Nearly one year has passed since Maritimo Racing crossed the finish line of a Powerboat Grand Prix – The year 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic has seen almost all classes of international powerboat racing put on hold until further notice.

Even with no international racing on the horizon for 2020, Maritimo Racing are busily preparing for their UIM XCAT World Championship and Australian Superboat title defence, when that day comes.

Maritimo Racing has used the 2020 extended offseason to embark on an extensive testing and development program with the team’s R30 XCAT, extracting more performance, reliability, and valuable seat time with weekly testing.

Maritimo’s R30 XCAT and equipment was shipped from Dubai back to Australia in December, and has been with the team for testing since January.

“It’s highly unusual for us to get such long periods of time for us to test and develop, dial in, and clock up seat time, when our boats are being transported from race to race throughout the season, said Maritimo Racing spokesman and driver Tom Barry-Cotter.

“The positive with offseason testing versus during a season, is that you are willing to try things, that you would never try in a race, and steps backwards still give valuable data to making further improvements.

“We have worked on a wide array of things, and we are finding little gains all the time, when accumulated equate to a couple of seconds a lap, from where we were last year.”

Maritimo has been in consistent contact with organisers of the UIM XCAT World Championship and Australian Offshore Superboat Championship, ready for the call up for racing to resume.

“Series organisers are working hard in the background with plans for racing championships to resume in 2021, but it is an incredibly challenging feat to organise,” said Barry-Cotter.

“All we can do is to continue to develop, improve, and be ready.”

Maritimo is in a unique position internationally in the luxury motor yacht manufacturing sector being the only company with a dedicated race team competing internationally.

The knowledge gained through the racing division ultimately feeds through to the production motor yachts enhancing performance, design, engineering, fuel economy and overall usability.

Individual elements such as laminates, weight distribution, hydrodynamics, engineering systems, propeller development, steering and handling, are just some of the technologies linked back to knowledge gained through the racing experience.

Barry-Cotter said the ultimate winners were Maritimo owners.