Iconic Bond boat chases

‘Ah, Mr Bond. We’ve been expecting you. Now, pay attention, there’s something we are rather excited about. We’ve been working on it for 20 years or so. This is the very latest version. The 42-foot J Craft Torpedo RS. No, it doesn’t run underwater. It is, simply put, the finest motor launch in the world.

It is built at our facility on the Baltic island of Gotland. Oh, you know it? Yes, Vikings. Well, any Viking worth his longship would be proud of this. It is powered by two of Volvo’s Penta 650-RS engines, with a top speed of 47 knots. Which means you could easily have outrun those Spectre boats in that business with the Lektor machine.

The range is 280 nautical miles, which also means you wouldn’t have to strap extra fuel barrels on the rear. The hull is a very sturdy composite of vinyl ester and fibreglass with a PVC core, which will survive impact with those Louisiana lawns you were so keen to cross when you were being chased by Kananga’s mob or crashing into the repellent General Medrano’s Sunseeker. Although I don’t recommend ramming anything if you can help it. That mahogany deck is far too lovely to scratch.

No, there are no machine guns or rocket launchers. Grow up, Bond. But we have fitted compasses, VHF radio, chart plotters and echo sounders and, of course, the Seakeeper gyro stabilisation system. It also accommodates four in the cabins, but I don’t expect you to be sleeping on the job. It is head-spinningly elegant, immensely powerful and exquisitely manoeuvrable in any crowded harbour or marina – even if you are being shot at.

As I said, it is the finest chase boat in the world – and I use the term advisedly. People will take in its classic lines and perhaps see a dilettante, a mere trophy boat, not realising what it is actually capable of. So, the perfect Q launch. Yes, you can take it for a spin. And 007? Try to bring it back in one piece.’

Sadly, that conversation has not taken place. Not yet. But it certainly should, as the Torpedo is the ideal ocean-, lake- and canal-going vehicle for a James Bond of any era. Given his penchant for aquatic adventure, just think how much simpler life as a globetrotting double-0 would be if he’d had a Torpedo to hand. To illustrate that, here are four of the best Bond-in-a-boat sequences where a J Craft might have come in handier.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963)

Just as Bond (Sean Connery) seems to have made it to safety by sea with the glamorous Russian spy Tatiana Romanova and the Lektor coding machine on board his Fairey Huntress, a phalanx of Spectre boats appears from the various headlands to cut him off and force him back towards land. Rocket grenades and machine guns are fired as Bond frantically manoeuvres his speedboat, looking for a way out. But bullets puncture the fuel drums on 007’s craft, which Bond then dumps overboard. He sets the resulting spillage alight using a Very pistol, barbecuing the head Spectre thug, Morzeny, and the other pursuers (who were in Fairey Huntsman 28s). In this sequence, filmed on Loch Craignish in Scotland while the rest of the production took place in Turkey, just think how much more capable the J Craft Torpedo would have been for either side.

LIVE AND LET DIE (1973)/MOONRAKER (1979)

Roger Moore’s tenure as James Bond opened with an iconic boat chase in Live and Let Die. It begins with 007’s sleek Glastron GT-150 trying to outpace the villainous Kananga’s men in Louisiana’s Irish Bayou. It involved the boats dramatically leaping over the raised causeway of Highway 39, although not everyone makes the jump as cleanly as 007 – one pursuer totals Sheriff JW Pepper’s parked-up patrol car. After skidding over lawns, Bond eventually ditches his bullet-damaged boat in a swimming pool and switches to a Glastron CV-19 to make his escape. A total of 17 boats (out of 26 used) were destroyed during filming. Less spectacular and destructive, (apart from a sliced-in-half gondola) but just as memorable was the motorised gondola-cum-hovercraft in Moonraker (given that the Torpedo looks as much at home in Venice as any gondola, it could easily have stood in), which ended up scaring the pigeons – and the diners – as it crossed St Mark’s Square. Which might be a touch ambitious, even for a J Craft.

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999)

The finest boat moment during Pierce Brosnan’s time at the double-0 helm took place during the 14-minute opening sequence of The World Is Not Enough. In it, Bond “borrows” an experimental, rocket-assisted, mini-torpedo-carrying boat from Q (‘Stop! It isn’t finished’) to chase a female assassin in a Sunseeker Superhawk down the Thames. The hair-raising pursuit roars past the Houses of Parliament, smashing up a Thames-side landing stage and a River Police boat, skirting over dry land (again), through a warehouse, kitchen and restaurant (that Q Boat, specially built by Riddle Marine, is tough), ending at the Millennium Dome when the mini torpedoes take care of the Sunseeker. And the finest moment? The spectacular stunt that was the barrel-roll of the Q Boat, filmed at Millwall docks, where Vickers air mortars attached to the side of the boat were detonated, launching it and spinning it 360-degrees in the air, landing hull-side up. A real coup for stuntman Gary Powell. Do not try that in your J Craft: it would probably invalidate the guarantee.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008)

Nothing fancy for Daniel Craig’s Bond here – he’s piloting what looks like a battered Haitian fisherman’s boat named Gardien des Etoiles ('guardian of the stars'), which he requisitions after ramming evil Medrano’s Sunseeker with another fishing vessel. In fact, it is an aluminium-hulled jet boat built in Idaho and roughed up to look the part. He is then chased by the general’s henchmen in Avon Adventure inflatables, one of which Bond manages to flip over with the judicious use of an anchor. His sidekick Camille (Olga Kurylenko) also proves to be handy with a boat hook when the chasers pull alongside. A water- and adrenaline-soaked scene, everything was shot in real time – no green screen here. ‘We were going really fast,’ Kurylenko said. ‘I thought they would fake the speed, but they didn’t.’ Filming took place among the giant container ships at the harbour area in Colón, Panama, which stood in for Kings Quay, Haiti, although clever camera positioning meant it wasn’t apparent that this was a major international terminal, rather than a small Caribbean island’s port.