"You're almost as pretty as my daughter..." A cheesier than cheesecloth chat-up line favoured by gentlemen of a certain age; it's one the pretty girls staffing the bars and restaurants of Cowes hear many, many times when the Powerboat Festival comes to town.

Misty-eyed motor racing fans often lament the passing of the 70s. Viewed through rose-tinted aviator shades it can seem like a lost, golden era of edgy glamour. But in the obstinately macho world of powerboat racing, the 70s never ended. It's as if, when the 80s arrived, no one thought to phone the disco and tell them.

So, for one long weekend each summer, a little cloud of Brut descends upon the Isle of Wight. Squinty-face guitar solos squeal from tinny tannoys along a waterfront awash with St Tropez sun-tans, 'James Hunt' feather cuts and Italian stallions wearing medallions the size of 18-carat manhole covers.

The 70s were the powerboating's glory days; but that was before oil prices went critical, sponsors fled and media interest evaporated.

Since then, top-level racing has drifted into a kind of gilded obscurity, a 'my boat's faster than yours' pissing contest between playboy squillionaires far too rich to give a damn what the world thinks of their (thinning) haircuts.

Class 1, the F1 of powerboating with its cash-no-object catamarans, comprises just eight teams and four are from small but surreally wealthy Arab oil states.

In an attempt to make the sport spectator-friendly, these giant, 150mph offshore missiles have recently come inshore, racing tight laps inside Plymouth Harbour for the championship's British round.

When twin-hull designs revolutionised competitive powerboating in the late 70s, Italian racers bought up the old monster monohulls and created a new offshore class: Endurance Racing. By 2002, however, the end of Endurance Racing was nigh.

Enter former Hollywood copyright attorney Nathan Knight and his Italian partner, former powerboat racer Massimo Lippi. Aiming to do to powerboat racing what Bernie Ecclestone did to Formula One, they rebranded Endurance as P1, courted marine industry sponsors and, like Class 1, brought the action closer to shore.

Here at Cowes, for instance, P1 boats race around a four-mile circuit just a few hundred metres from the waterfront.

"We've done a lot to bring the event back to the public," says Nathan Knight. "Before, you effectively started in a city and left. And cities are not interested in investing in events if you're going to leave and not come back."