New headquarters for Victory Team

Class One Offshore racings' ever dominant Victory Team reached yet another milestone when Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation and Chairman of Emirates airlines yesterday officially opened the team's new headquarters near the Dubai Marina project.

Leading international powerboat teams and officials who are in Dubai for this weekend's final round of the UIM Class One World Championship to be held at the Dubai International Marine Club (DIMC) attended the function, after which they were taken on a guided tour of the state-of-art facility.

Khalfan Hareb, Managing Director and Gianfranco Venturelli, General Manager of the team, presided over the ceremony that also saw Sheikh Ahmed unveiling the new boat that Victory will race next year. Renowned American boat designer, Michael Peters assisted Sheikh Ahmed in the ceremony.

Hareb and Venturelli later revealed to the press that the Victory Team's future plans would also focus on manufacturing commercial race boats and cruisers.

Among the projects that Victory will be doing initially includes fabrication and construction of a 50-foot patrol boat, designed by Peters. The first boat of this kind is likely to be rigged by mid next year and will be ready for the open seas, it was announced.

Besides this, the Victory Team Headquarters also boasts the facilities and engineers to design and fabricate high tech and specialized parts for the boats, not to mention the ability to modify and develop race engines.

Victory has already been engaged in manufacturing two boats for two of their main competitors in the Class One circuit, Norwegian teams BRG Racing (Spirit of Norway) and KR Racing (Reverie).

Talking to the press, Hareb said: "We decided to step into something different after our team's outstanding success in powerboat racing over the years."

"By building boats for competitors, we are also allowing other teams to become more competitive, thus bringing more interest to the sport." he added.

Victory Team's commercial focus will be aimed towards a very specialised niche: the coast guard, rescue services and high performance race boats. There is also potential to work with large high-tech pleasure boats.

Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the Victory Team was started as a means to promote the city of Dubai and their outstanding success has lead the team to an unprecedented six Class One and four Class two World Offshore Championship titles.

With their branching into commercialism, the future of Victory Team looks to be just as promising as their past.