BENTLEY DRIVERS CLUB FORUM

I have come across various references to Woolf Barnato winning the Duke of York trophy for power boats in 1925, the boat called Ardenrun V (also called Ardenrun Minor?) it seems to have had a 3ltr Bentley engine with SU sloper carbs.
There is a pathe film clip, although I can’t identify Barnato. https://youtu.be/TTslmj4hPF4
Does anyone happen to know more about the boat etc?

This is Woolfie in his boat, see the 3 litre rocker cover. There is a bit more in one of the old Reviews, but Ardenrun the boat was destroyed by fire, as his house was.

John,
Barnato’s motor racing boat, ‘Ardenrun V’ was built for him by Saunders Roe and was fitted with a standard Bentley 3 Litre engine driving a fixed pitch single screw.
Barnato raced his boats on the Welsh Harp near Cricklewood.
The 1930 Duke of York’s International Trophy was held at the Harp over the weekend of 26/27 June 1930. Apparently, ‘Ardenrun’ capsized and sank during a race on the Saturday but after recovering and bailing and repair at the Bentley works that night, ran again on the Sunday when it dropped a valve and failed to finish.
ATB, Martin

A much better photograph showing the sloper SU,s.

Thank you for the extra information,

Interested to see that the engine is mounted with the flywheel end facing forward. Are there any drawings to show the arrangement of the gearing and prop shaft? If a single prop does it run under the engine?

Most boats have a gearbox to reduce the revolutions by about a half. Maybe that's not necessary at the speeds he was going?

I imagine it had a V drive thus enabling the engine to be mounted further aft and a shallower angle to the shaft.

Yes I wondered about that. I guess it would all have been made for him, possibly at BM. You couldn't just nip to your local Mercury Marine dealer in those days.