Safe passage for Olympic flame to the Games

With young football star Jade Bailey carrying the torch in the bow of a fast craft, Beckham himself did much of the helm work as the boat approached a docking site by Tower Bridge on the flames’s final leg to the Olympic Stadium.

The Olympic flame had arrived from Athens into the UK on 17 May and travelled across Great Britain before circulating through the London area during the final week before the Games.

The Bladerunner vessel is a dynamically stabilized, air entrapment monohull designed by naval architect Lorne Campbell, developed and built by British yard Ice Marine. It was chosen, not primarily for its extreme and futuristic design, but for its extremely smooth ride in any sea conditions.

To further enhance the safety aspects, the Bladerunner was equipped with Ullman suspension seats to ensure that even in the event of significant waves on the river, the voyage would be successful in parading the flame with dignity.

A special seat was built by Ullman Dynamics to safely support the torch-bearer in her near standing position in the bow, with nothing to hold onto during the transit except for the torch.

The boat was equipped with military smoke grenades, water cannons and more than 90m of LED light tubing to create its spectacular appearance. Large colored spotlights on the stern lit up the smoke ejecting from the ‘jet engines’, which in fact were twin 300 hp Mercury Verado outboards. Spray was created by a water intake device on the stern spraying water onto the sides of the craft ever harder with increasing speed. The spray device reduced top speed of the boat from 72 knots to 42 knots.

David Beckham actually drove the boat himself most of the way even though he had never sat foot on a fast craft like this before training for three days before the event. During the last stretch in the canal the builder and former world champion boat racer Jeremy Watts had control performed the docking.

The River Thames can be challenging to navigate in a small speed boat due to large waves caused by current against wind or the wake from other vessels. The Bladerunner thus came equipped with Ullman Suspension seats, the same seats that are standard on the London Metropolitan Police boats and on the Royal Marines Offshore Raiding Craft which were deployed for security purposes during the Games. Even the Bladerunner’s aerodynamic steering console was designed by Swedish MD and scientist Dr Johan Ullman.

This last act of delivering the flame to the Olympic Stadium required months of planning and rigorous security. In the end, the action sequence was watched by more than 900m people worldwide and went 100% according to plan.