Give or treat yourself to a subscription to Boats in Motion print + digital and for only 39 euros a year you get the magazine at home plus read it on your PC, smartphone and tablet. With a sea of advantages.
Welcome to the special section “BAM 35 Years.” We are presenting “cult” articles from the Motor Boats archive, starting in 1990. A journey through time among stories unobtainable today, even in the great sea of the internet! A dive into the world of epic moments in motor boating. We begin with one of the stories we were most passionate about.
From Boats to Motor 2006, No. 2, March, pp. 88-92.
Competitions are, in every sport, the basis for technical developments. Here’s how one of our contributors and his team developed the boat that won the last World Powerboat P1.
Passion, when really strong, makes it possible to achieve any goal. In these pages, one of our contributors tells you how, together with two friends, he managed to become world champion in the Powerboat P1 class. In addition, we also bring you the example of Domenico Giardina, Italian vice-champion in the Endurance Group B Class B3 championship. Two demonstrations that you can get to the top even without being a professional.
I almost can’t believe it, after fifteen years of racing, seven Italian and two European titles, the world title has arrived. The 2004 season had been disastrous, breakdowns and accidents of all kinds had relegated us to the last positions in the rankings, and Andrea Bergamini and I, fellow adventurers at sea for 25 years, were therefore determined to build a new racing craft. We hoped once again for the support of BWA Nautica, the dinghy builder with whom we had won many races and championships, but the yard’s development plans, unfortunately, did not coincide with our needs. Everyone involved in motorsports knows how important support from manufacturers is, and anyone involved in powerboating knows perfectly well that after the sunset of the offshore billionaire very few yards continued to invest in racing for research and development purposes. Unexpectedly, Cartello S.r.l., the importer of Yanmar engines in Italy, decided to get back into competitions after a two-year hiatus and offered us its experience, its engines and the transmissions of its sister company Jolly Drive to take on the Powerboat P1 world championship.
At the same time, the search for a new boat finds success at the Rizzardi shipyards, which provide a hull for development. Reviewing the regulations we choose the technical equipment: two 440-horsepower Yanmar engines, Jolly Drive surface transmissions, ZF gearbox, Riviera controls, Raymarine electronics, Optima Varta batteries, Erg oils, Diesel One fuel, Kingdragon suits, Osbe helmets, Effesub emergency diving equipment will be used. Genoa’s Porto Antico Marina will be used for logistical support, while Opac will provide help with molds. The biggest problem, however, is time: we are now in the middle of March and the first round of the championship is scheduled in Malta in early May. We manage to launch Jolly Drive, that is the name of the boat, only a week before the race, but the speed tests are discouraging: our 10-meter weighs 5200 kg and does not go over 52.5 knots. We have made several errors in judgment but there is no time to make up for them. We set off for Malta anyway, thinking about what excuses to make to justify these performances, which are excellent for a pleasure boat but disastrous when compared with those of our opponents who on average run at 65 knots. However, fate is with us, the sea is swept by force 6 winds, the waves are two to three meters high. We race for two days in these conditions and in the end we win simply because it is impossible to go more than 50 knots. When we return to Italy we immediately set to work on the hull: we have to start from there. We consult with a friend, Simone Cesati, who has a boatyard on Lake Como(Albatro Marine) and builds very fast pleasure boats. With a simple felt-tip pen he traces some marks on our hull, getting along wonderfully with the Rizzardi shipyard technicians who provide the miracle.
Instead of two redans, only one is created with a special air conveyor and Jolly Drive immediately goes to 61 knots. Now it’s the turn of another expert, Silvio Schiavone of Silprop; he has a special feeling for propellers: as he listens to the response of our tests he strokes the blades with his fingers and shapes them by beating them roughly with a hammer, and after two days of work we reach a top speed of 64.5 knots. We arrived at the same performance as the Sunracer 38 from FB Design and the SunseekerXS2000 which have the same engines as ours. Unfortunately it is not enough to win because FB Design’s Rib of British pilots Drew Langdon and Ian Falkowski beats us in both trials at Anzio. We decide to take action on the transmissions by shortening the rudder fins but gain only half a knot. We try to replace the hydraulic pump of the hydroguide with one of greater capacity, because with the increase in speed more pressure is needed in the circuit. The trip to Germany is not lucky, however. Just before the start, the operator of a TV crew inadvertently activates the fire extinguisher: the engine room fills with dust and the water used to wash it causes damage to the electrical circuits that forces us off the podium. Halfway through the championship, morale is low, but Angelo Gaia (Yanmar) is certainly not used to losing: he has participated in four World Endurance Championships and has always won. The electro-hydraulic steering system has already given us too many problems, and Cartel ‘s technicians make a mechanical one that allows us to tack faster than our opponents. The still waters of the Baltic Sea have also highlighted how the excessive weight of our hull is penalizing in acceleration, so we choose to lighten the boat by using the vacuum sandwich. After the “slimming treatment” Jolly Drive weighs about 400 kg less and flies at 67 knots. However, we noticed that the hull has some slight undulations and after a perfect sanding we buy another knot. But 68 is not enough because to win the world championship we have to dominate the next races. Now that we are lighter and the hull has less resistance we can use a different reduction ratio, even positive, to make the propellers turn faster and thanks to this we touch, in the Lake Como tests, 72.5 knots. In these months of work we have gained 20 knots of speed, which is an incredible achievement because at these speeds the difficulty of improving performance by just one km/h is enormous. We leave for the Isle of Wight where the seventh and eighth rounds of the P1 Powerboat World Championship are scheduled. The race circuit is treacherous, littered with dozens of buoys concealed by the thousands of boats in the audience. In the first race, it takes its toll. Sony, the Italian hull of FB Design, leading the Evolution category, which is disqualified for going off the race course. In Super Sport we win by beating the British in their waters. We repeat the success in the second race as well, but the British jury, certainly not free of patriotic instincts, disqualifies all the Italian teams that arrived first at the finish line, guilty of crossing an inadequately marked public area. At this point only mathematics does not permanently erase our hopes of victory. Between the English and Gallipoli races there is no time to experiment with other changes, but this time it is our equipment that makes the difference.
The sea is not very rough and in these conditions the boats are almost always flying at over 70 knots. The transmissions are under a lot of stress, and we with the Jolly Drives we have no problems and win easily. With two races to go we are once again leading the world championship, although with only a 4-point lead, compared to the 20 points up for grabs in the last two races scheduled in Naples in early October. There are no tactics, we must win. The first race is the prerogative of the British who, thanks to a tailspin on our part, pull away from us by a minute, taking the lead in the standings. The last day comes, the last race, the last chance to become world champions. We mount a heat exchanger to cool the diesel, replace the filters, lighten the boat by calculating the minimum fuel needed and remove every tool from the boat. A few less kilos and the latest alchemy to increase fuel flow to the engines make their effect felt: in acceleration we are brighter and in the straights we touch a record speed of 74.5 knots, which allows us to beat the British, if only by three seconds, and become world champions. In the spring, when the adventure had begun, with 52.5 knots of speed, ours was the worst boat in the championship. After seven months of testing and development, thanks to the cooperation and ideas of all of us, it had become the fastest in the world.
RICCARDO FATARELLA. Class of 1950, driver of Jolly Drive. A successful manager in public and private health care, he lives in Rome and, when work allows, cultivates his immense passion for the sea by alternating sailing regattas with the speed of motor racing. Having landed a few years ago in powerboating, he has succeeded in the feat of winning as many as three world titles, twice this year also obtaining the coveted Pilot of the Year award, bestowed on him both by KBL, promoter of the Powerboat P1 world championship, and by the special jury composed of all participating pilots.
ANDREA BERGAMINI. Born in 1961, after years in the driver role this year he was team manager, navigator and tactician of Jolly Drive. He lives in Genoa where he works as a freelance journalist and press officer for some famous companies in the boating industry. In 1980 he chose boating as his passion, ten years later he started racing as a pilot and later developed his profession in the same field. For 15 years he has been racing in tandem with Maurizio Bulleri, with whom he shares a palmares full of seven Italian titles, two European titles and now the rainbow in the Powerboat P1 championship.
MAURIZIO BULLERI. Class of 1961, throttleman. He lives in Genoa and works as a journalist. He has been racing boats since 1990 and has previous experience as a navigator in rallies with the Fiat Group to his credit. In powerboating he started from regularity races, then moved on to Endurance, first in Group B (hulls up to 7.5 meters) and then in Group A (boats over 9 meters). He has won seven Italian and two European championships. He has participated in the Powerboat P1 Championship since 2003, the year he won the Italian title with a BWA Nautica dinghy. This year he was crowned P1 World Champion.
by Maurizio Bulleri
Sign up for our Newsletter
Powerboats, its stories, from small open to motoryachts. Sign up now for our free newsletter and receive the best news selected by the editorial staff each week. Enter your email below, agree to the Privacy Policy and click the “sign me up” button.
The Düsseldorf Boot is not yet over that people are already starting to talk about the boats that will be presented to the public at the fall shows. Among them, Rio Yachts, a historic brand that just in 2026 celebrates
Let’s take a step back and look at the 1960s. For motor boating it is a magical time; the technological innovations developed during the World War and improved in the previous decade are finally applied on a large scale, and
This year’s Boot Düsseldorf was packed with new products. Among several this one caught our attention and we climbed aboard for you. Kumbra 34 is a walkaround on the edge of the watercraft category, with sporty but still understated and
Welcome to the special Classic Boat Archive section, where Boats by Motor opens for you its paper archive where hundreds and hundreds of boats we have tested, presented and reviewed in the magazine’s more than 35-year history are kept.
