The Ukrainian Spirit success of last year, coupled with the unfortunate and uncertain sport situation in Europe, has convinced the team to plan on concentrating on the SBI this season.

The boats were left in America at the end of last year’s Key West event and required overhaul and maintenance work will be carried out in preparation for the SBI Championship.

This year’s SBI calendar of events comprises seven races valid for US national championship and again reaches its climax with the 32nd Key West world championship.

This season Ukrainian Spirit Project will be contesting in two events, namely, in the 22nd annual New York Grand Prix – Tribute to 911 in New York between 7 and 9 September and in the 32nd annual Key West world championship in Florida between 4 and 11 November. In both events Malta-built boats Ukrainian Spirit and Seagull will be raced.

UIM-Ukrainian Spirit

Project negotiations

As pointed out above the present unfortunate and uncertain sport situation in Europe has seen the failure of the P1 World Championship which brought disappointment and frustration to the various sport enthusiasts both as participants and as followers.

In their efforts to revive the P1 world championship, the Ukrainian Spirit Project has submitted a business plan to the Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM), the international governing body of powerboating, and is negotiating the attainment of the licence to organise the P1 (Evolution & Super-Sport) worlds again.

As representatives of Super Boat International in Europe and their proven record track in the sport they are keen to widen the dimension of the P1 world championship.

New Chaudron boat

for Ukrainian nationals

The Ukrainian Spirit Project has seen and tested a new boat by Maltese boat-builders Chaudron and are working on the possibility of getting five or six of them to open a new class with same in the Ukrainian national Powerboat championship. The new boat is the 22-footer Chaudron PRO S 22 which for the proposed competition will be equipped with a 200/225hp outboard motor. This new model is just being introduced on the market this year.

The Ukrainian Spirit Project are planning to be among the elite of the powerboating world and contest The Venture Cup - UIM Cowes to Monte-Carlo World Cup Grand Prix 2013. Facing a 2,400 miles run, this will be the longest and toughest powerboat race in the world.

The UIM Cowes to Monte-Carlo World Cup Grand Prix will start on Saturday 8 June in 2013 from Cowes on the Isle of Wight in the UK and will last in total 15 days, visiting 11 cities touching France, Northern Spain, Portugal, through the Straights of Gibraltar onto southern Spain, southern France and then onto the final dash for the finish along the famous Cote D’Azur to Monte Carlo and Monaco.

A race fleet of some 50 high speed long range powerboats, some of the very best in the world, are expected to participate. Ukrainian Spirit will be contesting the Venture Cup with a Chaudron built boat. What has still to be decided is whether to modify one of the existing boats or build a new one specifically for the event.

The Project

The Ukrainian Spirit Project (USP) was set up in 2006. Besides backing the Ukrainian team to contest the P1 Championship, the Ukrainian Spirit Project supported other Ukrainian sports initiatives like a children’s team in the World JT250 Circuit in Estonia, as well as others to compete in a European Formula 250 Championship in Hungary and a World O250 Circuit Championship in Sweden.

This project is an excellent example where politicians, businessmen and sportsmen joined forces under the auspices of the National Ukrainian Powerboat Federation (NUPF), the only official body which unites and represents interests of Ukrainian powerboat sportsmen.

Today the Ukrainian Spirit Project (USP) has widened its activities namely being the representatives of Super Boat International with a right to organise world status championships and European cups water events, organise the Yalta Grand Prix of the sea, the World Powerboat Cup in Kiev and the European Powerboat Festival in Ternopil.

Their prime assignment remains the ownership and management of the national racing team ‘Ukrainian Spirit’ recognised as multiple world champion, winners of World and European competitions in the most prestige class of powerboat races.

The Ukrainian Spirit

Project and Malta

Viktor Shemchuk had been a P1 championship keen enthusiast for years, initially only on TV but in 2008 he started to attend P1 races, regarded the equivalent to F1 on water, as a spectator.

When the team, together with the investors Sergey Tsyupko and Sergey Brova, who are renowned Ukrainian patrons of art, decided to build a boat for the SuperSport Class, they had many options.

They attended various boat shows including the famous one in Miami. But none of the leading companies fulfilled their requirements... they needed a company that would not only build a boat but would follow it giving technical support and a specialist’s service throughout the whole season.

Such a complex approach they found only in one company – Chaudron of Malta.

The first link of a successful partnership was Seagull Chaudron, a 13-metre boat with twin 570hp inboard engines, built by Chaudron for the Ukrainian Spirit Project (USP) to race in the Super-Sport Class of the 2009 UIM Powerboat P1 world championship which the Ukrainian owned Maltese-built powerboat dominated and won.

A major arrangement in this Ukrainian-Maltese partnership was that boat-builder Aaron Ciantar, already a Super-Sport Class world champion in 2007 and 2008, was to be driver of the Ukrainian-owned boat with owner Viktor Shemchuk as crew member.

This immediate success motivated enthusiastic aspiration for more success. In season 2010 racing team owner Shemchuk ordered another 13-metre powerboat, a Chaudron Canopy 41 model.

However this time it had twin inboard 800hp engines and was moved over to the Evolution Class. The project was ‘Ukrainian Spirit’ where Victor Shemchuk, as throttle, and Aaron Ciantar as driver, had quite an interesting but mixed fortune season.

In 2011 Ukrainian Spirit Project (USP) decided to venture outside the Mediterranean and Europe to test their driving ability and powerful machine, the team ‘Ukrainian Spirit’, in Super Boat racing in America.

Their testing waters were the 31st Key West world championship held last November which brought immediate success to the USP team racing Maltese-built boats – a Class victory to Seagull crewed by a Ukrainian team and a World Championship victory to Ukrainian Spirit raced by team owner-throttle Victor Shemchuk and Aaron Ciantar as driver.

The SBI world championship was contested by 61 teams from three continents – North America, Europe and Australia.

Indeed a satisfying three-year racing adventure based on sound professional working relationship coupled with reliable and quality equipment.