''Miss England II'' was the second of a series of speedboats used by

Henry Segrave Sir Henry O'Neal de Hane Segrave (22 September 1896 – 13 June 1930) was an early British pioneer in land speed and water speed records. Segrave, who set three land and one water record, was the first person to hold both titles simultaneou ...

and

Kaye Don Kaye Ernest Donsky (10 April 1891 – 29 August 1981), better known by his ''nom de course'' Kaye Don, was an Irish world record breaking car and speedboat racer. He became a motorcycle dealer on his retirement from road racing and set up Amb ...

to contest world

water speed record The world unlimited water speed record is the officially recognised fastest speed achieved by a water-borne vehicle, irrespective of propulsion method. The current unlimited record is , achieved by Australian Ken Warby in the ''Spirit of Austra ...

s in the 1920s and 1930s.

Design and construction

''Miss England II'' was built in 1930 for Lord Wakefield, who had obtained a pair of new Rolls-Royce type R V-12 air-racing engines. Mounted aft of the cockpit, they turned a single propeller shaft via a gearbox mounted near the bow. The shaft ran aft below the hull to a twin-bladed

screw A screw is an externally helical threaded fastener capable of being tightened or released by a twisting force (torque) to the screw head, head. The most common uses of screws are to hold objects together and there are many forms for a variety ...

, first of 11.75 inches diameter and later, in trials, of 9 inches. The stepped hull design was similar to that of the previous ''Miss England''. On ''Miss England II'', the step was separate from the hull, so that with the boat withdrawn from the water it could be unbolted and moved fore or aft to balance the boat for speed. The cockpit accommodated a crew of three, with engineer and mechanic in the left and right seats and driver amidships.

Death of Segrave

On Friday 13 June 1930, Segrave drove ''Miss England II'' to a new record of average over two runs on

Windermere Windermere (historically Winder Mere) is a ribbon lake in Cumbria, England, and part of the Lake District. It is the largest lake in England by length, area, and volume, but considerably smaller than the List of lakes and lochs of the United Ki ...

. On a third run the boat, which is presumed to have hit a floating branch, capsized at speed. Chief engineer Victor Halliwell, at the "low" side of the boat as it turned over on top of him, was killed. His mechanic, Michael "Jack" Willcocks, thrown clear from the 'high' side of the boat, survived with a broken arm. Segrave, who was rescued unconscious as the boat sank, regained consciousness for a moment and asked about the fate of "the lads". Shortly after being told that he had broken the record, he died from lung injuries. Concerns were raised that the boat's hull was too light in design and construction, particularly around the hydroplane's step, which was found to have partially detached. An early theory that the step had failed as the boat passed over its own wake from a previous run was discounted after a waterlogged branch showing recent impact damage drifted ashore some thirty minutes after the accident.

Final record

Following Segrave’s death, ''Miss England II'' was salvaged and repaired, and

was again chosen as the driver for 1931. Early that year, Don tested the boat on

Lough Neagh Lough Neagh ( ; ) is a freshwater lake in Northern Ireland and is the largest lake on the island of Ireland and in the British Isles. It has a surface area of and is about long and wide. According to Northern Ireland Water, it supplies 4 ...

, near Belfast, Northern Ireland, and reached an unofficial speed of 107 mph."Boat Speed More Than 100mph"
''Popular Mechanics'', April 1931

Garfield Wood Garfield Arthur "Gar" Wood (December 4, 1880 – June 19, 1971) was an American inventor, entrepreneur, and championship motorboat builder and racer who held the world water speed record on several occasions. He was the first man to travel ...

then established the official record at over . A month later, on

Lake Garda Lake Garda (, , or , ; ; ) is the largest lake in Italy. It is a popular holiday location in northern Italy, between Brescia and Milan to the west, and Verona and Venice to the east. The lake cuts into the edge of the Eastern Alps, Italian Alp ...

, Italy, Don raised it to . In February 1932 Wood raised it again, by .

Controversy over the 1931 race

In 1931, a race on the

Detroit River The Detroit River is an List of international river borders, international river in North America. The river, which forms part of the border between the U.S. state of Michigan and the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ont ...

was billed as a match between the Wood brothers, Gar (in the new ''Miss America IX'') and George (in the previous year's ''Miss America VIII''), and the Englishman Kaye Don, driving ''Miss England II''. In front of an estimated crowd of over a million spectators, Don won the first heat of the race. ''Miss America IX'' had suffered hull damage from ''Miss Englands wake and, despite overnight repairs, she was barely ready the next day. Wood requested a delay to allow the repairs to be completed, something to which he had previously conceded. Don stuck to the rules, which according to one author still rankled with some Americans in 2003. ''Miss America IX'' made it to the second heat, but only by Wood racing flat-out to the start line. Wood had a narrow lead over Don when ''Miss England II'' suddenly flipped over rounding one of the turns, but without injury to Don and his co-driver. Wood finished the race, but both he and Don were disqualified because they had jumped the starter's gun by seven seconds. George Wood completed the final race to win the trophy.

References

External links