Britain's bid to regain the World Water Speed Record continues to gather pace. The target is to take our turbofanpropelled Quicksilver hydroplane to a speed of 330mph to wrest the record from the current holder, Australia’s Ken Warby, in the first quarter of 2010 on Coniston Water.
Warby set his mark of 317.60 mph (511.11 kph) nearly 30 years ago!
Quicksilver features several state-of the-art technical features. While many enthusiasts are inspired by notions of “man versus the elements” and “flying the flag for Britain”,

start running the boat for real. Therefore, having a steering system that can be “tuned” to the specific set of ircumstances we find ourselves with is a real plus-point.
So how does Quicksilver’s “steer by wire” system work? By its very definition, it is an advanced electro-mechanical system in which there are no direct control actuators linking the steering wheel to the craft's twin rudders. Instead, electrical wiring relays my steering inputs, via an encoder at the lower end of the steering column, to a compact planetary-gear unit at the top of each rudder-post. A brushless motor and an encoder at the top of

there is no doubt that the technical challenges inherent in a
World Water Speed Record bid are equally compelling.
Much of the credit for developing Quicksilver’s advanced
on-board systems is due to Robert Atkinson – a veteran of Richard Noble’s ThrustSSC team which achieved the first supersonic World Land Speed Record in 1997. It was Robert, for example, who built a demonstrator to show how a “steer by wire” system would work aboard Quicksilver. We were instantly impressed with two things: its
responsiveness and its adaptability.

Stopping is as important as going! A water-brake, mounted on the transom, will operate along similar lines. In this case, as with the steering system and throttle

inputs, as I believe this
is preferable to allowing the
craft to deviate significantly from its
path and then having to haul it back on track
with one much larger correction. Quicksilver’s width has been kept as narrow as it reasonably can be – primarily for structural
reasons, to minimise flexing of the struts that connect the main hull to the stabilising sponsons – and the craft is therefore not particularly well-suited to outlandish turning manoeuvres,

because it will have a tendency to heel over uncomfortably. Small, regular steering inputs are thus preferable to large, occasional ones, and the timing of these inputs is crucial – hence the need for a highly responsive steering system. Adaptability is equally important. Let’s be clear: we cannot be precisely sure how Quicksilver will handle once she is on the water. No matter how many calculations we have done to date, or how many we will yet do, there will always be questions about how much steering input is required in given situations until we