The 91st edition of the Round the Island Race saw over 1,100 boats competing in the 50 nautical mile race around the Isle of Wight, often known as ‘Britain’s Favourite Yacht Race’ on Saturday 25 June 2022.

The boat to cross the finish line first, taking the line honours win was Julian Linton’s Grand Prix multihull N.R.B, who completed the Round the Island Race course in a time of 4 hour 19 minutes. The first monohull to cross the finish line was Ian Atkins’ GP42 Dark’n’Stormy, in a time of 4h54m.

Though picking up line honours is a sought after accomplishment, for many the main aim is to take home the Gold Roman Bowl, awarded to the winning boat when handicap ratings are factored in. One of the great appealing factors of the race is that is can often be won by some of the smallest boats in the fleet. Allowing those with modest budgets to beat stripped out racers built as vast cost.

However, the weather often dictates which end of the handicap scale will do best and this year it was a race for the bigger faster boats as they set off in perfect conditions to storm their way through the early stages of the course. Thus. Dark ‘n’ Stormy picked up both the monohull line honours win and the overall win on handicap too.

Second overall was the Fast 40 racer Khumbu while another Fast 40 fleet regular, the Kerr 43 Baraka GP rounded out the podium.

Dave Atkinson, Race Director said “The race started under perfect race conditions with a south westerly 15 knot breeze. The Class 0 yachts headed down the solent to the west and showed some close racing. It was a fantastic sight to watch the huge fleet of all types of boat, families and professionals, following at ten minute intervals.

The race charity, Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, entered five boats including Solent Hero which Dame Ellen MacArthur was onboard, racing alongside young people supported by her cancer charity.

The event was relatviely incident free for the most part, though the RNLI did have their work cut out in the afternoon with fully 11 boats going aground on Ryde Sands and needing help to be pulled free. The section of the course often sees groundings as there is a temptation to cut the corner and shave valuable distance off the course.

But the long sand flats can make errors easy when the tide is falling and boats can often get stuck island side of the flats essentially trapping themselves into ever shallower water.

You can view all the race results at the Round the Island Race website.

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