The BananaShark racing team is lead by John Cooke. John has led the team to many previous successes in race boats; winning as a constructor, the RYA National OCR (Offshore Circuit Racing) Championships six times in a row and most importantly the Needles Powerboat Trophy himself in 2006 are just two of these.

John has previously worked as a marine consultant and occasional stuntman on such films as “Anna and the King” with Jodie Foster. John is joined by Graham Lawton, the National OCR champion of 2010 and Jeremy Gibson another highly experienced OCR racer.

BananaShark’s latest project is the state of the art 10 metre marathon race powerboat. The new BananaShark Stirling 34 is designed to reach speeds of 100mph and holds big plans for 2011 in the race boat world.

The team’s schedule for this year includes the World Cup in Cowes on August Bank Holiday, the National Marathon series, Coniston Power Boat Records Week in Cumbria, and lastly Southampton Boat Show, (16th-25th September), where they will be taking part in the on the water parade and starring as the feature boat for the last weekend of the show.

Raymarine has kitted the new BananaShark Stirling 34 out with two E140 wide multi-function displays, an AIS unit and three ST70+ instruments. BananaShark will be interfacing the NMEA 2000 data from the engines with navigation data onto both E series displays and the ST70+’s to enable easy monitoring of the fuel usage when racing and to also keep an eye on the performance of the motors.

John Cooke, owner of BananaShark says; “When we decided we wanted an integrated navigation system we went straight to the best. Raymarine has provided us with a great service and along with their accompanying support we can race with complete confidence. The Yanmar BY260 engines are very economical and with the Raymarine multi-functional displays we will be able to make sure that we’re making the best use of the motors and the fuel. The reliability that Raymarine equipment is renowned for will be really important throughout all of our competitions, and we are very pleased to have their support.”

For further information on BananaShark please visit www.bananasharkracing.com, call John Cooke on 01548 856 078 or email him.