Race history
The early years (1903-1915)
Even in its inaugural year – when only British competitors gathered at the Royal Cork Yacht Club – the actual winner of the Harmsworth Trophy remains a mystery.
The name of Selwyn Francis Edge, as the owner of ‘Napier’ is engraved on the trophy. However, some reports suggest that Campbell Muir (a friend of Lord Harmsworth) was the nominated driver, whilst other reports claim that the legendary woman racing driver – Dorothy Levitt – was at the wheel.
A French challenger controversially won the second race, held in the Solent in 1904, increasing the speed to 26.63mph. The hosts regarded this as a ‘paper victory’ as Selwyn Edge’s launch had been eliminated on a technicality following a protest.
The 1905 race was held in Arcachon when Lord Montagu brought the trophy back to England and successfully defended it in 1906 with a steel-built hull, but at the lowest recorded Harmsworth speed of 15.48 mph.
The USA entered the fray in 1907 and began a long period of domination. Of the 18 races held between then and 1956, the Americans won 16. The only exceptions to this winning streak were the victories achieved by Tom E Sopwith Snr in 1912 and 1913.
Between the wars (1920-1933)
The First World War prevented further competition until 1920 when one of powerboat racing’s most remarkable characters – Gar Wood – swept away all opposition at a record speed of 61.51 mph. Following this success the trophy would stay in American hands for more than 35 years.
Gar Wood still remains the most successful racer in the Harmsworth’s history after winning the Trophy eight times. Despite this domination, he was pushed all the way by the British oil millionairess, Marion Barbara ‘Joe’ Carstairs, who inherited her fortune through John D Rockerfeller of Standard Oil (believed to be the wealthiest company in the world at the time). In her quest for victory she campaigned four multi aero-engined 30ft hydroplanes costing £30,000 each.
1949-1961
The Trophy lay dormant without a challenge until Canada resuscitated the competition by making a challenge in 1949 and 1950. The USA maintained their supremacy when Stan Dollar (whose family owned the world famous Dollar Steam Ship Line) won the 1949 challenge. The following year Lou Fageol became the first Harmsworth winner to average more than 100mph in his boat Slo-Mo-Shun IV.
There was then another five-year gap before American, Russ Schleeh, once again retained the Trophy for his country.
In 1959 the Trophy left the USA for the first time in 46 years when a Canadian – Bob Hayward – achieved a winning average speed of 104mph on the Detroit River in his boat Miss Supertest III. He successfully defended the Trophy in Lake Ontario in the same boat in 1960 with a speed of 116.3 mph (the fastest Harmsworth speed ever recorded) and in 1961 with a slightly slower speed of 100.2 mph. But his death in a race later that year signalled the beginning of another dormant spell for the trophy.
The 70’s and 80’s (1977-1989)
By the 1970’s, the era of competition by the giants of power, speed and costs had ended. Since 1920 the boats had ‘fallen into’ the International Hydroplane class for which the only power plants were obsolete aircraft reciprocating engines and to mount a challenge was fast running into seven-figure amounts.
So after sitting at the RMYC for 16 years, the Harmsworth Trophy was brought out of mothballs in 1977 when it was awarded to the highest-placed driver in the RYA Offshore Drivers’ Championship, Mike Doxford in his boat Limit Up.
Over the next two years the driver achieving the most points in the UIM Championship qualifying races received the Trophy – respectively Doug Bricker of Australia in Taurus and Derek Pobjoy of England in Uno Mint.
Between 1980-1983 the Trophy was awarded to the winner of an Anglo-American, Italian match contest for offshore class powerboats consisting of two European and two American races – a condition being that competitors must enter at least one race on each continent.
For the first time in more than two decades the Harmsworth went back to the USA in 1980, thanks to Bill Elswick’s victories in the Benihana Grand Prix in the USA and the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes races together with a second place in the RMYC’s Needles Trophy Race.
Despite strong British and Italian challenges, America retained the Trophy for the following three years when Bill Clauser, Al Copeland and George Morales joined the list of Harmsworth winners.
In 1984 it was decided to award the Trophy to the ‘circuit type’ race for 2-litre boats from all nations, who competed for points in two North American and two European events. There was strong competition from the USA, Sweden, West Germany and Italy but the result was a victory for the UK team of John Hill, Jonathan Jones and Mark Wilson. It was the first British victory in a full international Harmsworth race since Sir Thomas Sopwith’s success 74 years earlier.
Hill, Jones and Wilson, together with Tony Williams, retained the Trophy the following year, before father and son Bill and Michael Seebold led the USA to victory once again in 1986.
In 1989 a four race series in two countries (Great Britain and the USA) for Class I boats attracted entries from five countries. Stefano Casiraghi of Monaco won the series in appalling conditions in Atlantic City – an event that was sponsored by Donald J Trump, former President of the USA. Tragically, the Italian-born husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco was killed the following year in a race in the Principality.
1993 to present day
There followed a gap of three years until the Trustees decided that the UIM’s World Offshore Endurance Championship fitted the criteria. The 1993 Championship was won by Argentinian, Daniel Scioli, who later became Vice-President of his country.
1994 saw a five leg challenge with races off Spain as well as two of the oldest events in modern powerboating, the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes and the Viareggio-Bastia-Viareggio races. Andreas Ugland took the title for Norway beating his nearest competitor (Hannes Bohinc) by nearly 500 points. Having bought Ugland’s boat, Hannes Bohinc of Austria went on to win the trophy in 1995.
In 2002, 68 year old Tommaso de Simone showed that age is no barrier in powerboat racing when, along with Roberto Buonomo, they became the first Italians to win the Harmsworth Trophy.
The following year marked the Trophy’s centenary and Hannes Bohinc won the Harmsworth again after a three race series which included the RMYC’s Needles Trophy race, the Round the Island Race and the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes marathon race.
In 2004 the world famous boat designer Fabio Buzzi won the Trophy in his boat Grand Argentina SONY. His co-driver was Lord Beaverbrook whose grandfather was, of course, a great business rival of Lord Northcliffe who originally presented the Harmsworth Trophy.
Fabio Buzzi repeated this success the next time it was awarded (in 2010) in Red FPT which meant that between 1989-2010, seven of the eight boats which had won the Harmsworth Trophy were Buzzi designed, built and engineered.
For the first time, the Trophy was awarded to a German competitor in 2011 when Markus Hendricks took the honours in his 30 year old race boat, Cinzano.
