Team Blubanca’s D-20 Bids to Defend 3D World Title at Arendal

Team Blubanca Offshore Racing is on the road from Rome to Norway, bound for Arendal and the next round of the UIM Offshore World Championship.

The reigning Class 3D world champions, Serafino Barlesi and Joakim Kumlin, are back in the D-20 Victory for the Arendal Water Festival, running from Wednesday 29 July to Saturday 1 August. It is their first appearance since the disputed opening round at Rodi Garganico in June, where the team sat out Race 1 in protest before returning to the podium in Race 2.

Ten boats make up the Class 3D field at Arendal, part of a wider entry across four championships that PBN has covered in full in its event preview. The Victory has carried Barlesi and Kumlin to five world titles in the class, and the team wants to add to that tally on Norwegian water.

Arendal Water Festival turns the town centre into a race venue for four days, with the harbour hosting everything from the Class 3D world championship racing to a parade of boats through the town, echoing the Class 1 parades of years past. This year’s edition also includes a dedicated speed run, the one-on-one Speed Cat format that has become a festival fixture, and a Class 3D world record attempt on the Friday.

The Speed Cat also frames a wider story running through the paddock: the ongoing contest between the class’s established two-stroke engines and the newer four-stroke generation, a subject that continues to draw close attention across offshore racing.