(Video by: Sean Keeley)
It looked like a scene from a James Bond movie. A speed boat was being chased by a helicopter on Okanagan Lake Thursday morning and it was creating a 'wake' with some residents. A few people even thought it was a police chase.
But it was not, it was a Vector V-40 high performance speed boat built in Kelowna. The vessel was being put through a series of tests before it's shipped off to Monaco to ferry around VIPs during the Formula One, for the Vector Martini Racing Team. Then it will make its way to England for the London to Monte Carlo endurance race.
“It has twin V-10s in it, it runs 110 miles an hour,” explains Rex Jardine, owner of Vector Power Boats from Kelowna.
The V-40 is the most prestigious and most powerful boat Vector has ever built.
“Start to finish, the build took about four months and it’s been a lot of late nights during the last week or so just to get it out on the water.”
Purchased for a price in the seven figure range, the boat had to be tested before it made its journey over the Atlantic to Monaco.
“It was so unbelievable, we were so pleased,” says Jardine of the test run. “We had next to no glitches and it is world class, it can compete with anything out there. The company that bought it is called Vector Martini Racing."
The helicopter, owned by Valhalla, that followed the boat during its test run was filled with photographers and a camera crew they were shooting the V-40's big debut.
While some Kelowna residents thought the morning spectacle was a police chase, others complained to the RCMP filing noise complaints.
“I was driving the boat and I couldn’t talk to the gentleman next to me,” says Jardine. “We don’t like to make this much noise, but for an hour or two every couple of years, that we have to do a shake down, I apologize, but we employ a great group of people.”
During the London to Monte Carlo Venture Cup Race the boat will travel over 2,400 miles in 15 days visiting 11 cities and five countries.