(Cowes, Isle of Wight, England)- This year’s annual JP Morgan Asset
Management Round the Island Race, organized by the Island Sailing Club,
was blessed with absolutely gorgeous sailing conditions from dawn to
dusk. With the first boats starting just after 0700 hours on Saturday
morning, the massive fleet of 1,540 boats enjoyed sparkling blue skies
and moderate westerly winds blowing down the Solent from the famous
Needles (the westernmost point of the Isle of Wight and the first
turning mark of the race). As flight after massive flight of boats took
off from the famous Royal Yacht Squadron starting line, all sailors were
treated to spectacular juxtapositions of yachting history as classics
crisscrossed with ultra-modern grand prix racers and massively fast
carbon offshore racing multihulls sliced through large one-design fleets
of J/105s, J/111s, J/109s, J/70s and J/80s. 
This
one-day 50nm yacht race around the Isle of Wight is one of the largest
yacht races in the world and the fourth largest participation sporting
event in the UK- nearly 16,000 sailors in total participate on the
massive armada of boats that range in size from diminutive 18 foot
Cornish Crabbers up to 100 ft Maxi canting-keelers and huge classics
like the 150 ft long ELEONARA.Starting on the famous Royal Yacht Squadron line in Cowes, the fleet races westabout, to The Needles, round St Catherine's Point and Bembridge Ledge buoy, and back into the Solent to the finish line at Cowes.
Winning
IRC 1A Class was Cornel Riklin’s JITTERBURG and taking 3rd overall in
the IRC 1 Group. In fact, J teams took 8 of the top 20 places in class
with Chris Body & Andrew Christie’s J/111 ICARUS taking 5th, Martin
Dent’s JELVIS taking 9th place, the Dutchman Bert Visser’s SWEENY team
taking 11th, then four J/122s taking places 15th to 20th (Andy
Theobald’s R&W 15th, Clive Miles’s JANGLE 16th, William Avery’s
JACOBS LADDER 17th, and David Cule’s MINT JULEP 19th). Unfortunately,
Eric Gicquel’s J/133 BLACK JACK from France sailed fast enough to finish
13th but forgot to turn in their “race declaration” to the RC after the
race!
In
IRC 1C Division the J/120 ASSARAIN III sailed by Chris Masterson was
top J team at 4th overall. Paul Ward’s J/88 EAT SLEEP J REPEAT was the
2nd J crew at 11th overall, followed by fellow J/88 in 13th- Dirk Van
Beek’s SABRIEL JR.The red-hot IRC 2A Class included an army of 35 foot J teams. Winning class was a classic, the famous J/35 KNIGHT BUILD Ltd from Ireland. In fact, nine of the top 20 boats were J’s of various designs. J/109s took the next five places with John & Sue Allison’s JUMBUCK in 4th, Robert Stiles’ DIAMOND JEM in 5th, Kevin Armstrong’s EMG 1 in 7th, Neil Mcgrigor’s BOO in 8th and Julian Sutherland’s JUMUNU in 10th. David & Kirsty Apthorp’s J/88 J-DREAM took 12th place. Then the next two places were J/109s, Brendon Pell’s BLUE JAY in 15th and Chris Brooks’s JINKS in 20th.
Several
other J/109s sailed in IRC 2B class, with a combination of J/105s and
J/109s taking 13 of the top 20 places. The first three J’s were 109s,
with Ivan Burden’s JACOBI in 2nd, William King’s JOLLY JACK TAR 4th, and
Christopher Palmer’s J’TAIME in 5th. The J/105 MOSTLY HARMLESS sailed
by Tom Hayhoe & Natalie Jobling took 6th and fellow 105s JOS OF
HAMBLE (Roger Williams) took 11th and JESTER (Kelvin Rawlings) placed
20th. After the top five, other J/109s filled out the rest of the top
20 bracket, like EMG 2 (Ian Turnbull) in 8th, JUKE BOX (John Smart) 9th,
David Richards’ JUMPING JELLYFISH 14th, Paul Griffiths’ JAGERBOMB 15th,
PURE JOY (Sarah Rossiter) 16th, JIBE (Robin Taunt) 18th, and JYBE
TALKIN’ (Chris And Helen Burleigh) in 19th.
In
the IRC 2C Class, a number of J/105s sailed well and took four of the
top nine place. First 105 was William Newton’s JELLY BABY, taking 2nd in
class. Fiona & Malcolm Thorpe’s KING LOUIE took 4th and was
followed by JIN TONIC (Andy Roberts) in 6th and NEILSON REDEYE (Pip
Tyler- Managing Director of Neilson Holidays) in 9th. The IRC 2D Class a raft of J/97s sailed well, including Ole Bettum’s ALAMARA B III in 4th overall followed by Andy Howe & Annie Kelly’s BLACKJACK II in 7th and James & John Owen’s JET in 14th.
In the ISC Division 4B, the J/109 SQUIBS (Ken Raby) took 5th place and the J/124 ECLIPSE (Robert Bishop) took 7th position. The J/100 THUNDERSQUALL (EJ Hentenaar) took 2nd place in ISC Division 5B. The classic J/24s performed well in ISC Division 6, with JOBS FOR THE BUOYS (William Lack) taking 2nd in class, A-PLAN (Quinton Hall) placing 8th and J-RIDER (Roger Ayres) finishing 15th.
The J/80s sailed as a one-design class with 13 entries and enjoyed spirited racing. Taking class honors was J-OUT-OF-THE-BOX (Yannig Loyer) with IBIS STYLES SAINT MA (Jean-Noel Belles) in 2nd and JASMINE (Douglas Neville Jones) in 3rd.
In
the Sportboat Class, there were sixteen J/70 entries racing against a
mixed bag of Cork 1720s, Open 7.50s, Farr 280s, C&C 30 One-Designs,
Melges 24s and a Tofinou 8m. After blasting around the backside of the
island from St Catherines Point down to the Forts at the eastern end of
the Solent, the J/70s proved yet again they are not only fast upwind in
big waves and chop, their ability to plane fast in big waves offshore
assured them of top overall positions on handicap time. The first four
places were dominated by J/70s with Martin Jones’ BILLY RUFFIAN in 1st
with David Mcleman’s OFFBEAT in 2nd, Olivier Vidal’s ATLANTIC ENDEAVOUR
in 3rd and Andrew Barraclough’s JENGA 8 in 4th. For more Round Island Race sailing information
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