Kenneth P. Warby

  General Notes:

Mick Tait notes: Ken Warby holds the World Water Speed record set in 1978 at Blowering Dam NSW

Calvin Warby notes:
Ken may be nearing 70 (2008), a little slower in his reactions and lot tighter fit in the cockpit these days, but Ken Warby, the world's fastest man on water, insists he's still crazy enough to give speed-record racing another go. Though only if someone improves on his mark of 511.11kmh, which has stood for 30 years, and may stand for 30 more. "There's a couple of blokes out there talking about having a crack. But that's all they ever do - talk," he explained yesterday. Warby was in Sydney to present the National Maritime Museum with a scale model of Spirit of Australia, the hydroplane in which he set the record on October 8, 1978, on Blowering Dam, near Tumut. He recalls that distant Sunday morning in the Snowy Mountains vividly.
The boat, propelled by a secondhand, $65 motor that had been tweaked by RAAF engineers in Wagga, was tried and tested. The water conditions were near perfect: not mirror-smooth, but with sufficient chop to give the boat light aeration it required. And Warby was confident of beating the old mark. "Still, it was an odd feeling sitting at the top of a straight nine-mile course knowing that statistically you'd only a 50-50 chance of survival," he said, recalling the high deathrate among challengers such as John Cobb, Donald Campbell and Lee Taylor. Fortunately, his "white lady", as he calls Spirit of Australia, which already hangs in the museum, did not let him down. "She never lifted her nose. Kept dead on line. Never went on sponsored walk halfway down the track." So how did it feel travelling at more than 500kmh, seated in front of a 6000horsepower jet engine, protected by a thin sheet of plexiglass? "Put it this way: it beats driving a Holden Monaro." He insists he could have gone faster. "I really didn't want to beat the 500 mark. I thought I'd save that for another time," Warby said with a flash of the showmanship that made him an Australian crowd favourite 30 years ago. "But halfway along, I got an itchy foot, and let it rip." Warby, who now lives and still competes at powerboat events in the US, is willing to put his body on the line again. He even has a bigger, better, faster boat, called Aussie Spirit, in his garage in Cincinnati, raring to go. But there are snags. First, the new boat does not meet Australian safety standards, something he blames on the country's tall-poppy syndrome. He could possibly race elsewhere, but insists he wants to return to Blowering, where he runs into the second snag. In 1978 the reservoir - which offered a clear 14.5-kilometre run, ideal for accelerating and slowing, between two long, thin mountains - was at between 90 and 95 per cent of capacity. Last time Warby was there, "you could throw a stone across it". Extracted From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ken Warby (born 9 May 1939) is an Australian motorboat racer, who currently holds the Water speed record of 317.60 miles per hour (511.13 kilometres per hour. This was set in Blowering Dam, part of the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme, near Tumut, New South Wales, roughly 250 miles (400 km) south-south west of Sydney, on 8 October 1978. As a child, Warby's hero was Donald Campbell, who died attempting to break the record in 1967. Warby designed the hull of his record-breaking boat, Spirit of Australia, himself and built it in his backyard. He started the project as a Makita salesman who happened to team up with two Leading Aircraft Men at RAAF Base Richmond in the early 1970s. Crandall and Cox were instrumental in installing and engineering the Westinghouse engine that was not in working order when first obtained. The Spirit was covered with a canvas tarpaulin when it rained and was made of wood and fibreglass. Warby was able to obtain the jet engine himself as military surplus; obtained from an auction for only $69. On 20 November 1977, he set the world water speed record of 288.60 mph (464.46 km/h), breaking the record of Lee Taylor by a little over 3 mph. With his 317.60 mph run, he was the only person to exceed 300 mph (482 km/h) on water and live to tell the tale; Donald Campbell died on his attempt after his hydroplane crashed at over 320 mph on his return run in his 1967 record attempt. Warby's record still stands, and the 300 mph barrier has never again been exceeded. By 2003 Warby had designed and built another vessel, which he has called Aussie Spirit, and with which he planned to increase his own record. It is of similar dimensions to Spirit of Australia and also is powered by a Westinghouse J34 jet engine. The rudder alone on this new boat cost more than the $10,000 all-up cost of the original Spirit. Again, Warby designed, built, self financed and piloted his own boat. In recent years, Warby has been associated with offshore power boat racing in the US with the AMF team. It was at such an event with AMF at Chattanooga, Tennessee on 16 October 2007 that he officially ran his jetboat for the last time. On the 30th anniversary of the 1977 record, Warby announced his retirement from further record attempts. Warby has commented "This date is the one that is most important to me as it was the realisation of a lifetime dream of holding the record for Australia. The 317.60 mph, though important, was only the icing on a wonderful cake. I intend to do some celebrating on that November 20th evening and have a toast to my departed team members, Prof Fink and Major Bob Apathy, who are sadly missed" Actual text from an email sent by Ken Warby 11 November 2007. The fastest man on water, Australia's Ken Warby, made a special presentation to the Australian National Maritime Museum on 8 October to mark the 30th anniversary of his setting the world water speed record at a still unconquered 511.11 km/h. He travelled to Sydney from his adopted home near Cincinnati in Ohio, USA, to be with his hydroplane Spirit of Australia on the anniversary and to give the National Maritime Museum a wind tunnel test model used in the development of the boat. Warby designed and built the jet-powered Spirit of Australia himself and drove it to two successive world records on NSW's Blowering Dam: 464.44 km/h on 20 November 1977 and then the astounding 511.11 km/h on 8 October 1978. Spirit of Australia, 8.2 metres long, built of plywood on a timber frame and powered by an ex-RAAF Lockheed-Neptune jet engine, is now a permanent exhibit at the Australian National maritime Museum. Warby, 69, says as a boy he idolised Donald Campbell, the British motorboat racer. In a remarkable career Campbell set seven world records between 1955 and 1964 in the jet hydroplane Bluebird K7, raising the world mark from 287.26 to 444.71 km/h. Campbell was killed trying to set yet another world record and break through the so-called 300 mph (483 km/h) barrier in the process. He died on 4 January 1967 when Bluebird K7 flipped and disintegrated travelling at speeds certainly in excess of 480 km/h on Lake Coniston in the north of England. Warby raced speedboats from an early age, and applied his practical experience to designing and then building his own boats. In 1970, working on the kitchen table of his Sydney suburban home, he sketched the boat the would become world famous as Spirit of Australia, and started to build it in the confined space of his backyard. Working with a shoestring budget he assembled the components himself, including the ex-RAAF surplus jet engine for which he paid less than $100. Well into the construction stage, in 1975, he approached Professor Tom Fink, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of NSW whom he learned had earlier assisted Donald Campbell with the design of Bluebird. Fink asked him to make a wind tunnel test model of Spirit of Australia from balsawood at the scale of 1:12 - which Warby did "in a couple of nights." After carrying out wind tests, Fink congratulated Warby on his design work. Where earlier tests had shown Bluebird's lift-off (and crash) speed was around 400 km/h, his new tests showed Spirit of Australia's lift-off speed was around 725 km/h. "This result gave me a lot of confidence to keep going," Warby says. In November 1977 Warby smashed American Lee Taylor's existing world record, raising it by 5.42 km/h to 464.44 km/h, then raised his own record by a further 46.67 km/h the following year. After realising this great ambition Warby moved to the USA to race jet-powered trucks and compete on other speed circuits. With time he established a ready-mix concrete business near Cincinnati and put down roots in his new homeland. In the 1990s the reigning world champion, still passionately Australian despite his American address, built another jet-powered hydroplane Aussie Spirit with a view to attacking his own world mark. The bid has now come to a halt, engulfed in a dispute with officials over required design specifications. Warby however still spends a lot of his time with fast boats. He has a collection of five vintage Australian speedboats which he takes to wooden boat regattas right across the USA, often giving demonstration runs. The Australian spends some of his leisure time, as well, as a consultant to one of America's biggest and most successful offshore powerboat racing teams. He has also taken a close interest in the recent salvaging of the wreckage of Campbell's Bluebird K7 from the floor of Lake Coniston and the refurbishment of the boat to working condition. But Spirit of Australia he says, is never far from his mind. "Whenever I talk about the World Water Speed Record, I find myself talking about what 'we' did, Spirit and me. It wasn't just me, it was the two of us... and Spirit always held up its side of the bargain".

  Noted events in his life were:

• connection. The connection between Mick Tait & myself is as follows:

Mick Tait . . .
Is connected in some way to . . .
Kennith Warby (1933)
His father was Neville Warby (c1900)
His father was James Warby (1858)
His father was Thomas Warby (1831)
His father was James Warby (1785) & he also had William Warby (1814)
He had James Warby (1857)
He had Margaret Warby (1886) who married Henry Bennett (1882)
His father was James Bennett (1852) who married Elizabeth Botterell (1858)
Her father was Thomas Botterell (1834) & he also had Sarah Botterell (1855) who married James Sutton (1842)
They had Margaret Sutton (1877) who married Edwin Denman (1866)
They had Edward Denman (1901)
He had Gwenneth Denman (1929) who married George Beedon
They had Alan Beedon (1956) who married Jann Nock (1956)
Her father was John Nock (1908) who married Amy Whaites (1913)
Her father was Hurtle Whaites (1886) & he also had William Whaites (1915) who married Doris Davies (1917)
Her father was Thomas Davies (1881)
His father was Joseph Davies (1852) & he also had George Arthur Davies (1894)
He had Colin Davies (1925)
He had me - Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950)

Mick Tait's connection to Robert is:

Mick Tait . . .
Is connected in some way to . . .
Kennith Warby (1933)
His father was Neville Warby (c1900)
His father was James Warby (1858)
His father was Thomas Warby (1831)
His father was James Warby (1785) & he also had James Warby (1822) who married Mary Blanch (1853)
Her father was Edward Blanch (1787) & he also had Elizabeth Blanch (1821) who married William Amos (1815)
They had Jane Amos (1854) who married James Bryant (1856)
They had Frederick Bryant (1893) who married Emma Pearson (1892)
Her father was George Pearson (1848) who married Naomi Dawes (1852)
Her father was Edward Dawes (1813) & he also had James Dawes (1843)
He had Annie Florence Dawes (1873) who married Arthur Augustus Bray (1869)
He had Albert Alan Bray (1896)
He had Robert Alfred Bray (1920)
He had Robert Arthur Bray (1947) who married me - Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950)

Mick Tait 's connection to Les is:
Mick Tait . . .
Is connected in some way to . . .
Kennith Warby (1933)
His father was Neville Warby (c1900)
His father was James Warby (1858)
His father was Thomas Warby (1831)
His father was James Warby (1785) & he also had James Warby (1822) who married Mary Blanch (1853)
Her father was Edward Blanch (1787) & he also had Elizabeth Blanch (1821) who married William Amos (1815)
They had Jane Amos (1854) who married James Bryant (1856)
They had Frederick Bryant (1893) who married Emma Pearson (1892)
Her father was George Pearson (1848) who married Naomi Dawes (1852)
His father was James Pearson (1813) & he also had Sarah Pearson (1838) who married William Gregory (1840)
They had William Gregory (1863)
He had Henry Gregory (1898) who married Bernice Nosworthy (1897)
Her father was Benjamin Nosworthy (1872) who married Matilda Williams (1869)
Her father was George Williams (who died in 1899) & he also had James Williams (1875) who married Emily Huon (1877)
Her father was Paul Huon (1799) who married Jane Brien (1811)
Her father was Daniel Brien (1769) & he also had Sarah Brien (1825) who married Benjamin Warby (1825)
His father was also Benjamin Warby (1805)
His father was John Warby & he also had Elizabeth Warby (1802)
She had Eleanor Layton (1821) who married James Keighran (1808)
She had John Joseph Keighran (1845)
He had Joseph William Keighran (1879)
He had Leslie William Keighran (1904)
He had Mary Keighran (1927)
She had Les Collins (1950) who married me Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950) as his first wife