November 1 Named Miss Supertest Day
November 5, 2026
By John Morris with help from Toronto Hydroplane & Sailing Club
On October 25 Steve Ferguson, Mayor of The Corporation of the County of Prince Edward, designated November 1, 2025, as Miss Supertest Day in the County of Prince Edward.
Hydroplane racing isn’t quite as huge these days as it was in 1959 when Jim Thompson built Miss Supertest III in London ON to win the Harmsworth Trophy, symbolic of world powerboat racing supremacy. Thanks to its design and being equipped with a powerhouse Rolls Royce Griffin engine (made possible by Canada’s relationship with England that US competitors couldn’t match with US-built Allisons) it was blazingly fast.
In three successive summers, from 1959 to 1961, Miss Supertest beat the best in the world on the flat water of (Hayward) Long Reach adjacent to Prince Edward County near Picton. Just two months after their third Harmsworth victory , driver Bob Hayward driving the predecessor to the champion boat, Miss Supertest II, rolled and the driver was killed ending the saga.
In 1967 Miss Supertest III was put on display at the Ontario Science Centre, spending nearly 40 years there and delighting thousands of visitors before going back into storage. In 2011 Miss Supertest III was honoured with a Canadian stamp.
In 2019, with the help of Murray Walker, Miss Supertest III was brought to display in Muskoka and is currently housed at the Canadian Raceboat Hall of Fame located five minutes from Bracebridge, ON.
Miss Supertest III will never race again. But even displayed on land, she is an impressive beast. Just over 30 feet of gleaming wood, she’s powered by a 2,800 hp Rolls Royce Griffin V-12 airplane engine; it’s impossible not to imagine her screaming across the water at 170 miles an hour.
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