UPEX Supports GB Bid For World Water Speed Record

Britain's bid to regain the world water speed record from the current holder, Australia, is well underway, with help from the UK printing industry through UPEX.

Britain's bid to regain the world water speed record from the current holder, Australia, is well underway, with help from the UK printing industry through UPEX.

Britain last held the water speed record in 1967 and Nigel Macknight, the driver and team leader of the Quicksilver Challenge, explained how the newly announced association with UPEX creates a way for the print industry to support the venture.

"Our bid, the Quicksilver World Water Speed Challenge, is gathering pace.

Our association with UPEX is one of many new initiatives to drive us forward.

The aim is for me to drive our jet-propelled Quicksilver hydroplane to a speed of 330mph and to wrest the record from the current holder - Australia's Ken Warby - in the first quarter of 2007," said Macknight.

He continued: "Mike Steele of UPEX and myself have formulated a plan to string together a series of activities through this year and in to next.

UPEX started by joining our official supporters' club for businesses, the Quicksilver Corporate Club - setting an example we hope others in the print industry will follow." The next major event is the UPEX-sponsored 'Speed Night with the Sports Stars', on the evening of July 4, at Nottingham's East Midlands Conference Centre.

Guest speakers at the fund-raising dinner for the Quicksilver project will be multiple gold medal-winning athlete Steve Cram, cricketing legends Fred Trueman and Dickie Bird, Grand National-winning jockey Bob Champion and Nottingham Forest, Leeds, Everton, Chelsea soccer star Duncan McKenzie.

The first public showing of the completed Quicksilver craft will be when UPEX and IPEX open their doors at Birmingham's (UK) NEC in April 2006.

The 14 metre, 3.5 tonne boat will be a star visitor attraction at the event.

Macknight said: "When I first embarked on my quest to win back the world water speed record for Britain, I didn't fully appreciate either the depth of commitment needed to achieve the goal or the richness of the record's history.

The quest to go faster on water has challenged both man and machine for centuries.

Whether for trading, waging war, or simply winning a coveted trophy, the desire for higher speeds has been relentless." The Quicksilver team is supported by over 200 British companies, organisations and private individuals, and design input has come from several of the key engineers behind Donald Campbell's Bluebird cars and boats of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as those involved with the more recent speed-record cars of Richard Noble's Thrust 2 and ThrustSSC.

Macknight concluded: "The world water speed record is an internationally recognised benchmark of engineering and sporting excellence and still has profound relevance - even for a new generation, who consider many of the traditional standards of merit outmoded.

Setting a new record for Britain, in this new era, would be something very special indeed.".

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