SPEED DEMONS Meet the Warby's! WORDS MICHELLE MEEHAN - Features Writer
Dave Warby has always looked up to his father, Ken. In 1977, as a seven-year-old, he celebrated when his Dad set a new Outright Unlimited World Water Speed Record of 288mph (464kph) in a hand-built jet-powered hydroplane. A year later, on October 8, 1978, he waited in anticipation as his father returned to Blowering Dam in NSW to see how much faster he could go. With the boat he had painstakingly built in his own backyard, Ken reached a new high speed of 317mph (511kph) – a record that has been challenged but never broken since. Now, at the age of 50, Dave is hoping to step out of his father’s wake and make a few waves of his own by taking a tilt at Ken’s title. His goal is not only to break his father’s record but to see if he can reach a mind-boggling 431mph (550kph). While the Novocastrian has spent the past five years building and refining the boat he hopes will help deliver the new record, it is an achievement he has been working towards for most of his life. “I grew up as a kid watching (Dad) build the boat in the backyard. I mean, it was literally the backyard of a suburban house, it wasn't in a workshop or anything,” Dave said. I wasn't allowed to go and watch him break the record because Dad said if something happened, he didn't want his family there. 14 | www.intouchmagazine.com.au
“But I watched the boat being tested, and I grew up around boat racing, every weekend was spent going to a boat racing meet. “So, just growing up around that as a kid and seeing your father build a boat with a lot of people saying he’d never do it and then actually take on the world and beat it from a suburban backyard with limited funds… that was a huge inspiration as to why I’m doing it now. “I always wanted to do what Dad had done - I just grew up with the world’s speed record being the ultimate goal.” While Dave said his father was initially against the idea of him attempting the feat (others including one of Ken’s good friends had tried and failed in the past, with tragic consequences), Ken’s confidence in his son’s abilities to both build and drive the boat has seen the pair work side-by-side on the project for the past five years. “It's something I always wanted to do. I grew up with that being the holy grail of sport in my opinion, but he initially told me not to do it,” Dave said. “When I was a teenager I had always built models of boats to show him, you know, this is what it will do, and they were all crappy designs. “But as I got older and I started to build my own boats and race my own boats, he knew I was serious, and he knew I was going to have a go at it. “But he also knew that I could drive a boat and build a boat as well, and he’s probably the hardest person to convince that you can drive a boat or build a boat because he’s seen so many people go wrong at it. If I didn't have the right stuff, he wouldn't have even been involved in it, to be honest.
“We eat, sleep and breathe boats. Just having him there for the five years next to me as we’ve built this boat, being able to not just talk to your father but talk to the only person alive that’s ever held the record, and the only person that’s ever built and driven a boat to a record is priceless.” While Ken, now 79, lives in the United States these days he regularly returns to Australia to help Dave with the project. He was on hand in May when Dave and the rest of his Warby Motorsport team – which includes a number of guys who, as young apprentices, helped Ken during his recordbreaking campaigns in the 70's – took the boat to Blowering Dam to test its capabilities. “It's a really good father and son project. I mean, Dad lives in the States now but he flew out every now and then from the States and we built the boat in Newcastle,” Dave said.
“My father is the only person in history to ever build, design and drive a boat to world water speed record. He's the only person alive in the world that's ever held the water speed record. So, you don't get better support or better knowledge than from what he’s got. “He comes to see each test at the dam. We’re calling him the interested spectator now because the team just run it and he can enjoy it. He’s never seen a jet boat run before, let alone his son drive one, so he can sit back, watch it and just enjoy it.
