Dubai: Class One racing has evolved through the years. From the first race held between Miami and Nassau in the Bahamas till modern day racing, the sport has come to be one of the most exciting.

And one of the most sacred aspects determining the outcome of a race is the kind of propellors used by the boats. "The prop is everything in a boat. If you don't have a good prop, it does not make sense and all your work during the winter testing means nothing," said Luciano Barbati, the crew chief of Victory 7.

Initially, boats were in favour of fast props, ones that could help them achieve maximum speed to outdo the other competitors. But no longer, teams now focus on the reliability of a prop, at the same time ensuring that the prop can deliver on negotiating corners, bends and turns and attaining high speed in the shortest possible time. Class one boats are allowed to use only five-blade forged props during the world championships. And the use of props very much depends on water conditions - if the course is flat then it is big props to as to get a top speed, while if the seas are choppy and uneven, then smaller props to ensure maximum acceleration and make sure the boat goes over the water instead of hitting the waves.

Good race

Working for a set-up like Victory can be disappointing, especially when a negligible aspect undoes all the hard work put in by the teams. "We work continuously for two to three months to get the boat ready for one hour of racing and then something goes wrong. This feeling is simply too disappointing and frustrating," Barbati said.

"We do everything to ensure the team has a good race and then suddenly a brand new prop breaks - like what happened in Qatar and Norway last season. We have a prop which is seven years old and the two which broke last year were brand new ones."

The 40-year-old Barbati has been with Victory Team since 1988 and his most defining moment with the set-up came in 2000 when Khalfan Hareb and Ali Nasser won six out of the 10 races that season.

"Ours was the fastest boat ever built, it was a diesel engine and the beauty of it all was that the boat was so simple and yet so fast and any sort of sea condition was no problem at all," Barbati said.

His best race till date was in 2001 where V7 and V77 went head to head and Saeed Al Tayer won the world title right here in Dubai. "We lapped all the other boats and both our boats were cracked at the end of the race. But it was worth it as we took the top two positions in the world championships," Barbati said.