Olympic gold medallists and round-the-world skippers will be joining this year’s classic Round the Island Race on Saturday 26th June 2004.

Shirley Robertson, Ben Ainslie and Iain Percy will be in keen competition against each other as they vie for places separately in Laser SB3 sportsboats. Shirley will be racing with her Olympic Yngling crew of Sarah Ayton and Sarah Webb. Volvo Ocean Race CEO Glenn Bourke will also be taking his chances in an SB3 with this elite collection of sailors.

The Round the Island Race sees the newly acquired RYA J80s taking to the water for the first time. These replace the First Class 8s used for match racing. Here husband and wife Neal and Lisa McDonald will be competing against each other with crews chosen from the keen young sailors who have trained through the Volvo RYA Keelboat Programme.

Around Alone Race sailor Emma Richards will this year compete in a Beneteau 40.7 whilst both current record holders return to defend their titles: Mike Slade in “Leopard of London” and Francis Joyon’s “Idec”, the 90 foot multihull in which he recently broke the solo, non-stop round the world record. His will not be the only giant multihull competing as Bruno Peyron plans to enter the new “Orange II”.

Entries for the race currently stand at 830, some 30 up on last year’s total at the same time. The standard fee of £55 applies to those received by noon on Saturday 5th June after which late entries can be made until Saturday 19th June 2004. Full details are available from the Island Sailing Club 01983 296621, email racing@islandsc.org.uk.