Top names round the Island

A number of Skandia Team GBR's top Olympic sailors are set to take part in the Round the Island Race this weekend

Many of the RYA’s British dinghy and keelboat stars of today and tomorrow will be out in force for the annual JPMorgan Asset Management Round the Island Race this Saturday (28 June).

Double Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie will take time out from his Finn preparations for this summer’s Beijing Olympics to join world record breaking Open 60 yachtsman Alex Thomson and Formula One star Lewis Hamilton on board Thomson’s Hugo Boss.

Three-time European Laser champion Paul Goodison will skipper and helm members of the Volvo RYA Keelboat Squad on board the TP52 Volvo for Life in what is set to be his last race in UK before he goes for Olympic Laser gold in China.

Skandia Team GBR’s Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield will also be in Round the Island action racing level-rated J/80s in the Sportsboat Rule section. Rogers and Glanfield will then represent Team GB in the 470 class at Bejing 2008 in August.

Meanwhile no fewer than 11 of the RYA’s top Youth Squad dinghy sailors will get a taste of top class big boat racing action having being given the opportunity to crew one of the Tall Ships Youth Sailing Trust’s Challenger 72 yachts in the 55-mile event.

RYA Youth National 29er girls’ champion crew Claire Lasko, 18, and 15-year-old windsurfer Izzy Hamilton, Youth Nationals’ RS:X girls’ gold medallist, are among the Youth sailors taking part in the race before the duo head out to represent RYA Team GBR at the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships in Denmark next month.

Simon Wergan, RYA Youth Racing Manager, said: “This is a terrific occasion for the Youth Squad sailors to work together as a unit and to take a look at another aspect of the sport that may be new to some.”