Local boat Eeyore retains Gold Roman Bowl at 90th anniversary Round the Island race

Pip Hare, who competed in the 2020/21 Vendee Globe around the world race, with Gold Roman Bowl winners Eeyore at the Island Sailing Club in Cowes.
Picture: Paul Wyeth — Pip Hare, who competed in the 2020/21 Vendee Globe around the world race, with Gold Roman Bowl winners Eeyore at the Island Sailing Club in Cowes. Picture: Paul Wyeth

The huge fleet of over 1,200 boats showed how much people love taking part in this event. On the water there was everything from flat calm to 25 knot gusts, fog and sun.

As with every Round the Island Race, nothing compares to the sight of the fleet stretched out around the stunning Isle of Wight coast.

Local Cowes boat Eeyore, an Alacrity 18 Bilge Keel, ecured back-to-back victories in the Round the Island Race by retaining the prestigious Gold Roman Bowl which she has held since the 2019 race.

Pip Hare with the Chrete crew that won the Silver Gilt Roman Bowl at the 2021 Round the Island race. Credit: Paul Wyeth

Owner and skipper of Eeyore, Jo Richards, enthused: ‘The thing with Round the Island Race is that it’s like buses, you wait years and years and then two come along consecutively.

‘We had a shocking first leg down to the Needles and luckily there was a little bit of a lull under the cliffs and we got back into our class and from then on it was really tight.

When we got to Bembridge Ledge, having got the rating list out, we knew we had to finish a minute and a half ahead of one boat and three minutes ahead of another boat.

‘It was pretty tense the whole way back and being the smallest boat in the fleet you’ve got no control if a 55ft boat sits on top of you.

Jiraffe at the 2021 Round the Island Race. Picture: Paul Smith

‘It was only when we got back to shore and people started texting that we thought we might have won.’

The Alan Buchanan designed Cherete won the Silver Gilt Roman Bowl, awarded to

the first boat overall in the ISCRS divisions.

Owner and skipper of Cherete, Brian Haugh, said: ‘We had a totally unexpected result and we were late getting to the start line.

The 2021 Round the Island Race. Picture: Paul Smith

‘This was our tenth Round the Island Race, we had a great day and it felt like normality had resumed.’

Peter Cunningham’s multihull MOD70 PowerPlay was the first to finish the race in a time of 4hrs 11mins 01secs.

A light start to the race prevented any chance of beating the race record, which was set by PowerPlay as Concise 10 in 2017 (2hrs 22mins and 23 secs).

PowerPlay finished this year’s race ahead of the ULTIM Actual and the 32m trimaran IDEC. T’ala, owned by David Collins, was the first monohull to finish the race with a time of 6hrs 11mins 36secs.