FROM WRECK TO RACER

Restoration of the world’s last remaining Bertram 31 ‘Competition’

- Hugo Peel

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This is the story of Thunderstreak, the late Tommy Sopwith’s 1963 Bertram 31 Competition Special, and its three-year restoration. It’s also a story of dedicated powerboat people and skilled marine engineers with the determination to succeed against all the odds.

My tale, however, starts on August Bank Holiday 1963. To this then 13-year-old, that meant one thing: it was the Daily Express Cowes-Torquay powerboat race weekend. Spectating at this new and exciting sport had been getting more dramatic every year. Top speeds had reached 50mph. Engines had got bigger. And louder. Striking, purpose-built raceboats had begun to fill the entry lists – many from the USA and carrying the Bertram brand. The sight of 50 starters lapping the Isle of Wight at full-chat then powering on to Torquay was unforgettable. As the now stretched-out fleet blasted past Cowes for the second time, the visceral bellow of Thunderstreak’s 7-litre Holman-Moody tuned Ford race-engines as it porpoised past trailing a rooster-tail behind it made a lasting impression on my teenage mind. It was love at first sight: or perhaps love at first sound.

Never, for one moment, did I dream that one day I would own her. Fast forward to late summer 2017 and across the River Medina I detected the familiar rumble of just such a pair of V8s. It turned out to be Thunderstreak, sporting her H400 race number. Then in the ownership of Robin Ward, who discovered her in 2014 as a rotting houseboat in an East London marina, he had completed an initial restoration and raced her with mixed results in 2015 and 2016. It took one chat, one test run, and one offer to become the owner of this historic vessel. Now the hard graft would begin.

LABOURS OF HERCULES