Record amounts in recent powerboat history
A cash purse of £15,000 together with a ‘goody bag’ worth another £5,000 will be collected by the winner of next year’s RB12. Cash prizes will also be awarded to the second and third place competitors.
They will be the first money prizes of real value since the Daily Telegraph & BP Round Britain in 1969. The winner will also collect the Beaverbrook Trophy first presented at the 2008 Round Britain Race.
RB12 will feature 50 cars, 50 boats and 50 aircraft competing simultaneously after starting at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy, venue for the 2012 Olympic sailing events, on June 21, 2012.
RB12 director Hugo Ambrose said: “As organisers we are keen to put marathon-powered racing on a professional and sustainable footing and raise the level of reward for successful competitors.
“We hope the race for the purse will add further challenge to what is already one of the biggest endurance tests for the teams and their craft.”
The event is a departure from the three previous round-Britain powerboat marathons in 1969, 1984 and 2008.
This time the course takes competitors round the top of Scotland via the Pentland Firth, renown for its sudden punishing seas, rather than crossing from west to east via the Caledonia Canal.
It will also be the first time the schedule doesn’t include a lay day (non-racing day) which with such a punishing course could prove too much of a challenge for some.
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