Ventilo M1 cat heads for the Solent

As Lawrie Smith's inner-city London schools team enters JP Morgan Round the Island Race

The Hamble-based Royal Southern Yacht Club has been granted the exclusive right by the Island Sailing Club to be the mainland HUB Club for this year's Round the Island Race, the last under J.P. Morgan's 12-year title sponsorship.

The Royal Southern, who also acted as a South Coast HUB in 2015, will be showing the Race EventTV feed throughout the weekend (Friday 1st-Sunday 3rd July) that includes Friday evening's live coverage of the Raymarine Weather Brief, live coverage of Saturday's starts, competitor notices/information and the ISC's full classified results service. The Club will also host Race-related social functions during the weekend.

The ISC will also provide the staffing and the infrastructure to allow competitors to come to the Royal Southern Yacht Club to declare and collect their Tankards. These facilities are not available anywhere else other than at the Island Sailing Club who run the Race from Cowes.

Lake-racing Super Cat heads for the Solent
 
Safram, a 35ft high tech full carbon Swiss-made catamaran, is designed for winning inshore races on lakes and in 2015, won events on Lake Geneva on the Lake Balaton, Hungary and on Lake Garda, Italy. 

In 2016 the Safram team is racing its 'super cat' for the very first time on open waters and has selected the J.P Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race to prove Safram's skills as an all-rounder. Skipper, Rodolphe Gautier, is a seasoned racer previous Chair of the Swiss M2 catamaran class and also the Chairman of the Organising Committee of the Bol d'Or Mirabaud.
 
Scaramouche is breaking new ground says Lawrie Smith

A unique inner-city multicultural project, helping disadvantaged kids in London, is represented in this year's J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race on a 1981 German Frers 45ft sail training boat Scaramouche, a former Admiral's Cupper. She will have eight students on board.
 
In 2013, Greig City Academy (GCA) set up a school sailing club to allow inner-city London students access to the sport of sailing. To put things into perspective: 73.1% of students who attend GCA are deemed disadvantaged, and 62.4% of students have English as an additional language. Over the last three years nearly 1,000 students have taken to the water for the first time. Today the GCA Sailing has bases in King George V Reservoir in London with a fleet of six dinghies and Poole Harbour, Dorset with a McGregor 22 and Scaramouche.

Former Whitbread skipper and Olympic medallist Lawrie Smith is now the main crew's advisor and is upgrading Scaramouche and then taking students out sailing.
 
"If you are ever fortunate enough to have five minutes with the crew of Scaramouche, determination and crew work are two core traits that come across. Having been told that they could not enter a regatta because they were not a fee-paying school has not deterred them. They found a race they could enter, and they went and won it," commented Smith. "Project Scaramouche breaks new ground and is creating a new model for youth sailing."