This year we can proudly annouce that the festival will be visited by the Quicksilver Water Speed Record Challenge. The quest to go faster on water has challenged both man and machine for centuries. Whether for trading, waging war, or simply winning a coveted trophy, the desire for higher speeds has been relentless down the ages!

In its current form, the Quicksilver craft comprises: a main tubular hull structure (spaceframe), recently modified to fit the revised craft design; a Rolls-Royce Spey engine, temporarily mounted, but already incorporating several mounting components suitable for high-speed runs on water; a jetpipe (jet engine exhaust pipe) that still requires lengthening to fit the revised craft design; a fuel tank, capacity 400 litres, suitable for high-speed runs on water; patterns for the sponsons, from which a set of moulds will be made to create the actual sponsons to be used in initial waterborne trials; and some on-board systems, including much of the fire detection and suppression system, two batteries (main and backup) and some other electrical components, parts of the engine air-start system, and elements of the radio communications system.

More information on the Quicksilver teams attempt can be found on their website