On the morning of the JPMorgan Asset Management Round the Island Race 2008, the day dawned with overcast skies and a nice 10-12 kt SW breeze. Carrying fair tide, the 15 mile beat to the Needles, soon passed. As the leading J’s set out on a blast reach towards St Catherine's Point, the sun came out and shone bright for the rest of the day. The sea conditions on the south of the Isle of Wight were variously described as rolling, hairy, wild, lumpy and on the edge! The WSW breeze ranged between 10 and 28 knots, which when combined with a contrary tide, gave everyone some exhilarating sailing!J/109's were numerically the largest J fleet, with 34 boats battling it out. Taking a break from their one design program, the boats were sailing under various IRC configurations and split between classes 2B and 2C. J/109 victory went to Johnny Blue II helmed by Jeff Dakin, as they made a great start, were always on the right side of the course, and maintained their lead all the way to the finish followed by Offbeat, Jamhali, Zelda and Shiva.
The J/80's this year had the added incentive of racing for a collection of Nautica watches. Past form was upset when Louis Kenna’s new Jirolamo snatched a 10 second victory from Seb Ripards young UKSA crew on Against Malaria.com.
IRC-2C saw a close battle at the front of the fleet between the three J/92S's Jack Sparrow, Neilson Redeye and Just in Time. During the second half of the race Jack Sparrow (pictured here doing 19.6 kts) put their new North Code 2 spinnaker to good effect, stretching to a 7 minute victory over Neilson Redeye to take 1st in class.Class 1A saw a tremendous battle between Stuart Hawthorn's J/133 Jump and Mike Grevill's custom 39 Erivale III with Erivale winning by just 2 minutes, this is the third year in a row that Jump has made the podium. IRC-1C, a 58 boat fleet was won by Cowes based J/39 Jackdaw owned by David Walters. David has owned the boat since she was launched in 1991 and has been a great supporter of this race.
Peter Bainbridge entered his brand new J/122 Sky Hunter II in the ISC division 4. Peter was delighted with the handling and performance of the boat and even more pleased to find he had won his class by a massive 17 minutes!
Top J/105 of the day was the St Malo based Moontiger who took third in IRC-2B behind Full Pelt a modified 1720 Sportsboat and Johnny Blue II the winning J/109.
Top reported speed of the day was Richard Atherton in his brand new J/124 Josephine at 21.4 knots under main and jib!
