Tuesday, October 20th,
2009

SHEIKH HASSAN CONFIRMS NEW
ASSAULT AT TRANS-GULF SPEED RECORD BID
DOHA (Qatar): His Excellency
Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani has confirmed that he and Class
1 racing colleague Abdullah Al-Sulaiti will attempt to set a new
Trans-Gulf speed record for the passage between Abu Dhabi and
Qatar.
The new attempt was officially
unveiled at a press conference in Doha on Tuesday afternoon and
will take place on a date to be confirmed at the end of November
or early December.
“We have such a hectic race
schedule at the QMSF throughout November, so the date has still
to be finalised for the record bid, but it will either be the
end of November or the start of December,” said Sheikh Hassan,
who is relishing the Gulf crossing over a distance of around 315
km and a race time of approximately two hours.
“Most motor sport will have ended
by then and we will have already finished the Key West races in
Florida, the Unlimited Hydroplane race in Doha and the next two
rounds of the UIM F1 Championship in Qatar.”
Sheikh Hassan attempted to
re-write the history books last November in his
twin gas-turbine engined Nor-Tech
boat, but the attempt was curtailed by transmission problems for
Qatar Challenger.
The President of the Qatar Marine
Sports Federation (QMSF) is confident that the second attempt
will be successful and he has attracted the backing of the Pearl
Qatar for the exciting venture, which will run under the full
governance of the UIM, world power boating’s sporting body. The
record bid has also attracted from Performance Marine and
Mercury Racing.
“The air temperatures will also
be a little cooler in a few weeks’ time and that will enable the
engines to run smoother,” added Sheikh Hassan.
“We have not planned any changes
to the route that we used in 2008, but we will carry out a demo
run in a pleasure boat on October 24th (Saturday) to
make sure that no marine shipping markers have been added to the
route since we ran for the record last year. This will also give
us time to check the route is the best option available for the
record attempt.”
The Qatar Challenger is based on
the streamlined Nor-Tech 50 supercat boat and is powered by a
pair of powerful Lycoming T-53 L-13 BA gas turbine engines,
which both deliver in the region of 1630hp apiece.
The Lycoming T53 engine is a
turboshaft unit used in helicopter applications and fixed-wing
turbo prop aircraft. The engine was originally designed by a
team headed by Anselm Franz, who was the chief designer of the
Junkers Jumo 004 aircraft. The engine has a five-stage axial
compressor and a one-stage centrifugal compressor.
Gas turbine engines work in a
relatively straightforward manner. The compressor compresses the
incoming air to high pressure and fuel is burned in the
combustion area and produces a high-pressure, high-velocity gas.
The turbine extracts the energy from the high-pressure,
high-velocity gas flowing from the combustion chamber and
creates the power.
Ends