The double title-winning Racing Project SuperSport class outfit will take on a new look in 2009 as team boss and throttleman Angelo Tedeschi and pilot Aaron Ciantar compete with new Ukrainian backing. The #43 Ukrainian Spirit squad will continue to use a Chaudron hull, but have swapped Mercury engines for Ilmor power this year.

The project has been supported by Ukrainian Powerboat Federation president Victor Shemchuk, and marks the 100th anniversary of the first Ukrainian powerboat race at Odessa in May 1909. The team’s new 41-foot, Ilmor-powered Chaudron hull - liveried in the colours of the Ukrainian flag - was unveiled at Chaudron’s Valetta headquarters in Malta at the weekend, and took part in its first test the same day.

A number of key dignitaries attended the launch, including Malta Powerboat Federation President Teddie Borg, UIM Pleasure Navigation Commission president Jean Marie ven de Hende and Maltese Parliamentary Secretary for Youth and Sport Clyde Puli.

“Today we are witness to a prominent event both for Malta and the Ukraine,” Shemchuk said at the launch of the team in Malta this weekend. “The Ukraine team is the result of cooperation of Ukraine investors and Maltese boat constructors who completed the boat in an extremely tight time.

“Our main target is not only to participate in the Powerboat P1 championship, but also to show that in Ukraine there is a generation of politicians, businessmen and sportsmen who are ready to take responsibility to the future of our country and to bring to European society. Today we can proudly declare that the Ukrainian team and the Ukrainian superboat are a reality.”

With Aaron Ciantar and his Chaudron firm emerging as a local sporting success story in the last few years, the launch of the new Ukrainian team was widely covered in the local Maltese media.