Spirit of Australia

Spirit of Australia is a wooden speed boat built in a Sydney backyard, by Ken Warby, that broke and set the world water speed record on 8 October 1978 with a speed of 328 mph.

The record and boat

On 8 October 1978, Ken Warby rode the Spirit of Australia on Blowering Dam in Australia on opposite direction runs of and, for an official record speed of, with a peak speed of. It was powered by a Westinghouse J34 jet engine. The engine was developed by the Westinghouse Electric Company in the late 1940s and was used for jet fighters and other aircraft. Spirit of Australia is displayed permanently at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour, Sydney, New South Wales.

Starting in the early 1990s, Warby built a second jet boat, Aussie Spirit, powered with a fresh Westinghouse J34, but he never made a record attempt with it. Warby and his son Dave then worked on a new boat, Spirit of Australia II, powered by a Bristol Siddeley Orpheus jet engine taken from an Italian Fiat G.91 fighter. This was completed in December 2004. In 2007 Ken Warby handed over the reins to his son who achieved on a testing run on Blowering Dam in 2018. As of 22 May 2021 the team are still modifying the design.