Team JB-R

26/09/2026

As I’m sure many of you are aware, the final round was cancelled, lots of controversy around this from people online and racers alike and having already been shifted to the rough weather course, we knew it was going to be a bumpy one!

Safety teams made the call to cancel the race, whilst the majority of the course was perfectly safe, some parts where up to 5m, whilst we can manage this and indeed race in it, as we have done this year… when the safety teams don’t have 100% confidence they can recover us in the event of an accident, it’s always better to air on the side of caution and pull the race.

It’s incredibly disappointing for us as competitors and frustrating given we know our limits and our boats capabilities and it was within that, however I back the decision of the safety teams, this is a fragile sport, it’s a challenging sport and accidents at sea have a completely different dynamic to accidents racing on a track, one bad accident for us as a sport and our future hangs in the balance as a series, for me UKOPRA have managed this balance well for us this year with the right amount of give and take between an organisers perspective and a racers view point, no matter what decision they make on the day they get criticised for it both publicly and privately, wether thats running a race in rough conditions or cancelling a race because of rough conditions, I see so much of it online, I put my well being in their hands when I drop down into the seat and put my helmet on, I will always respect the decisions they make surrounding safety.

A disappointing end of the racing year but the end of the year no less!

What does 2027 hold? Well… theoretically a new boat from AYD, time scales are tight, with only 7 months until we start our first race of the season… that will soon go! we remain hopeful, positive and I’m buying everything to rig it so when it arrives… so it’s paint, fit out and testing ASAP.

However, as many of you know, I always run a plan B… Just incase! So we have decided to restore, rig and test another boat in the time between now and the arrival of the new hull from Adam.

So today, after some heavy gardening, this can see daylight again and come out if it’s hole ready for it’s role as ‘plan B’.

If things go well and schedules are maintained, I’d be open to lending this out for 2027, ideally you’ll need some experience of Cats… but previous racing experience as a minimum!

20/09/2026

Southampton Boat Show
Sustain Fuels
Adam Younger Design

18/09/2026

Turbulent and hectic week… but we made it! Apologies to everyone I haven’t gotten back too, I’ll catch up next week on messages etc.

R5 ready!

13/09/2026

We would like to proudly introduce you to our newest partner, Hydrotech pool engineers, Hydrotech are the latest company to join forces with a power boat team in the UK due to the high level of exposure achieved with racing in the UKOPRA series.

Whilst sponsors are a critical part of team development in terms of financial input, it’s important to us we background check our partners to the best of our ability to make sure they provide a quality service that we can recommend to you without fear of our supporters getting a bad deal.

I’m really pleased to say that Hydrotech ticked all the boxes and I’m confident in representing them within our team.

Based in Southampton, HydroTech Pools serves residential and commercial clients across Hampshire, including Southampton, Eastleigh, Wi******er, and surrounding South Coast towns. Every project benefits from prompt response, expert workmanship, and strong local relationships built on trust.

They cover:

Refurbishments
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Servicing
Covers
Design and build

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04/09/2026

02/09/2026

Come and find us at the Southampton Boat show this year, learn more about us as a race team, our partnership with Sustain fuels, Adam Younger design and our plans for 2027 which further progresses our vision to join the same path as other top tier motorsports on making things cleaner as we head into the future of offshore racing.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EygeMWRdM/?mibextid=wwXIfr

01/09/2026

Cowes… what should have been VS what was!

A weekend of headache, ball ache and arse ache from the get go…

Obviously we had the original fiasco of eligibility but working with sustain and BPRC we found a way through it and we are eternally grateful to all involved for their efforts… but that was just the start of the universe knocking us back!

On the way over we had a break down with the support boat for the team, right in the driving rain and wind… moved as much stuff as we could into the race boat and Luke took the Red-jet into Cowes with the rest of the kit, whilst I proceeded in the race boat to Cowes, scruitineered fine, I done a nice talk with a Charity that does experiences for Autistic children, showed them around the race boats and talked them through what we do with Sustain, fantastic bunch of guys! Had a great catch up with Sarah Donohue which had laid the foundation for some exciting plans for this year and very much into next… watch this space!

Later in the day we learnt that the event had a shortage of safety vessels to stretch the course and with the uncertainty of the weather the decision was made to run shorter courses, the big boats only going to Poole and the smaller categories only doing two laps between cowes and Yarmouth, a huge blow for us, massive disappointment but ultimately thats the hand we where dealt and BPRC made the decision based upon the factors in front of them at the time, so absolutely no digs thrown at them in anyway from this side.

Then 11pm roles around… Luke goes down chronically unwell and is unable to race… luckily for me… Richard Watson steps up and fills the seat, absolute legend.

Our course on race day was flat carm… pretty sure the only time I got the boat airborne was off of a wash from a bigger boat! I can’t lie… it was tedious and boring! The biggest contributor to this was my decision to enter in the 55mph class, the boat runs 60mph in race trim but this can be limited when it’s rough… banking on it being rough this is what I opted for as I know I can run that speed fairly consistently in a good chop…

With the class structure being as it is in BPRC my competition included a rather large Bertram 31 (I think) with around 800hp… which can run 55mph in the rough with great ease in comparison to our 22ft 115hp VSX!

In the end we made the executive decision aboard to rip up the rule book regarding speed brackets and just open the taps on the VSX and let her sing… to which we did! Crossing the line in first place with 1 second between ourselves and Thunderstreak, because we broke out the speed bracket we received a penalty which demoted us back to 2nd place and Thunderstreak where rightfully given there first place back, they played it on the level and drove a really good and clean race so hats off to them! Great bunch of guys, absolutely lovely people! Massive shame they didn’t get a trophy for winning, it seems the smaller boats dont get awards for podium positions so sadly for them they raced a solid and clean race for nothing material!

I think for us going forwards… we’ll give Cowes a miss, the class structure doesn’t really work for us and we feel much happier and better looked after within UKOPRA.

But we will return next year as spectators and to socialise with the many fantastic people that make up the event, including many officials, so many great and helpful people involved.

Hopefully see you all in Gunwharf!

A huge thanks to Sustain Fuels for there on going support and of Course Adam Younger design for the boat, both have been consistently supportive to us and that forms the biggest part of our continuing success.