Honda - Power of Dreams Impossible Dream Advert

Honda 225 series
The second boat we were to work on formerly belonged to Honda and they have used it quite extensively in their marketing, most recently in the wonderful Power of Dreams series of adverts. An identical boat to this one appeared on Channel 5's motoring program 5th Gear where it raced against Jenson Button in his F1 car and Michael Rutter on his Honda British Super Bike.

It is now in the hands of Paul Charman's F4offshore and has undergone some repairs by D.S. Developments to Paul’s specific requirements. D.S Develpomets specialise in waterproof communications equipment.

Because the comms they manufacture need to be waterproofed in sealed units, they are quite adept at working with fibreglass and now also repair and condition hulls for several teams. They have also rebuilt part of the top section of this 225 series Honda - the Honda 4-stroke championship is an exciting and rough sport and these powerboats are often bashing into each other meaning they often require repair.

The 225 is a beautiful boat, seen here before application of the Team Mermaid racing livery.

Although longer than the 150 at 8.15m, the 225 actually weighs about the same meaning a higher power to weight ratio.

Willy Winterfalk of Allbrite Europe

This Honda 225 Class race boat will be driven by Paul Charman who won the 2004 150 Class Championship. It's his 4th full season in the Honda 4-stroke championship having started out in 130 Class and finishing 2nd in his second season then moving up to and winning the 150 class when Honda upgraded the engines. This season Paul has joined forces with David Hobson, team principle of the 150 Class boat, and will be racing as part of a the two boat team, under the name of Team-Mermaid We hope to hear some news soon and will be reporting on any boats that we have had an involvement in (although we have not been involved with Team-Mermaid's 150), and we hope to find the time to go to at least a couple of the races. The Season starts in June at the Isle of Mann and we can't wait - for more details on the championship please visit the Honda Racing HF4S website

Gary removing the excess 'Barnacle Juice'. As you can see it gives a wet look glossy finish.

Geoff of AutoBright

On this second boat we used formula No.2 which is not as slippery as No.1 but will last longer which we feel is important on this faster boat. Allbrite's lab tests are no substitute for the real thing and we will just have to wait and see. Willy Winterfalk has every confidence in the products he has produced so far, and I have to say, having seen and felt the results I can't see how it can fail to give a competitive advantage that will make a race winning difference.

We look forward to finding out how things go, meantime we will try to think of a suitable name - my suggestion has not proved popular and now Paul Charman's "Magic Jollop" is a front runner. AutoBright will eventually stock the product which will be available from their online shop.

The boat with the 'Barnacle Juice' applied and dried - we will be keeping our fingers crossed that it proves as slippery as it looks and lasts long enough to make a difference.

Paul Charman sent us an e-mail as he wanted to add a few words to this article:-

Feedback

Back to Articles Index