Another day, another time for Maiden II, having fallen well short of the 2hr 33min 55sec time set by Playstation in October last year for an Isle of Wight circumnavigation.

It was not to be the maxi-cat’s day. Co-skippers Brian Thompson and Helena Darvelid could not beat the conditions and logged a time of 3h 21m 16s, missing not only the absolute record but also placing outside of Rodney Pattisson’s Round the Island Record by just 13 minutes.

Maiden’s race was not the only one to be a disappointment. A number of incidents at the start resulted in Stephen Bailey’s Arbitrator being hit by Alvine XII, the Clipper Reflex 38 Lion Clipper taking substantial damage in another collision and the IRC yachts Forward Thinking, Tresca and Menenes tangling themselves into retirement. Less than a quarter into the course a broken mast saw the end of the event for the Formula One yacht, Spirit of Juno. However Ch16 has been surprisingly quiet and no major emergencies have been reported.

Waiting for the bulk of the fleet to muddle and tack its way through the bottleneck of Hurst Narrrows against a southwesterly presented a daunting spectacle at 1130 today. Right in the middle of the pack was Ellen MacArthur’s Kingfisher looking surprisingly subdued under one foresail and reefed main. Much harder charging was Josh Hall’s Pindar, being skippered today by Emma Richards.

The leading boats are already well on their way to Bembridge and we are currently shadowing the tri Bleach of Lavant off Ryde as she runs close-hauled for Cowes. More news soon.