Preparing For The Trip To Doha

The Hoegh Delhi will be carrying our boat, truck and trailer to Doha for the Oryx Cup

We are among the ten H1 race teams busy making preparations for the trip to Qatar on the Arabian Gulf for the 2014 Oryx Cup UIM World Championship. The race will be held November 20-22 on Doha Bay.

Again, logistics for shipping of the fleet to Doha are being handled by Peters & May, the official shipping provider for the H1 Unlimited series.

Neil Mckeown, Operations Manager for Peters & May says, “We are delighted to be carrying the H1 cargo to Doha for the 5th year running. The Oryx Cup is the pinnacle of H1 racing and all of the teams will be fighting for the title of World Champion.”

In a change from previous seasons, three of the boats, the U11, U12 & U100 are being shipped using the flat rack system which is new to H1. Those boats are loading to the flat racks this week and the contents of the trucks will go into 20’ containers.

Upon arrival in Doha the boats (on their cradles) will be placed in the pit area and each of the teams will be given a tent and air conditioned office to operate from. The cradles have extensions to allow for access to the underside of the boat and external parts of the hull, the rudder,skidfin etc.

This system allows the teams to ship 37 days to Doha and 38 days back. It also means that all of the truck items are in a sealed container and protected from theft etc. The container carriers offer more flexibility with regular sailings to most global destinations, opening up the possibility for future additional international races. The flat racks are shipping on the Maersk Pittsburgh sailing from Charleston on October 3rd and arriving in Doha approximately November 9th.

Mckeown says, “Normally the shipping process starts three months prior to shipment date. However we started the design stage for the flat rack solution over nine months ago. We are looking forward to showing the benefits of the system for future use in the sport.”

The other seven boats, seven team trucks, the H1 truck and dive boat will be shipping RORO (roll on roll off) on the Hoegh Delhi. The vessel will sail from Jacksonville on October 12th and arrive in Doha approximately November 15th. Upon arriving in Doha the teams will be staged in the pit area as usual.

Mckeown added, “On behalf of Peters & May we would like to thank, H1, QMSF and H.E. Sheikh Hassan Bin Jabor Al Thani for their commitment to Powerboat racing. We are looking forward to some deck to deck racing on Doha Bay.”

The ten boats scheduled to make the trip to Doha are:

6 Oberto

1 Graham Trucking

7 Graham Trucking

9 Les Schwab/RedDOT

21 Schumacher Racing

22 Webster Racing

11 Peters & May

96 Spirit of Qatar

12 Miss DiJulio

100 Leland Unlimited