Aussie Spirit is the second jet boat built by Ken Warby. Ken started construction in the early 90’s and continued to build it in his spare time while still managing his business, Ken powered it with a fresh Westinghouse J-34, At the time Ken was building the new jet boat, the U.I.M rules didn’t require an Unlimited Water Speed Record boat to have a reinforced safety cockpit, but Ken wanted to build one anyway.
Being a Mechanical Engineer & an experienced drag car driver & builder, he constructed a chrome-moly tubed cockpit, covered it in carbon fiber, which made it bullet proof, however by the time Aussie Spirit was ready to run on the water, the cockpit rules had been enforced for Unlimited Water Speed Record crafts. This meant that test samples of a cockpit structure had to be tested before the boat was built. As the Aussie Spirit cockpit was part of the main structure, removing it was not an option.
With Blowering Dam at an all time low of 15% capacity in 2005 a New World Water Speed Record was out of the question, However Ken did make improvements to the way the boat planed and handled, He then did demonstration runs in Australia and U.S.A as part of the John Haggin’s AMF offshore Team. Ken is considering running Aussie Spirit next to the new Spirit of Australia II for demonstration runs,as two jet powered hydroplanes running side by side would be a world first.
