GALLERY: The longest day of the year came close to delivering the longest J.P.Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race ever as winds ranging from zero knots to painfully light tested the patience of crews with Team Richard Mille emerging as line honours winner with a time of almost nine hours.
Most of the 1,585 entries started the race around the Isle of Wight in around 3 knots and bright sunshine and as the hours went by, temperatures rose but wind speed dropped leaving hundreds of boats becalmed and a large proportion of the 16,000 crew desperately seeking ways of making their boats go faster or resorting to stretching out on deck to enjoy the sunny conditions.
First to the Needles was Jamie McGarry and Colin Moore’s Swan 45 Eala of Rhu but the going was slow and Sir Ben Ainslie, racing on the Farr 45 Rebel with members of his BAR America’s Cup crew, took longer to complete the first 13 miles than the record-breaking 2hrs 52mins 15secs he took to finish the entire race last year.
Rebel very quickly became involved in a match race with rival Farr 45 Toe in the Water crewed by injured servicemen and women who had served recently in Afghanistan and the lead swapped several times over the 50 nms course though it was Capt Lloyd Hamilton’s ecstatic crew who nudged across the finish line ahead of Ainslie and his team of professionals.
Twelve hours after the first start, 246 boats had finished and a further 445 had retired but the rest were still out on the course valiantly trying to make the finish before the cut off time of 22:00 when the overall race winner and new holder of the Gold Roman Bowl was set to become clear.
Results are available at: https://rtir.me/results
Photograph by reader Anna Mustchin
Photograph by reader Graham from AKAR Taxis
Featured and above photograph thanks to Shane Thornton.
