Unbreakable? Spirit Of Qatar’s Record Will Endure

Everyone knows records are meant to be broken, but there are several—like Cal Ripken’s Major League Baseball consecutive games played streak or John Wooden’s record seven straight NCAA Championships for his UCLA men’s basketball team—that seem untouchable.

Although it’s boat racing and anything is possible, the record-shattering run laid down by the Spirit of Qatar team in its 50-foot Mystic Powerboats catamaran Al Adaa’am 96 at the 2014 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout could very well be unbreakable. And to think that the team, which consisted of owner/driver Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani of Qatar and British throttleman Steve Curtis in the cockpit, didn’t just post a jaw-dropping 244-mph top speed at the end of the one-mile course… it did it despite some serious nerves.

After witnessing the accident of Mike Fiore and Joel Begin—two people Curtis was very close with—and following the first run in Al Adaa’am 96, a 210-mph pass with deployed emergency parachutes dragging halfway down the course, no one would have blamed Sheikh Hassan and Curtis if they opted to put the boat on the trailer rather than chase the record with any bit of seriousness.

Yet chase they did—and chasing is likely what teams will be doing to that record for many years. Is the record breakable? Of course, but according to the man who designed and built My Way, the 50-foot Mystic that ran 224 mph in 2013 to set a new Shootout record, and the only other 200-plus-mph Top Gun-winning boats owned by David Scott and John Callan, it would take a very serious commitment to run a faster speed on a one-mile course.

“I didn’t expect 244 mph, but I wasn’t surprised,” said John Cosker, who founded Mystic in 1996 and starting building custom boats in 2004 in Deland, Fla. “The boats are built to run 225 mph and they threw a lot of horsepower at it and muscled it up there. It was a pretty impressive, I’m glad I was here to witness it. I think it’s going to stand for a long time.

“Every year after the Shootout, I’ll get calls from a few guys who want to beat the record,” he continued. “Those dropped off last year because now you’re talking about having a purpose-built, high-performance boat just for the Shootout. Sheikh Hassan was planning to go after some speed records in the boat as well, but who knows what’s happening now.”

As of this writing, future plans for the Spirit of Qatar team are on hold, since Sheikh Hassan stepped down as president of the Qatar Marine Sports Federation in March. The organization was renamed the Qatar Sailing and Watersports Federation and had yet to make any announcements regarding its offshore racing program (its tunnel-boat and hydroplane racing programs were terminated in April). That makes the likelihood of Sheikh Hassan and the rest of the team returning to the Shootout extremely slim.

Why would they need to return anyway? The truly international team accomplished something unbelievable last year with its 244-mph record run and earned the right to wait for challengers. Along with the cache the Shootout received from the big number, it was the team’s impact on the local community as well as the international exposure it provided to the event that stood out to Shootout organizer Ron Duggan.

“It was neat having Sheikh Hassan here, I think he had a really good time,” said Duggan, who owns Captain Ron’s Bar & Grill, which hosts the event. “We’ve had people come from all over the world, but never an international team like this. The team included people from Norway, Italy, Great Britain, the Middle East; it was so cool to see those people acknowledge what we do here at Lake of the Ozarks. They all seemed to have such a great time.

“Of course we’d love to have them back whether they’re racing or not,” he continued. “To me this event is bigger than the overall Top Gun trophy. It’s about competing for Top Gun in seven different categories or in your respective class. I’d be lying if I said 244 mph didn’t give the Shootout more exposure or recognition, if you will, but this event is about showing what your boat can do and beating your personal best, and most of all it’s about raising money for the community. We’ll do that whether the Top Gun is 180 mph or 240 mph.”

Bill Tomlinson, the man behind the record that was broken on the warm summer day along Mile Marker 34 last August, isn’t too disappointed his record didn’t hold up very long. He’s also not about to challenge it.

“I was surprised when I heard how fast they ran—244 mph is very fast,” said Tomlinson, the owner of My Way, the turbine-powered he ran with throttleman Ken Kehoe in 2011 and 2013. “The Sheikh came with a purpose, to break our record, and his team did just that. I can’t deny what they did, but the one thing I can say in comparison is that My Way is also built for pleasure boating and an occasional poker run. That team simply built a boat to run fast and straight; it really had no other purpose the way it was set up. Still, that doesn’t take away from the impressiveness of their run and the risk involved at that speed.”

Radar gun operator Michael Wagner, who points out that he has the best possible Shootout volunteer position, remembers seeing the number “244.” He says his jaw dropped.

“I almost couldn’t believe what I was looking at,” said Wagner, who has volunteered for the event every year since 2008 with his wife, Toni. “It was so cool to call out Spirit of Qatar and give the numbers, 2-4-4, over the radio and then hear the roar of the crowd seconds later. It still gives me chills to think about. That was a remarkable top speed—all of us on the radar bluff were blown away. I’m no expert, but I don’t know if that record will ever be broken.”

Obviously he’s not the only one who believes that.