Round the Island Race - Spirited conditions

by Peta Stuart-Hunt on 1 Jul 2012 J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race organisers, The Island Sailing Club, are happy to confirm that the three casualty incidents reported on this morning have thankfully all now been discharged from hospital.

As the 81st J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race draws to a close, class winners are starting to emerge.

First across the line at 10.19.57 this morning and at just over one minute outside the overall outright record, finishing in a time of 3hrs.09mins and 57secs, was former Mini Transat winner Yves Le Blevec on the Multi 50 trimaran Actual.

Whilst still too early to reveal the Gold Roman Bowl winner, some class wins are now looking more final with potentially an IRC 0 win for Tony Langley’s TP52 Manroland Sheetfed, and David Apthorp’s J/111 J-Dream, winning IRC Group 1.

The triple Olympic gold and silver medallist Ben Ainslie and the race crew on board the largest boat ever to compete in the Race, the 162ft Eleonora, had a great day on the water but back on shore Ben Ainslie commented that they were unable to notch up a decent overall result and ended up in 47th place in IRC 0. Speaking about his day on the water, and his last big event before the Olympic Games, Ben said: 'It was a lovely day, a beautiful boat and amazing racing, and totally different to what I’m used to.'

Congratulations are in order for many of those out racing today with so many individual stories to tell as usual. Race Partner Britannia had a number of entries in today’s race. The crew of Reflex 38, Jaguar Logic won class IRC 1B as well as taking second overall in IRC 1. The crew only trained together for the first time the day before the Race and comprised two complete novices who have never raced before under the guidance of skipper, Tim Thuberon who put together a team who had never even been round the Island before! Well done them.

There were plenty of retirements throughout the day, and racing for some of the smaller classes including sportsboats, J80s, 707s, SB20s (formerly known as SB3s) and the small MOCRA multihull fleet (LOA less than 9.15m), had racing cancelled, but generally competitors enjoyed some fantastic racing in spirited conditions.

Race Partners 2012: Britannia Events, Haven Knox-Johnston, Henri Lloyd, Nautica Watches, Old Pulteney Whisky, Raymarine, Red Funnel, Small Luxury Hotels of the World and Volvo Car UK. Provisional Round the Island Race website