Spirit of Australia



Spirit of Australia is a wooden speed boat built in a Sydney backyard, by Ken Warby, that broke and set the world water speed record on 8 October 1978.

The record and boat
On 8 October 1978, Ken Warby rode the Spirit of Australia on the Tumut River near the Blowering Dam in Australia on opposite direction runs of 492.813 km/h and 529.412 km/h, for an official record of 511.11 km/h, with a peak speed of 555 km/h. It was powered by a Westinghouse J34 jet engine. The engine was developed by the Westinghouse Electric Company in the late 1940s and was used for jet fighters and other aircraft. Spirit of Australia is displayed permanently at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour, Sydney, New South Wales.

Successors
Starting in the early 1990s, Warby built a second jet boat, Aussie Spirit powered with a fresh Westinghouse J34, but he never made a record attempt with it. Warby and his son Dave then worked on a new boat, Spirit of Australia II, powered by a Bristol Siddeley Orpheus jet engine taken from an Italian Fiat G.91 fighter. This was completed in December 2004. In 2007 Ken Warby handed over the reins to his son who achieved 314 km/h on a testing run on Blowering Lake in 2018. As of 22 May 2021 the team are still modifying the design.