This year’s race, organised by the Island Sailing Club, provided, as ever, an amazing spectacle for those watching from the shore.
Commodore of the Island Sailing Club, Bill Pimlott, welcomed competitors to the club for a press conference on Friday 19th June. He described the ethos of the event now as when it first began in 1931 as “a people’s race”. He thanked the 150 volunteers who help with the race every year.
Charity fundraising played a large part in the race again this year. Four charities had identical Oceanis 37s for the day for the Charity Challenge. Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson was skipper on board Challenge The Ellen MacArthur Trust. At the press conference Shirley said: “The start is the challenging time, searching for clear air with so many other boats around. Once you’ve got to Gurnard, you can relax a little.”
Singer Jonathan Ansell is the ambassador for Breast Cancer Care. His last experience of sailing was with the Sea Scouts, in a Topper dinghy. Prostate UK is close to Comedian Dave Spikey’s heart: His brother Pete died after a long battle with cancer last year, so he tries to help whenever he can.
Meteorologist Chris Tibbs gave a forecast of light winds at the start – possibly 5/10 knots north-westerly with a slight drizzle, increasing to 10/15 knots south of the Island and on the day the lack of wind certainly proved a problem for a number of the boats.
On the eve of the race Bill Pimlott refereed a somewhat different race round the island.
Students from Cowes High School Years 9/10 have been putting their boat designing skills to the test in the JPMorgan Round the Island Boat Building Challenge, organised by the Isle of Wight Young Chamber, which connects education with local businesses. For four weeks at the end of the school day, these students formed teams to design their own radio-controlled boats.
Two heats and a final race were held off the pontoon of the Island Sailing Club. A special polystyrene floating Isle of Wight made not quite to scale was the course to be rounded. In the final Flying Fish was up against DB. Both set off at a rattling good pace but whilst DB kept up the power, Flying Fish eventually floundered. Students watching applauded as the winning team accepted their prizes from the Commodore. They were Kyran Hopcroft, Andy Thompson, Thomas Morgan (driver) and Sammy Dudley.
First start of the main event was at 0730. Triple Olympic medallist Ben Ainslie competed on an Extreme 40 for the first time on JPMorgan Asset Management/TEAMORIGIN. He was up against triple America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts on Team Aqua, enjoying his first taste of the event but it was Oman Sail Masirah which led the fleet back to Cowes as well as taking line honours in the Extreme 40 class. It was a nail-biting finish, with just 29 seconds separating the Omani boat from Russell Coutts helming Team Aqua. Pete Cumming, skipper of Oman Sail Masirah said: “We were behind Team Aqua right up to Yarmouth but once round The Needles it was true champagne sailing. At St Catherine’s we out-gybed Team Aqua and extended our lead to 22 minutes at Bembridge. We thought we might be able to cruise back to Cowes but then the wind started to go light. Once in the Solent it was even lighter and it shut down completely. We could see Team Aqua and Team Origin (Ben Ainslie) trying to short tack out of the tide. We decided to stick in the middle. It was a case of holding your nerve and covering Team Aqua. It’s always good to have a close race but to go from a 22 minute lead down to a 29 second win, that’s really something.”
The winning team comprised Olympic 49er silver medallist Chris Draper on helm, Pete Cumming trimmer with Mark Bulkeley, Olympic Tornado sailor on mainsheet. David “Freddie” Carr and Khamis al Anbouri shared the bow.
Top prize of the Gold Roman Bowl was won by one of the smaller and older designs. Tattarat is a 25 foot Nordic Folkboat built in 1978. Her skipper is Philip Williams, a director of Williams Shipping in Southampton who very kindly supplied one of their tugs as a committee boat. Tattarat completed the course in 10 hours and 46 minutes. Philip said “Our race was quite eventful. We touched on Ryde Sands and my 62 year old father jumped over the side to push us off!
The Silver Gilt Roman Bowl for the top yacht in the ISC Rating System Division went to the little 20-foot Hunter Medina Tudor Rose, built in 1982. Jointly owned by Richard and Ian Cooke from Hill Head, the boat has been a regular competitor in the race over many years and the SILVER ROMAN BOWL - Second Overall IRC went to NORDIC BEAR owned by Brian Appleyard. These were just some of the 80 odd trophies which were to be competed for.