Eighty year olds cross Channel in Bond boat

Ray Bulman and Geoff Tobert cross Channel in attempt to prove that adventure is still out there, no matter your age

This morning at 5am, a classic Sunseeker sportsboat slipped its lines and pulled onto the Thames at Putney for the start of a 230-mile return crossing to Calais.

On board are two eighty-year-old powerboat veterans determined to prove that age is no barrier to a good time.

Ray Bulman, 79, and lifelong friend Geoff Tobert, 80, are retracing the route of the famous Putney-to-Calais powerboat race in a 40-year-old Sovereign powerboat last seen in Bond movie Quantum of Solace.

Ray has been a powerboat racing correspondent for MBM’s sister title Motor Boat & Yachting for some time, and Geoff actually sold the moulds to the Sovereign to a young Robert Braithwaite – now Sunseeker MD – in 1968.

Ray told MBM: “We used to run from Putney all the time, and this is really a test to see if we can still do it. I don’t want to call it one last voyage, but we are doing it to relive old times and show older people that given good health, there’s still adventure out there.”

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For more on the trip, visit www.runabout2superyacht.co.uk 

 

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