2015 Round the Island Race – Leopard takes line honours
by Peta Stuart-Hunt on 28 Jun 2015
Sultanate of Oman wins the round the Island Race in the GC32 class. They also were second on line honours just behind the MOD70 Sander van der Borch / GC32 Racing Tour
2015 Round the Island Race – Mike Slade's 100ft Leopard has taken line honours in the monohull fleet, finishing at 1140 in a time of four hours 40 mins 34 secs which is just under an hour outside their own record, while the next two monohulls - the Open 60 Artemis and Tony Langley's TP52 Gladiator B - were around five miles from the finish at midday.
With this edition of the race tipped by a number of experts as being one that will favour the smaller boats on corrected time, these early finishers now face a long wait before their overall position on corrected time is known.
Conditions on the water remain perfect for the 1,584 boats competing in the race - there's almost unbroken sun and a west south-westerly breeze of 12-15 knots, with gusts to 20 knots. The bulk of the fleet is now stretched out along the southern shore of the Isle of Wight, with an estimated 1400 boats between the Needles and Bembridge Ledge, making a wonderful sight both for competitors and for those watching from on shore.
Other highlights so far:
The MOD70 trimaran Concise 10 took line honours, finishing at 1040, with an elapsed time of three hours, 30 minutes and 24 seconds. This puts her 38 minutes outside the multihull race record set by Sir Ben Ainslie in 2013.
The four GC32 foiling catamarans crossed the line just after 1100, led by Sultanate of Oman and Alinghi, after a close race that saw the boats separated by less than six minutes at the finish.
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