E1: Electric Power Boat racing in Jeddah

Earlier this year I was asked by Spears magazine to head out to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to photograph the first race in inaugural E1 powerboat series. Now something of this scale attracts some big names, with the likes of Tom Brady, Rafael Nadal and Marc Anthony as team owners. Saudi Arabia is heavily involved in the series with their Public Investment Fund (PIF) being one of the primary backers. Jeddah was an interesting choice for the race, it doesn’t really have the iconic backdrop that some of the future cities will have (Venice, Hong Kong to name two) and for a race that takes place entirely on the water I think you really need that iconic skyline as a backdrop. That said the Saudis turned what was a pretty drab section of the marina into a full paddock and viewing area within days – their workers pulling night shifts to get it ready in time. Considering it was the first one, it all ran pretty seamlessly.

The founders of the E1 series, Alejandro Agag, a former Spanish politician and Rodi Basso a former F1 engineer seem keen to promote it’s green credentials but obviously something of this scale is never going to carbon friendly. They do hope however that research and development that will go into the craft (the Racebird, designed by Norwegian boat designer Sophie Horn) will have wider implication for the electrification of maritime craft. Generally having an element of competition like this certainly does bring in the money and research required to drive innovation but only time will tell. The Saudis themselves were keen to promote their own research they have been doing at Kaust (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) into the regeneration of coral reefs in the Red Sea – an ambitious project that definitely has some serious money behind it and is a worthy cause.