T&T’s cul­ture is set to be on dis­play when the 56th edi­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Great Race takes place on Au­gust 16, from the Fore­shore, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, to Crown Point, To­ba­go.

More than 40 boats will at­tempt this year’s event, rep­re­sent­ing an in­crease in par­tic­i­pa­tion num­bers, said T&T Power­boat As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) pres­i­dent Ste­fan Scott-Lewis at Wednes­day’s me­dia launch at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Yacht Club.

This year’s race will al­so mark Scott-Lewis’ first in charge of the TTP­BA, hav­ing tak­en over from Jonathan Tardieu last year. And he as­sured that, un­like pre­vi­ous years, the rac­ers will be treat­ed like roy­al­ty in a cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za af­ter the race.

“We now want to cap­ture the cul­ture that T&T has to of­fer, where the gov­ern­ment and every­one from To­ba­go will help us bring it all to­geth­er by in­clud­ing every­thing that we’re known for. We’re known for the moko jumbies, the fire breathers, we’re known for Car­ni­val, so we want to cap­ture that and make more of an ex­pe­ri­ence than just a lime,” Scott-Lewis shared to a small group at the launch.

In 2024, Lim­it­less was the first boat to ar­rive in To­ba­go in a time of one hour, 37 min­utes and 53 sec­onds, while al­so earn­ing the G-Class (60mph) ti­tle. Mr So­lo Too, ex­pect­ed­ly, took home the 130mph class, as the largest and fastest boat among the field, but Scott-Lewis is as­sur­ing stronger com­pe­ti­tion for these larg­er class­es with new com­peti­tors ex­pect­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Scott-Lewis, “Based on our ex­pe­ri­ence over the years of hav­ing the Re­gat­tas, we’re ex­pect­ing new­er boats. We’re gonna have small­er boats and def­i­nite­ly, I know the crowd favourites, but we’re gonna have big­ger boats for sure. Big­ger boats in the 130-mile class, and big­ger boats in the 120-mile class, and boats in the 95-mile class.”

Scott-Lewis added, “Some boats are com­ing to give Mr So­lo a run. As of right now, we have Vor­tex on board, we have Iron­man on board, and we have more boats to come on track, but I’ll leave that for a sur­prise on the day. Mean­while, two of three rac­ers have ex­pressed their readi­ness for race day.”

Niko­lai As­sam, who will pi­lot the 60-mph cam­paign­er John Wick, is at­tempt­ing to con­tain the boat’s speed with the great race just three weeks away. The boat placed third in that cat­e­go­ry at last year’s Great Race, but As­sam is cer­tain that there will be an im­proved per­for­mance and po­si­tion this year.

He said, “We’ve done a lot of work on the boat, a lot of up­grades, so we’re con­fi­dent. I’m even more con­fi­dent than we were last year that we’re go­ing to do well. We’ve pow­ered the boat, and it got a lit­tle bit too much pow­er, but the boat per­formed fan­tas­ti­cal­ly. We’ve been hav­ing prob­lems keep­ing it un­der the speed lim­it this year, but we’ve been do­ing some ad­just­ments, and I think we will have it ready for the Great Race.”

Gor­don Dal­gleish, the dri­ver of Tyrant in the 95mph class, is hop­ing that things go his crew’s way on race day. The boat mal­func­tioned while ex­it­ing Mara­cas in 2024, but still man­aged to claim the cat­e­go­ry ti­tle. Da­gleish told Guardian Me­dia Sport he still feels that they can bag the win on Au­gust 16.

“We’re hop­ing that the boat will per­form as in­tend­ed. We’re hop­ing that we get a calm race, and we’re al­so hop­ing that the boat holds to­geth­er so that we can reach To­ba­go safe­ly. We’re hop­ing that we have a good day, and the oth­er boats have a bad day so that we can win the Great Race,” Da­gleish ex­plained.

“Our clos­est com­peti­tor in the 95mph is Iron­man, who com­petes in the 110mph, so we’re close­ly matched kind of in speed class­es, but you know, 110 and 95 is a big dif­fer­ence, so if we have a great day and they have a bad day, we could do it. Last year, we won our class. We had a lit­tle mal­func­tion com­ing out of Mara­cas, where we had to slow down to about 70mph, so we didn’t per­form as we in­tend­ed, but we still man­aged to hold on and won our class.”

Tardieu, throt­tle­man of Ex­treme Mea­sures, says he is un­sure of whether they can de­fend their ti­tle. “Right now, we’re not ready at all. Our en­gines have been com­plete­ly scrapped. We have a lot of work to do on the boat, and we have about a month be­fore the Great Race. We’ll see in two weeks if we’re ready. At this point in time, we’re go­ing through every knot, bolt, you name it, we’re go­ing through it right now. The boat is in pieces and I’m not even sure if it will float, but by the time Great Race morn­ing comes, it’s go­ing to be a dif­fer­ent sto­ry for sure.”

All rac­ers have al­so said that apart from their com­peti­tors, their biggest chal­lenge will be the un­pre­dictable wa­ter con­di­tions.

Mean­while, the T&T Power­boat As­so­ci­a­tion will have its boat pa­rade on Au­gust 2.