Safehaven Marine is an Irish shipyard that builds workboats for the military and professional seafarers. These boats have a reputation for incredible strength and seaworthiness. For its communication, this shipyard has built a motor boat capable of breaking long distance records.
The XSV20 "Thunder Child II" is a 23 m (5.40 m wide) monohull propelled by 4 Caterpillard engines of 650 hp (or 2600 hp!). Propulsion is done by France Hélice surface propellers (cockpit !). Despite its 24.5 tons, this boat reaches a top speed of 54 knots (35 to 45 knots cruising speed). With 8,000 litres of fuel, it has a range of 750 miles. This boat was built with a view to tackling the Atlantic crossing record in particular.
On 9th August 2020, with perfect weather, the 5-person crew with Frank Kowalski as skipper set sail to establish a reference time on a round trip to the Fastnet from Cork. That's 115 miles along the Irish coast.
Frank Kowalski says: "A fter a reconnaissance trip on the Fastnet the day before and with near perfect weather conditions, we made the decision to try to set the record the next day. We crossed the start line from Weavers Point at the entrance to Cork Harbour at 2pm on Sunday 9th August with light winds and only a long Atlantic swell to face. We left for the first leg heading west. Arriving at Fastnet Rock 1 hour and 21 minutes later, we were surprised and delighted to see a huge flotilla of 40 to 50 boats waiting for us near the rock to watch us pass by and wave at us. Although it was a bit stressful to pass them as we rounded the rock, it was just fabulous to see them all chasing Thunder Child II as we made our way back. We passed Stags Rock and Kinsale Lighthouse heading east with boats coming out to watch us.
We didn't have any problems on this trip. We have been kind to the engines, keeping them at only 85-90% of full power throughout the whole trip. We only went full throttle for the last 10 miles to the finish line at over 50 knots.
In a time of 2 hours 36 minutes, we made an average of 44.6 knots, which is pretty good, I think, for a 23 metre boat, recording a maximum speed of 53 knots during the race? "
