misssupertestiii-blog

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Chasing the Harmsworth

Miss Supertest III was built with one goal in mind: to win the Harmsworth Trophy.

It’s a goal that has consumed many people over the years and seen many millions of dollars spent on innovation and design. But what is the Harmsworth Trophy?

Formally the British International Trophy for Motorboats, the prize was introduced in 1903 by Alfred Harmsworth. Later Sir Alfred, the Viscount Northcliffe, Harmsworth was a journalist who became rich by buying failing newspapers and turning them into the early stages of “the popular press.” He launched the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror, bought the Times and the Sunday Times, and eventually controlled the largest publishing empire in the world, with nearly half of the newspaper circulation in Britain.

With a keen eye for what would sell papers, and a boyish enthusiasm for adventure, in 1903 he created the world’s first trophy for international boat racing. The Harmsworth was unique in that it was awarded to a winning nation, rather than to the individual boat. Competing boats had to be under 40 feet long and the hull, engine and crew all had to come from the same country.

England won the first trophy in 1903, then France in 1904. Races were held only when a challenge was issued, and not at all during the first or second world wars. In 1920, Gar Wood, the American builder and driver, took the trophy, and defended it in a series of boats, all named Miss America, until 1933.

When competition resumed in 1949, a Canadian family – Ernest Wilson and his son Harold – decided to challenge for the trophy. To do that, they needed to get permission to modify the rules, allowing a Canadian-built boat to use an engine built within the British Empire. In 1949, Miss Canada, built in Gravenhurst, Ontario and powered by a British-built Rolls-Royce engine, challenged for the Harmsworth.

The Americans won the trophy that year, and again in 1950. Although the Wilsons had won tremendous success as a racing team – including winning three World Championships and setting a world speed record – they would retire without claiming the Harmsworth.

Their successors were another father-son team, Gordon and Jim Thompson. They bought Miss Canada III and Miss Canada IV from the Wilsons (who had turned down other offers from American buyers in order to keep the boats in Canada). Miss Canada III was retired, but Miss Canada IV was renamed Miss Supertest, and readied to challenge for the Harmsworth again.

It would take years of design and research before the Thompsons won the Harmsworth. They did it with a new boat, Miss Supertest III, a boat so good that it did something no other boat had ever done: won the Harmsworth three times.

After the third win, in 1962, it became clear that there was no other boat that could challenge for the Harmsworth. The race wouldn’t be run again until 1977, when a British boat won the race. Since then, the trophy has become even more international, with winners from Australia, Monaco, Italy, Austria, Norway and Germany. The latest versions of the Harmsworth have been run as an offshore race beginning and ending on England’s Isle of Wight.

The 1960 race, when Miss Supertest III won with an average speed of 116 mph, remains the fastest Harmsworth race ever run.

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Celebrate a Canadian racing legend

Sixty years ago, a new boat rolled out of a barn near London, Ontario. It was destined to do something that had never been done before.

Miss Supertest III was designed and built with one thing in mind: to win the Harmsworth Trophy, an award given to the winner of an international challenge race. No Canadian boat had ever won the Harmsworth; Miss Supertest III would not just win it, but it would win it three times, a feat that no boat has done before or since.

It is an amazing powerhouse of a boat, 30 feet of gleaming mahogany, powered by a Rolls Royce Griffon V12 airplane engine. The engine and supercharger alone are eight feet long, pushing out 2,000 hp that could propel her across the water at well over 170 mph.  At full speed the boat would rise up out of the water entirely: the only parts touching the water were two palm-sized patches of wood, 14 inches of rudder, and half the propeller that was churning at 11,000 revolutions a minute.

For many years, Miss Supertest was arguably the most famous boat in Canada. It was featured on the front pages of newspapers, and on the cover of Macleans. It was paraded down Yonge Street and shown at the CNE. When the Ontario Science Centre opened in 1967, Miss Supertest was put on permanent display and remained there for nearly 40 years.

This summer, Miss Supertest will be seen again, on display at boat shows in Gravenhurst (July 6) and Rideau Ferry (August 17-18). And plans are underway to build a Canadian RaceBoat Hall of Fame, with Miss Supertest at its heart.

This summer, we will be celebrating the boat, and the people who made it and raced it.

Follow us on facebook and Instagram. Share your memories of that amazing summer of 1959. And on August 25 – the anniversary of its first historic Harmsworth win – join us on Twitter as we “live” tweet the three-race challenge.

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This is a big year for Canada.

2019 marks the 60th anniversary of Miss Supertest III's first Harmsworth Trophy win. This Canadian beauty has a remarkable history filled with up and downs as she sought to preserve her title as "The boat that couldn't be beat."

Follow us as we go back in time and give you the inside scoop on where Miss Supertest will be this summer.