#rtir – An early start for Jason and Dominic Losty's Quarter Tonner Illes Pituses in this year's Round the Island race saw them heading for the boat at 06:30 to enjoy the fantastic sight of 1,600 boats heading from Cowes in the early morning of clear skies and light winds.

A good start followed by a long beat towards the Needles in light fluctuating breeze which saw huge gains and losses across the fleet. Illes Pituses kept pace with the front of the fleet and had caught a number of larger boats that had started ahead including many 40 ft boats, despite a sea sick skipper feeding the ducks for half the leg.

At the Needles a very close (probably too close) rounding had the boat in good position overall with mainly 40 foot boats and a few other quarter tons .

The long fetch to St Catherines point saw the boat climb through more big boats to be in a good position at St Catherines point. However the breeze shut down completely and after six hours racing it was still all to play for and Illes Pituses were in a very good position surrounded by much bigger boats.

However it was at this point that a few of the boats managed to get some breeze despite being less than 100m away and managed to slip away from Illes Petuses. The breeze filled in from the land and the fleet had a lovely fast run along the back of the Island to Bambridge. Illes Pituses continued to make good progress to the Gybe mark off Bambridge in what were now fantastic sailing conditions of 10 knots and glorious sunshine.

A fetch along the Ryde banks and a nice beat to finish followed with Illes Pituses finishing in just over 11 hours and surrounded by a number of J109s, X332s and similar boats. The overall result has the boat in 16th overall in IRC which pleased the crew but gave a feeling of what might have been had the boat been 100m further to sea at St Catherines point and managed to keep in the breeze.

The Cove Sailing Club entry was one of a number of Irish boats in this year's massive race. Dublin quarter–tonner Cri Cri  (Paul Colton) was also competing in the race for the third time, losing out to the Cove yacht by 25 seconds on handicap after 11 hours plus racing. 

Jason and Domnic Losty's boat is still in Cowes preparing for the Coutts Quarter Ton cup which will start on Wednesday this week and promises to be a great event with almost 40 boats expected with a fleet full of top pros and Olympians. Also racing are Dublin boats Cri Cri and Cartoon (K. Lawless)

In other Round the Island race news, Irish Commodore's Cupper Quokka was third in IRC Zero.