This year's Race was one of the most successful on record. Not only did the weather gods play fair, the racing was extremely close throughout the day proven by the tight finishes in most classes and the competitors came ashore happy and proud of their efforts whether first in class or trailing the fleet.
For once, most of the boats finished before sunset and in a fleet of nearly 1700 boats, that's pretty unusual.

From the 0500 start off the Royal Yacht Squadron line when ICAP Leopard, the current monohull course record holder powered her way up the Solent to the Needles, right through to the closing stages of the race, there was little time for the race management team at the Island Sailing Club to draw breath in order to record the finish times.

The two existing course record holders in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race have again triumphed today as IDEC, the multihull driven by Francis Joyon crossed the finish line at 09.34.05 - so her rounding was in 04h.24m.05s and her course record still stands at 3h.08m.29s. She was closely followed by the four Extreme 40s led by Oman Sail, The Wave Muscat at 09.37.33, then Oman Sail Masirah at 09.37.57, Team Metherell at 09.44.10 and then Ecover at 09.48.45.

ICAP Leopard crossed the line at 10.10.06 so her rounding was achieved in 05h.0m.06s, way outside her record of 03h.53m.05s.

The exquisite J Class yacht Velsheda finished at 10.45.02. She started at 5am this morning. Built in 1933 in Camper and Nicholsons in Gosport, Velsheda is the most famous of the few remaining J Class yachts left in the world today.

Next year the race is taking place on Saturday June 25th. Importantly this will be the 80th Anniversary Race and the organisers are anticipating a record entry.

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