Despite having one of the strongest navies in the world, the Royal Navy knew they needed a fleet of high-speed fighting ships to challenge enemy warships and to take a heavy toll of enemy merchant vessels. Mainly relying on stealth, speed and manoeuvrability, the Vosper company had been designing such craft since the early 1930s, with the Vosper 73ft Motor Torpedo Boat being a later development of those earlier vessels. Powered by three Packard engines, the Vosper was capable of speeds over 40 knots and in this variant, featured four 18-inch deck-mounted torpedo tubes, an Oerlikon 20mm cannon and up to four Vickers machine guns.

During the Second World War, the danger of losing large numbers of aircrew forced to ditch in the seas around the British Isles was very real, resulting in the creation of the Royal Air Force Sea Rescue Service, operating under the motto ‘The sea shall not have them’. Using vessels designed by the British Powerboat Company and utilising racing boat technology, this service was all about speed, with the Type Two 63ft HSL ‘Whaleback’ being arguably their most distinctive craft. Powered by three 24ltr Napier Sea Lion engines, these boats must have sounded magnificent and it’s no wonder they were known as the ‘Spitfires of the sea’.

Restricted by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the German Kriegsmarine exploited a loophole by designing a fleet of fast, wooden-hulled attack craft they referred to as Schnellboots. Expertly designed, these vessels were perfected over time and by the outbreak of the Second World War, they had become a devastatingly effective part of Germany’s naval strength. Powered by three diesel engines and featuring a triple rudder arrangement, Germany’s E Boats were some of the fastest warships in the world. With their low profile, high manoeuvrability and torpedo armament, if they penetrated any Allied convoy, they could destroy several vessels and make their escape before coming under return fire.