The Round the Island Race in association with Cloudy Bay, takes place on Saturday 1st July.
As organisers at the Island Sailing Club count down the days, the Rear Commodore Sailing and head of Race Management Dave Atkinson, is hoping for a late surge in entry numbers to record a final number on par with last year at around the 1,500 mark. Entries currently stand (13.6.17.) at 1,150.
Standard entries close on Saturday, 17th June at 23:59 and late entries at midday on Wednesday June 28th.
As part of the race there is the Seamanship Award which has been associated with the Race for many years. This recognises and pays tribute to acts of good seamanship on race day whether associated with the race ashore or afloat; basically an outstanding action made by someone connected to the race.
MS Amlin continues its sponsorship of the Seamanship Award for a second year and wants to highlight the importance of putting forward nominations this year. Nominations should be sent to the Island Sailing Club and the MS Amlin Seamanship Award will be presented on their stand at the Southampton Boat Show in September.
There is a vast array of competitors spanning the generations, representing all levels of ability and racing on a huge variety of yachts already registered for this year’s race which has 11 separate starts.
Included is the MOD 70 Concise 10 with Ned Collier Wakefield on the helm and a number of the highly competitive Fast 40+ fleet (also sponsored by Cloudy Bay) including Invictus owned by Sir Keith Mills and helmed by Sir Keith and his son Alex. Sir Keith’s long-term skipper Rob Greenhalgh sails as tactician & crew boss. Cowes based sailor Peter Morton’s Girls on Film is also racing with Jules Salter and Jason Carrington on board amongst others. Morty has won the top prize, the Gold Roman Bowl, on three occasions and is the current holder of the One Ton Cup.
Joining Cloudy Bay as Presenting Sponsor, the Island Sailing Club has also signed up Helly Hansen as Official Clothing Partner, MS Amlin as Marine Insurance Partner, Raymarine as Technical Partner and Chelsea Magazines, publishers of Yachts & Yachting, Sailing Today and Classic Boat, as the Race Media Partner – back for a second year. The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust also returns this year as the Official Race Charity.
Raymarine returns to present the all-important Weather Briefing at the Island Sailing Club at 1800hrs on Friday 30th June with a new meteorologist this year – Simon Rowell- weather guru to the British Sailing Team.
Will course records be broken this year?
Mike Slade on ICAP Leopard currently holds the Monohull record at 3 hours 43 minutes and 50 seconds set in 2013 and in 2016, Lloyd Thornburg’s giant MOD70 trimaran Phaedo^3, tore round the course in 2 hours 23 minutes and 23 seconds, smashing the Multihull race record time set by Sir Ben Ainslie in 2013 by a stunning 28 minutes.