Blagspeed was borne from an idea to go racing model powerboats after Cameron was bought a cheap ABS plastic electric RC boat for his 9th Birthday. We took it along to our local model boating lake at Kingsbury Water Park and thrashed it around for about 20 minutes or so, by which time the battery was giving up the ghost. Although it was good fun and Cam enjoyed it, the next few times we took it down to Kingsbury, we both felt that it could do with having a longer duration on the water. Whilst at Kingsbury another modeller brought a little nitro Multi-racing boat down and zipped it around for a bit which we both thought was much better! This gave us an inkling as to what we ought to be looking at.

A good hunt round on the internet lead us to the OMRA Website, where we both decided what we wanted to do was to build and race a model powerboat in the OMRA race series. There were a plethora of different models and engine configurations to be had, so we thought we had better budget for something relatively cheap and simple to build. [NB. reader beware! There is no such thing as a cheap way to build racing model powerboats - it's a relative term!]. However we did choose a boat and an engine and then embarked on a wonderful [if a little costly!] journey of building it over the ensuing months.

Several hull designs and engine configurations were researched and considered before deciding upon using a well-proven race engine in the form of an unmodified Zenoah G260PUM 26cc 2-stroke marine engine installed in a 58" Makara GRP hull. The Makara is a scale replica of the very successful 1980's Apache 41' offshore monohull, designed by the renowned offshore racing boat builder Don Aronow.

The first boat was the Makara

In early April 2008, a second boat was added to the stable in the form of a Prestwich Miami 55 scale Cigarette. This came as a pre-owned boat without any racing history and was fitted with a .61ci Irvine Nitro engine. This hull is currently undergoing a refit and race preparation and will also be fitted with an unmodified Zenoah G260PUM.  It is hoped to field this hull either late in the 2008 season for pre-2009 season testing unless fabrication and preparation dictates that we wait until the start of the 2009 season.