The first boats have crossed the finishing line in this years JPMorgan Asset Management Round the Island Race. The line honours were taken by Cityindex Maximus, a 100 ft monohull from New Zealand skippered by Kevin Sussmilch. Kevin and his crew crossed the line at 14.51.00hrs this afternoon, the first time in a few years that a monohull has beaten the multihulls to the finish. However, the first trimaran was hot on her heels, Nuka Hiva II arrived just 37 seconds later.

Yachting Monthly’s Tracey Clarke was able to catch the crew of Cityindex Maximus as they came ashore and discuss the race with tactician Ian Walker.

TC: How was it today?

IW: That was a tough race actually, Very tough race, didn’t think we would be first home until about the last 45 minutes so very pleasing to actually come home first.

TC: Take me it through it

IW: Well, the first 12 minutes we didn’t get anything more than 0.0 on the speedo, in fact we couldn’t even steer the boat because there was no wind.

But then the race kind of restarted down at Hurst and we got ahead of all the other monohulls then had a pretty good beat up to St Cat’s, but unfortunately hit the tide there and lost nearly all our lead again.

Then got past by Enigma (Nokia Enigma) who were sailing very well. We had a real difficulty short tacking with a swing keel. We’ve got the biggest draft couldn’t go in out of the tide but went off shore in Sandown, picked up the sea breeze and kind of sailed around them and the trimaran So that was very pleasing.

TC: Did your local knowledge help?

IW: Well, a little bit of that, wasn’t just me, we had Harold Cudmore on there and myself, everyone had an opinion as always but somehow we managed to do the right thing

TC: Monohull first home – very unusual?

IW: Very unusual to beat the multi-hulls but this boat is such a high performance boat it is almost like a mulithull, it sails like a multihull. Fantastic boat, lovely to have the chance to sail a boat like that. I love the race; it’s always a good race. I enjoy the race as much when I am sailing a Hunter 707 a few years back or this yacht. Everyone will have a smile on their face tonight