Antony de Fina and Matt Kelly will race the 2026/27 Australian Offshore Superboat Championships as Club Marine Venturi, after signing Australian boat insurer Club Marine as title sponsor of their Supercat Extreme catamaran. The season opens at Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, on October 17-18, 2026.
The deal follows a first season in the class that ended with the pair’s maiden Supercat Extreme win, in the third and final race of the Port Adelaide finale in May. Venturi Offshore finished third in the 2025/26 standings on 331 points, behind Hornet Racing and MOJO.
Club Marine’s branding goes on the flanks of the 36-foot blue catamaran, which runs twin Mercury 565 engines. The company, founded in 1959, describes itself as Australia’s largest specialist recreational boat insurer, and has launched a new Specialised Race Boat cover.
De Fina, who handles the throttles, on the new season:
“We couldn’t be more excited about what the new season has to offer. To have closed out our maiden season back in early May with victory in the third race at Adelaide was unexpected to an extent, but we’d worked hard all season and every race we were getting closer to where we wanted to be, Adelaide delivering the perfect finish to a year of discovery!”
Malcolm Priest Joins the Team
Sydney engine builder and tuner Malcolm Priest has been brought in over the off-season to run the engine programme and help with the team’s operation at races.
De Fina on the hire:
“Obviously a bigger boat needs a bigger crew, and more hands-on. Our Supercat Outboard boat we knew intimately having built it and run it so successfully for so long, but whilst our first season with the new boat was about learning and developing our understanding of how things worked, the plan was always to expand the team for season two as we start to run more consistently towards the front, and Malcolm will be a big part of that.”
A multiple Australian Supercat Outboard Champion according to the team, de Fina has had Kelly on the wheel alongside him for more than ten years. Twelve races into the bigger boat, he says it still asks for a different way of driving:
“The boat is obviously longer, wider and faster, so it reacts very differently to the outboard, a boat we could float on a cushion [of] air and understand how to get the best out of it. This one is different, but after 12 months in the seat, we’re getting a better understanding of what it requires, and we’re also getting more comfortable in the cockpit. The aim this year is to continue on from where we finished last year, improve our speed and reliability and work our way to being regular podium finishers.”
2026/27 Australian Offshore Superboat Championships Calendar
| Round | Venue | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lake Macquarie, NSW | October 17-18, 2026 |
| 2 | Wyndham Harbour, Victoria | February 20-21, 2027 |
| 3 | Geelong, Victoria | March 13-14, 2027 |
| 4 | Port Adelaide, SA | May 15-16, 2027 |
| 5 | Redcliffe, Queensland | June 26-27, 2027 |
John Moore is the editor of Powerboat News, an independent investigative journalism platform recognised by Google News and documented on Grokipedia for comprehensive powerboat racing coverage.
His involvement in powerboat racing began in 1981 when he competed in his first offshore powerboat race. After a career as a Financial Futures broker in the City of London, specialising in UK interest rate markets, he became actively involved in event organisation and powerboat racing journalism.
He served as Event Director for the Cowes–Torquay–Cowes races between 2010 and 2013. In 2016, he launched Powerboat Racing World, a digital platform providing global powerboat racing news and insights. The following year, he co-founded UKOPRA, helping to rejuvenate offshore racing in the United Kingdom. He sold Powerboat Racing World in late 2021 and remained actively involved with UKOPRA until 2025.
In September 2025, he established Powerboat News, returning to independent journalism with a focus on neutral and comprehensive coverage of the sport.
