You get given all kinds of crew kit in this job. Usually it’s a T-shirt or a baseball cap. Thus you visibly ‘walk the brand round’.

Never before, though, have we seen this item of logo-ed apparel: a black ‘Love Shack’ thong courtesy of Tim Spalding, owner and skipper of a Beneteau 40.7 of the same name. The Love Shack thongs are clearly lucky knickers, since Tim is leading his class.

Here in the Skandia Cowes Week media centre we reckon the medium size is far too big for us anyway, but nothing goes to waste. The Love Shack thong is a perfect laptop protector for those bumpy Solent crossings on the Red Jet, and we are exploring other uses.