Sharjah World Championship Week

With explosive starts, blistering speeds and hairpin turns, thousands of spectators flock to Khalid Lagoon to watch three days of racing, with the sleek catamarans clocking up speeds of up to 220km/h on the straights. The event is free to attend and you can view all the action from the many vantage points around the lagoon. The UIM F1H2O World Championship is the 'flagship' international series of single-seater inshore circuit Formula 1 Powerboat Racing. Highly competitive, fascinating, intensely challenging, risky and entertaining, Formula 1 Powerboat Racing is the ultimate adrenaline rush and regarded as one of the most spectacular and exciting sports in the world. The series attracts up to 20 of the world's leading drivers and is a sport that has to be seen to be believed as these diminutive tunnel-hull catamarans enter hairpin turns at over 90mph and top 140mph on the straights. Picture the scene; 18 to 20 sleek, powerful and lightweight catamarans lining up on the start pontoon. Inside each cockpit sits a lone individual peering through a tiny windscreen. One hand grasps the steering wheel, the other poised over the start button. The tension inside the cockpit is intense as the drivers wait for the crucial start. Beyond the cockpit, an eerie silence descends over the entire arena, all attention fixed on the start. No sooner does the wait end when 10,000hp of highly tuned brute power bursts into life sending the fleet screaming towards the first corner leaving nothing but a glorious fountain of white spray in its wake.