The Isle of Wight portion of the Venture Cup Prologue - 11.Jun.13

Venture Cup Prologue powerboats buzz south of Isle of Wight

The deep growl of a seriously-powered engine rumbled into earshot this morning in Ventnor, causing some confusion at OnTheWight towers – because despite the noise, there was nothing to be seen.

After looking out of the window at the sea (well as much as you could see through the fog), a P1-style powerboat eventually came into view pounding over the waves, heading West.

A word to the wise
Given the conditions and the speed of the thing, we wondered out loud (on Twitter and Facebook) what was going on.

A bit of searching later and some back and forth with Simon of Wave105, the answer materialised.

Venture Cup Prologue
The Venture Cup Prologue was underway. Effectively a ‘warm-up’ few days for the main race – 2,500 miles over two weeks – that bills itself as “The world’s longest, toughest & most prestigious powerboat race”.

Today’s leg, the final, left from Guernsey, raced up to the Nab Tower, took a left, hooked around the south of the Isle of Wight, bearing left at the Needles, crossing the finishing line just off Bournemouth Pier.

Today’s leg
Venture Cup Prologue last leg

Power + Speed
Some of these beasts are equipped with engines that output 1,400+BHP and averaged over 50 Knots over the course.

They’re currently at rest in Poole harbour and we suspect, probably having a pit of a party.

Live map
You can have a look at the route they took on the live tracking page of their site.

Image: Screengrabs from Venture Cup Prologue live