It's al­ways a race to the fin­ish, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of record-break­ing per­for­mances when it comes to the T&T Pow­er Boat As­so­ci­a­tion's (TTP­BA) In­ter­na­tion­al Great Race, and Sat­ur­day from Williams Bay in Ch­aguara­mas, it will be much of the same with Mr So­lo Too and 24 oth­er boats fac­ing the starter's gun in the 51st Edi­tion of the event.

Mr So­lo's crew of Ken Charles and com­pa­ny have a lot rest­ing on their shoul­ders, hav­ing won 17 ti­tles at this event, the most by any com­peti­tor to date. This mirac­u­lous achieve­ment has al­so earned them the name ‘King of the Seas’.

From 7 am on Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er, Charles will be hop­ing to win his 18th ti­tle, af­ter com­ing up emp­ty-hand­ed for the past year, de­spite mod­i­fi­ca­tions done to his en­gines and boat. Mo­tul Mon­ster won the event last year.

Charles start­ed rac­ing in 1962 af­ter con­struct­ing the icon­ic Mr So­lo in 1969 with Bri­an Bowen, but he did not con­test the first great race event. In fact, af­ter his first race a year lat­er (1970), he grabbed the news­pa­per head­lines with his de­but win, and lat­er fol­lowed this up with vic­to­ries in 972, 1975, 1978, 1981, 1985, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2017.

His achieve­ments lat­er earned him recog­ni­tion as one of the coun­try’s 50 Great­est Leg­ends in Sport as part of the 50th In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions.

This year's event is be­ing part­ly spon­sored by Bmo­bile and Charles wants to de­liv­er an­oth­er record-break­ing ride that will lead him to the ti­tle. “I have learnt over the years that al­though we dou­ble and triple check be­fore a race, once you get out in the open sea and you are jump­ing 12 to 15 feet in the air and slam­ming back down, any­thing can hap­pen. It de­pends a lot on skill and luck. Every time you fin­ish a race it’s like the first time.”

He added, “This is go­ing to be a re­al Great Race. It will be an open race this year be­tween Para­mount, Cat Killer and Mr So­lo. To my com­peti­tors, I wish you all the best of luck and a safe race be­cause that’s the most im­por­tant thing.”

Mar­sha Ca­ballero, TSTT's Se­nior Man­ag­er Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions said her com­pa­ny is pleased to part­ner with the TTP­BA to help en­sure the an­nu­al com­pe­ti­tion is safe. “bmo­bile is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment in our na­tion­al sports. On be­half of bmo­bile, I wish the T&T Pow­er Boat As­so­ci­a­tion and all the com­peti­tors a suc­cess­ful and safe Great Race. We look for­ward to see­ing Mr So­lo race again this year and wish Mr Charles and his team all the best.”

Mar­cus Gomez, TTP­BA pres­i­dent, ex­tend­ed best wish­es to all the teams and thanked bmo­bile for its spon­sor­ship which cov­ers the safe­ty costs of the race. “It is go­ing to be a close one this year and if the wa­ter con­di­tions al­low, we can ex­pect some tight bat­tles and see some very fast times.”

This year, like in 2018, the gov­ern­ing body for the sport- the Union In­ter­na­tionale Mo­to­nau­tique (UIM) has ex­pressed its sat­is­fac­tion with the race.

Fans can view the race from 7 am at Williams Bay, or along the route to Mara­cas Bay and Grande Riv­ière, as well as at the fin­ish at Store Bay, To­ba­go.