Welcome to what promises to be an exciting year ahead for the building and testing of our jet hydroplane called Longbow as we work towards a credible British attempt upon the Outright World Water Speed Record and working with record breaker Mike Newman to raise awareness of his fantastic Speed of Sight Charity.
Following the success of being asked to undertake a radio interview during the previous month to discuss Longbow for the listeners of BBC Radio Lancashire and their twin station BBC Radio Cumbria, we were then asked to do a television interview with presenter Paul Crone for ITV which may be seen on the following link:
Then following that television interview we were asked to do a television interview with the BBC to discuss Longbow with presenter Phil Cunliffe and in case you missed that one it may be seen on the following link:
On the back of both of those television interviews, reporter Catherine Mackinlay of the Westmorland Gazette in Cumbria interviewed us for a feature in their newspaper which may be read upon the following link: https://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/24836949.lake-district-bluebird-engineer-builds-hydroplane-new-record/.
Then finally for this month, given that we have ongoing assistance to the Project from the engineering departments of both Blackpool & Fylde College and the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) at Preston, we had Iain Lynne and Daniel Martino come and interview us for the Blackpool Gazette and the Lancashire Evening Post and as part of that a double centre page photo of Longbow in my cottage workshop was published in the newspapers as shown below.
The result of all of the above has been a considerable raising of the profile for the venture beyond that of our website / monthly diary updates / social media posts; all of which is obviously good news for our sponsors and partners supporting the project.
To be fair I knew from the outset when we commenced the venture, that given projects like this to build the fastest boat in the world from just a humble cottage workshop, all on a shoestring budget do not come along very often, we had the right ingredients to capture the public’s interest. However equally I knew the build of Longbow had to be far enough along before allowing the television and press cameras into the workshop in order to show that this is very much a credible and exciting project that anybody can relate to. In that regard and looking at the flurry of interest in the venture as a result of being on television and in the press I think the timing of going more public with the build of Longbow has been just about right.
The upshot being it is readily apparent that we do not have to push the venture into the public arena, it is such a charismatic exciting project it just sold itself, the moment we decided to open the workshop doors to the television and press cameras. Indeed having dipped our toes into the glare of that spotlight the television and press want to keep on returning for the milestones of getting Longbow’s jet engines up and running, the craft complete and then on to testing.
With all the coming and goings of the press and television recently they obviously didn’t all turn up at the same time with the result that the workshop has had to be kept presentable for the cameras over a protracted period which whilst welcomed, to some degree it also hindered actually getting on with things.
However once the fuss settled back down UCLan Engineering Lecturer Gary Atkinson and my lifelong friend and electrical guru John Fielding both came along to assist towards getting a tune out of Longbow’s twin jet engines. Again it has been about doing things at the appropriate time and up until now there has been little point in sparking the engines up just for the sake of it.
You may appreciate that jet engines are rather thirsty beasts and running twin engines is double the trouble, so between them at a decent amount of throttle they will gulp around sixteen gallons, or if you like metric 73 litres of fuel per minute of runtime!
That being the case it is readily apparent that we are not going to win any prizes for fuel efficiency, nor is there any possibility of us entering Longbow in a 24 hour boat race. Indeed for the size of craft and accordingly the limit of weight of fuel she can carry, we will be lucky if Longbow is able to run at full throttle for as little as four minutes.
However this minimum amount of fuel tank load is more than ample for the current Water Speed Record of 317mph given the time taken for the boat to travel through the measured kilometre timing trap at that speed is only seven seconds.
For those that have been following our little venture you will be aware that the most difficult element of the project to date has been attempting to comply with the international governing body for powerboat racing, the Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM) rule in relation to the driver cockpit for boats attempting records exceeding 150mph as follows:
601 – CLASSES ELIGIBLE FOR RECORDS
601.01 World records may be attempted with the following craft: – All UIM series and classes; – American Powerboat Association classes; – Prototypes. For classes requiring a UIM or APBA registered cockpit and where the existing record exceeds 150 mph, additional requirements will apply.
These requirements are the following: The registration of the cockpit is required to satisfy the following:
The cockpit in the hull attempting the World Record shall be registered as described by the UIM registration process and the following. The cockpit builder shall be a registered UIM cockpit builder. As part of the registration process, the engineering analysis of the cockpit structure shall be submitted for review. This analysis will use the loads that would exist from the pressures resulting from the projected speed of the hull, entry angles, plus a safety factor and show that the integrity of the cockpit can be maintained. The analysis also shall include the structural analysis of the shell, windshield, roll cage (if applicable) and attachment to the hull.
As part of the certification process, laminate samples representing the design/build required by the registration process will be supplied (cockpit, shell and their junction) for bend testing at load deflection values consistent with the analytical applied crash loads. These samples will be tested in accordance with the process referenced in 509, UIM Cockpit Test Standard with appropriate loading and deflection requirements consistent with the structural analysis accomplished in 3) above. A World Record will not be approved without a cockpit registration which successfully satisfies these requirements.
Our design engineer Paul Martin has in his spare time spent a year upon this analysis referred to previously in order to try and comply with this UIM cockpit rule. As an illustration of Paul’s work upon the cockpit the following shows finite element analysis (FEA) which is a computer based method that predicts how a structure will react to the physical forces placed upon it and thereby aid the engineer in their design of Longbow’s cockpit.
We are now at a stage where Paul’s cockpit analysis is ready to be sent to the UIM and in relation to this we have been in discussion with Chris Loney, Chairman of the British Power Boat Association (BPBA) which took over the role of National Authority of powerboat racing in Great Britain from the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) in 2019. The BPBA are now the National representative of the UIM for the U.K.
In addition to discussions with Chris we have also had discussions with Bob Wartinger in the USA, with Bob chairing the UIM Safety / Medical Commission and Tom Stanley in Canada who chaired the UIM Safety Cockpit Committee. Tom has informed us on the 23rd January 2025 by email that he resigned from that position within the UIM on the 1st January 2025 and we are waiting to be informed by the UIM, as to who Tom’s replacement as chair of the UIM Safety Cockpit Committee will be.
Bob has requested that our cockpit for Longbow application to the UIM be made in association with the BPBA. However before that can happen our design engineer Paul Martin has requested that those involved be asked to sign a confidentiality non disclosure agreement (NDA) in order to protect his intellectual property rights concerning Longbow’s cockpit design and his analysis. This being so that it prevents our competitors having access to Paul’s design / analysis and protects his rights to the commercial value of that information.
Accordingly on the 20th January 2025 an NDA agreement was drafted by ourselves and sent via email to Tom, Bob and Chris for each of them to sign and return. Due to the American Power Boat Association (APBA) Congress which occupies a week being undertaken around this time, which with Tom and Bob attending, it delayed replies.
At present Tom has signed our NDA, having previously signed NDA’s in the past in his role as Chairman of the UIM Safety Cockpit Committee for other cockpit builders. Bob has written to us to say he appreciates the reasons for our request to have an NDA and we are currently awaiting signatures from Bob and Chris to that document. Likewise we should have a signature to an NDA from Tom’s replacement to the post of Chairman of the UIM Safety Cockpit Committee before we are able to submit Paul’s cockpit analysis to the UIM. We will update everyone upon the outcome of this NDA process with the UIM / BPBA in due course.
So that is where we are at with things at the moment. I hope that you have enjoyed our little update and please tune in at the end of next month to see where we are at with things then.