Weather and water conditions allowing, an American Power Boat Association/Offshore Powerboat Association-sanctioned kilo event is tentatively set for Feb. 2-4 on the Pamlico River in Washington, N.C., the longtime home of Fountain Powerboats. Fountain is backing the event in the hope of setting a new V-bottom kilo speed-record with a purpose-built canopied 40-foot V-bottom powered by a pair of turbocharged 1,900-hp Sterling Performance engines.
Built for speed, Fountain’s 40-foot kilo boat is ready for its Sterling Performance engines.
“We’re probably a little aggressive on the dates and the weather can change them, but we’re rigging the boat now,” said Joe Curran, the chief operating officer of Iconic Marine Group, the parent company of Fountain, Baja and Donzi. “We are still sorting through some of the details.”
The APBA is the domestic arm of the Union Internationale Motonautique, powerboat racing’s international sanctioning body, and the OPA is a regional powerboat racing club under the APBA umbrella. OPA and APBA officials will be on hand for the event.
At its most basic level, a kilometer record is the average speed achieved by a boat in two passes, one in each direction, over a measured kilometer course. The current V-bottom APBA-sanctioned-and-verified Extreme V-bottom-class kilometer record of 180.464 mph was set by an Outerlimits SV 43 in 2014. In 2004, a 42-foot Fountain set an APBA-sanction-and-verified Unlimited V-bottom record 171.880 mph, which at the time was the fastest kilo average speed officially achieved by a V-bottom.
As previously reported on speedonthewater.com, veteran offshore racer Ben Robertson, Jr., will throttle the Fountain kilo boat and noted tunnel boat and offshore racer Mike Seebold will be behind the wheel.
“We have a three-day window for the event because if it gets even a little windy you don’t want to be going that fast,” said Reggie Fountain, Jr., who is spearheading the project. “We’re just waiting on the engines and then we can install them and start testing.”
Curran and Fountain emphasized that, despite the push for a kilo record in advance of the 2018 Miami International Boat Show, safety and preparedness will be paramount. In addition to simply setting new a V-bottom kilo mark, the goal is to raise and rekindle interest in Fountain as a high-performance sportboat brand, said Curran.
“It’s good for the brand,” he said."We'd like to go into Miami with a new kilo record, but the most important thing is safety."......click here to read full story.