11th July: Round the Island race

I opened up NCI Stone Point at 06:00 BST for the Round the Island sailing race which this year had about 800 starters.  We are going through another hot spell with more or less unbroken sunshine. A force 3 to 4 east to eastnortheast wind meant a spinnaker run, at least as far as Hurst.  The first race start was for 07:00 with further starts at 10 minute intervals after that up to about 08:30.  That implied that the first few starts would still have the current against them so some of the competitors came over to the mainland side of the Solent.  That included the first yacht to finish which was Pace which can be spotted with a black mainsail with red ZAIS on it in a photos at 07:13 (second view of the yachts).