super V ranks next month.

Full confession? The news came as no surprise. A week ago, United Kingdom-based Rob Lockyer, who co-owns the team’s 2007 model-year 40-foot Outerlimits V-bottom dubbed DSK for one of Lockyer’s businesses with Howe, mentioned it to me. What goes off the record stays off the record in my book, so that is where it remained.

Until now.

Howe and Lockyer purchased the boat from an offshore endurance racing team in the U.K.. It has never seen action on a domestic racecourse. Howe will throttle. Timothy Linden, who manages Patriot Marine in Connecticut, another Lockyer-owned business, will drive.

Howe’s wife, Sarah, who is the leading lady in the Howe-2-Live series, will remain on the sidelines and support the team in any way she can. As she’s proven in the videos, Sarah Howe has no fear of heavy lifting.

“I need someone in the family to be responsible,” her husband said, then laughed.

The 40-footer’s existing Mercury Racing 525 engines have been replaced with Super V-class-spec, 572-cubic-inch V-8 powerplants from Sterling Engines of Milford, Mich., and the boat has been upgraded with all-new electronics. The canopied V-bottom rides on what Howe described as a “very aggressive” five-step bottom.

“It can be a lot to drive, but it’s a raceboat,” said Howe, who ran the boat for the first time earlier this week in Connecticut. “This thing is fast, man, it’s fast. It accelerates hard.

(From left) Kirk Britto, DSK team driver Tim Linden, Rob Lockyer and Alex Pratt were the 2025 Cowes-Torquay-Cowes champions

“But again, it is a lot to handle because the bottom is so aggressive,” he added. “And it’s one of the smallest boats in the Super V class. We’re excited to run it.”

Offshore raceboats, even of the V-bottom kind, are not known for their expansive cockpits and the Outerlimits is no exception. Howe and Linden both stand 6’4” tall and weigh in at a svelte 250 to 260 pounds. That meant the team, “captained” Linden, had to create coveted cockpit space by lowering the boat’s sole 3 to 4 inches.

“The boat already had a lowered CG, but we cut the floor out it and lowered the cockpit,” Howe explained. “Now it fits us.

The stars of the Howe2Live YouTube channel, Sarah and Michael Howe won’t share the cockpit of the new raceboat.

“Two days ago when we took it out for the first time, it blew our socks off,” he continued. “I would say that we achieved more than 90 percent of our speed in the first 30 seconds. And she just wanted to claw for more. Amazing man, just amazing.”

Howe described the team’s Key West competition goals as “don’t hurt yourself, finish each race and take it from there.” What happens with the DSK team after Key West has not been determined.

And that’s enough for now, especially as the team will compete in the largest Super V fleet in recent history with five boats registered and two more reportedly committed.

“We are the underdogs in this one, we are the greenhorns, the new guys,” Howe emphasized. “So we’ll see how it goes. Who knows where we’ll end up? But at the end of the day, we love racing and we love competition. We love the culture of offshore racing, and we loved the people who surround themselves with it. So racing always will be in our blood.

“Will we be in every race next year?” he added, then chuckled again. “Who knows? Let’s see how Key West goes. All I know for sure is we can’t wait.”