Rocking the Boat
British offshore powerboat racing has needed a champion over the years. And none can touch the relentlessly enthusiastic Tim Powell, say Ray Bulman and John Moore
The Italians were speechless… By contrast, and as usual, the Brits were taking the guy for granted – but his efforts that day were to win him lifetime respect. It was during the 1984 Everest Double Glazing Round Britain Powerboat Race. The man in the frame was Tim Powell.
Powell had offered to organise the race some 18 months before. Until then, support had been mostly verbal, and he could see the event needed full-time effort.
In contrast to the first Round Britain Race held 15 years earlier, the majority of entrants were “sprint racing boats” not used to covering over 150 miles a day in huge seas around the British Isles. The Italians Renato Della Valle and Fabio Buzzi, in their much larger craft, had come to win: Della Valle’s boat was the trial horse for the inaugural marinised Lamborghini engine, whilst Buzzi was using the already proven Seatek diesels. Money was no object for the Italians: they could afford travelling teams of on-shore engineers, the best hotels and light aircraft ferrying personnel. They were met and nurtured at the end of each leg as if they were driving for Ferrari in Formula One. Hence they were onlookers at the halfway stage when Powell organised a barbecue on a piece of wasteland in Inverness.
Powell had been the Italians’ main contact and though he didn’t speak their language, he certainly spoke their style. Imagine their surprise, then, when they saw him drag four barbecue stoves to the site, fire them up and begin to cook sausages, burgers, and a black pudding. It was something they had never seen an equal attempt but, with their associate cooking, they could hardly leave for their hotel. Instead, they took their place in the queue. He was then to make life-long friends with the Italian competitors, who now had a healthy respect for his passion for the sport.
This sums up Powell. Like the character from Kipling’s poem, he has the quality of walking with kings without losing “the common touch”. But he doesn’t suffer fools gladly – which, over the years, has won him a few critics.
Powell was not short of silver spoons at birth. His grandfather founded Anglo-American Oil, which later became Standard Oil and is better known today as Esso. Educated at Charterhouse, he followed his father into the engineering business. It’s not rare to see him, sleeves rolled up, head deep inside a marine engine. He did his National Service in the Royal Navy where, surprisingly for a man of his standing, he was an Able Seaman on a fleet tug. In those days, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh was still a serving officer at Portsmouth, where Powell was also based.
In the 1950s and 1960s Powell was a man about town in every respect. He had money, connections and raced cars around the tracks of Europe. But it was a chance meeting in Annabel’s nightclub that changed his life for ever. It was 1963, two years after the Daily Express introduced the sport of offshore powerboat racing to Britain with the first Cowes-Torquay. Powell was offered the chance to buy an offshore racing powerboat with £8,000 worth of sponsorship outstanding from a deal with Esso. Unfortunately, the sponsorship money fell through but he still owned the boat.
There was no alternative but to knuckle down and race. And race he did. The first event saw the crew almost die of asphyxia when a couple of exhaust manifolds fell off in the rough. The trio had been taking turns to venture below for a quick sharpener and it wasn’t until they began feeling far more heady than their alcohol consumption would suggest that the penny finally dropped.
Powell’s racing partners then went their own ways and, wanting something a little more competitive, he bought a 28ft (8.5m) Wynne/Walters-designed Thunderbird. She was fitted with a pair of Holman Moody Fords producing 900hp – a powerful package back then.
In 1968, with Barclay and rally driver Paddy Hopkirk as crew, Powell finished third in the very rough Daily Express Cowes-Torquay and almost won the first BP Round Britain race. Now truly smitten with the sport, there was no turning back and Powell had a very successful 10 years in international offshore racing.
At the end of 1978 came a big blow for British offshore racing: Beaverbrook Newspapers, owners of the Daily Express, changed hands. The newspaper had sponsored and organised the Cowes-Torquay race for 18 years. Keen to make a clean break, the new owners announced their withdrawal. WD&HO Wills, whose Embassy brand of cigarettes had shared the sponsorship for seven years, also pulled out.
A great deal of talk took place. Everyone wanted to see this world-leading event survive but few made any real effort, apart from Powell, who chased up past competitors to help with funding. Some became members of his new organising committee. The new owners of the Express didn’t help when they destroyed everything likely to assist the race’s survival, including burning the large scoreboards that once allowed everyone in Cowes to follow its progress.
Apart from a couple of rides as a working passenger in the years ahead and, incredibly, driving with his old friend Buzzi to win the 2001 Cowes Torquay Cowes race, Powell’s racing days were now over. Almost overnight, he had become an organiser whose efforts would save British offshore racing. After securing sponsorship from Toyota, many other well-known brand names were recruited – Peter Stuyvesant, Jaguar Cars, National Express and Virgin Atlantic, to name a few.
By 1996 Powell had equalled the number of years the Express and Embassy had been involved and, following the success of the 40th-anniversary dinner at the Royal Yacht Squadron in 2000, he finally conceded to a new group of organisers under the burgee of the British Powerboat Racing Club. In 2001 he at last received recognition for all the years he worked to keep the British flag flying high in the world of offshore powerboat racing: he was presented with a framed letter of appreciation by the Royal Yachting Association President, HRH The Princess Royal.
In many respects Tim Powell is a surprisingly modest man and was the last person to expect such an honour. The rest of us, however, feel it was long overdue.
– Ray Bulman has a monthly column in Motor Boat and Yachting, John Moore is webmaster for the major UK offshore powerboat racing sites
2 Responses
Would you like to comment on this article?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
December 17th, 2008 at 9:42 am
The Famous Italian Seatek diesel engine didn’t even exist until 1987, so it’ll unlikely Buzzi ran them in 1984. His boat for the 1984 Round Britain Race was called “White Iveco”, The clue to the engine brand used is hidden carefully in the boat’s name.
December 17th, 2008 at 9:51 am
What an amazing man. His like will never be seen again unfortunately. I have known him for almost 25 years and yet have not known him. He is a very private man and yet has mixed with all of the good and the great on the powerboat scene for so many years. He does not suffer fools easily and can be quite critical but at the end of the day there has been and there is not any man with either his knowledge or who has given so much to our sport of Powerboat Racing. God bless him.