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Edwards misses island record

No record but victory for the crew of Maiden II

COWES, England -- Despite recording the fastest time on the day, Tracy Edwards' giant 34-metre (100-foot) catamaran Maiden II finished 13 minutes outside the record time for the annual Round the Island race.

Maiden was first home out of 1,641 starters in an elapsed time of three hours, 21 minutes and 16 seconds on the 55 nautical mile course, which takes the fleet anticlockwise around the Isle of Wight, off England's south coast.

Unfortunately for the maxi catamaran, which set a new 24-hour sailing record just a week ago, the wind conditions on Saturday were not suitable for a very fast time as the first leg from Cowes to the Needles Lighthouse was into a 20-knot southwesterly.

As co-skipper Helena Darvelid explained: "We didn't have the right weather to break the record, as 110ft catamarans are not designed for short tacking up The Solent."

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Maiden's closest challenger was expected to be the 18.28m (60ft) French trimaran Rexona Men sailed by Yvan Bourgnon, but it retired with a damaged centreboard after hitting Lepe Spit, just off the Beaulieu River entrance.

The 18.28m (60ft) monohull Kingfisher, sailed by Ellen MacArthur, was one of the many big boat class that breached the line at the start leading to a general recall for the whole class.

Once they were away the second time Kingfisher proved no match for the old Whitbread 60 Sunergy charted by Morgan Stanley, which was the first monohull home in a time of 5 hrs 47mins and 57 seconds to clinch this year's Observer Trophy.

It was not until much later in the day, as the last stragglers were returning to Cowes, that the overall handicap winner was announced for the Gold Roman Bowl.

This year the honour went to Jeremy Rogers of Lymington, Hampshire, who took more than nine hours to sail the Contessa 26 Rosina he designed and built to victory, finishing just 17 seconds on handicap ahead of the highly rated Farr 52 Bear of Britain.

Rogers says that with so many boats around, the secret of success was avoiding collisions. "There are a lot of tight squeezes, you are constantly dodging boats."