Another classic Round the Island Race

Adam Gosling & the crew of YES! joined by (left) Sir Keith Mills and Cloudy Bay Senior Brand Manager Maria
Ines Pina. Photo: Paul Wyeth/pwpictures.com

Competitors from yesterday’s excellent Round the Island Race 2017 gathered at the Island Sailing Club in Cowes on Sunday morning to celebrate the culmination of another epic record breaking race.

The prize giving is always a professionally run affair, with Sailing Secretary Chris Thomas expertly steering the numerous award presentations to conclusion within the hour!

This year the competitors, sponsors and supporters were joined by Sir Keith Mills, Chairman of the Royal Foundation, Founding Director of Land Rover Ben Ainslie Racing and winner of the Gold Roman Bowl in 2013 on his TP52 5 West, having graciously accepted the club’s invitation to present the prizes on stage, alongside Cloudy Bay’s Senior Brand Manager, Maria Ines Pina and the Race PRO Mike Peskett.

Saturday’s race highlights included the well deserved record breaking rounding in 2hrs 22mins 23secs by the MOD70 Concise 10 to secure Multihull Line Honours and Highland Fling’s Monohull Line Honours in 4hrs 19mins 44secs. Then YES! stormed round the 50nm course to win the highest accolade, the Gold Roman Bowl.

The race also hosted presenting sponsor Cloudy Bay Brand Ambassador Ben Fogle who was sailing on the Farr 52 Bob by Cloudy Bay which was 18th over the line after a great race that took them a presentable 6hrs 11mins 3secs.

Chairman of Race Management and ISC Sailing Flag Dave Atkinson summed up the race weekend saying, “I’m really running out of superlatives to describe this race but this year has got to be rated an absolute classic.

“At the end of the day we have had the highest rate of finishers we’ve seen for many years, with around 95% of those boats entered completing the race within the time limit.”

Full results are available in the race website at: rtir.me/results