Bears wins under IRM

They may not have won the Round the Island race overall under IRC, but it was a different story under IRM

Having narrowly missed out on the coveted Gold Roman Bowl for Saturday's 1641 boat Round the Island Race, Tim Louis and Kit Hobday's young crew off
the Farr 52 Bear of Britain will also have the Seatrack IRM Trophy to join the top award for their class, IRC Class 1, the Vapho Trophy, in their trophy cabinet.

The Seatrack Trophy, presented by Peter Schofield of S&W (UK) Ltd was open to all boats racing in the Round the Island with a valid IRM certificate and the results, as expected, proved a little closer under IRM than IRC, but Bear of Britain's sprint around the island in 05hrs:22 mins:53 seconds also translated to a relatively comfortable win under IRM.

In second place, five minutes and three seconds behind was Peter Morton's Mills 50 Mandrake.

"We had a good race, which could have been better but for the general recall which meant we were always fighting to get through smaller boats, but what was good for us really was just annihilating the other 50s. We made the right sail combination down the outside of the island with a staysail and an asymmetric, which gave us another knot. To lose by just 17 seconds is just nothing, but winning the IRM Class as well is just a nice little extra bonus. Our crew sailed incredibly well. As they are students they don't have the time to get really going before mid-June, but the boat is really 'on fire' now," commented Bear's co-owner Kit Hobday.

IRM results
1 Bear of Britain Farr 52 T Louis/K Hobday 1.198 05:22:53 06:26:49 1
2 Mandrake Mills 50 Peter Morton 1.179 05:32:22 06:31:52 2
3 I-Site Ker 11.3 Race 1 1.047 06:20:01 06:37:53 3
4 El Gringo Ker 11.3 Nick Hartshorn 1.047 06:20:10 06:38:02 4
5 Fair Do's V Ker 11.3 John Shepherd 1.047 06:22:58 06:40:58 5
6 Bounder IC 45 Chris Little 1.110 06:02:57 06:42:52 6
7 Tonnerre Lutra 52 P Vroon 1.165 05:46:03 06:43:09 7
8 Panther Mumm 36 James Stableford 0.983 07:08:24 07:01:07 8
9 Aztec Mills 31 Malcolm Goodall 0.945 08:08:56 07:42:03 9