Apache 555 is out of the water, on her trailer, and her crew are safe. That is the only result that matters from Saturday’s Poole Bay 100 — and the team are already planning how to get her back.
The 57-year-old Don Shead hull was at the furthest offshore point of the rough weather course when water began coming in fast. Peter Bonham Christie, Bligh Julius, Dan Lee and Dan Howe were racing in Class 2 when the situation became critical. The UKOPRA safety boats responded immediately, Apache was taken under tow, and the crew ran her towards the shallows off Sandbanks and sat her on the bottom while they assessed the damage.
What happened
Dan Lee described the sequence of events after the boat was recovered. Apache was well offshore when the water ingress began — sudden and rapid. The safety network worked as it should: the boat was secured, the crew were out, and Apache did not sink.
The cause became clear once the hull came up during recovery. There is a puncture hole in the planking, large enough to put a full hand through. Lee’s assessment is that the boat hit something in the water — most likely a submerged log — at racing speed. The cedar and mahogany cold-moulded hull, built by Souter’s of Cowes in 1969, took the strike on the planing surface.
A hole that size at speed means the bilge fills quickly. There was no warning, no gradual build-up — just water, fast. The decision to beach her off Sandbanks rather than attempt a longer tow was the right one.
The recovery
Apache was lifted from the water by crane aboard the Jenkins Marine workbarge Stour, with the recovery team working from a RIB in the flat conditions of the bay. The operation was watched from Bournemouth beach by spectators who had come out for the racing.
Once ashore, the engines were drained and flushed through with diesel to protect the internals from salt water corrosion — a Perkins takes 53 litres to fill. The crew worked through the afternoon, cleaned the engines down, and made the party on time.
The boat
Apache 555 is not a boat that can be replaced. She was built by Souter’s of Cowes in 1969 to a Don Shead design, cold-moulded in three laminations of cedar and one of mahogany. She won the 1972 London to Monte Carlo race and the 1979 World Class II Championship in Venice. She spent nearly three decades in a museum before Nick Wilkinson restored her and returned her to racing. Peter Bonham Christie took over as custodian in February 2026.
The hull that Dan Lee has spent months analysing, scanning and optimising took a strike on Saturday that would have sunk many boats outright. The wooden construction absorbed it, and the boat floated long enough for the safety team to act. That matters.
The good news is it’s all repairable, it’s all fixable and we will get straight to work formulating the plan to get her back on the water and start racing.
Dan Lee
What comes next
The hull damage is repairable. Dan Lee, who has spent 2026 rebuilding and optimising Apache’s wooden planing surface, will lead the repair work. The team have three more UKOPRA rounds ahead of them this season.
This is not the first time Apache has come back from trouble on the water. It will not be the last.
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Read our full coverage of Peter Bonham Christie’s campaign to race one of British offshore racing’s most historic hulls.
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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.
