The Island Sailing Club (ISC) is pleased to confirm that the first entry registered by the Race Entries team at 12.04am for this year’s J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race is the Bavaria 46 sailing yacht Inseyandra,  owned and skippered by Martin Thomas from Kings Langley in Hertfordshire.  Martin is a Yachtmaster Instructor and Principal of Solent Sail Ltd, an RYA sailing school, and he will be competing on 30th June with an amateur crew of ten on board.

The triple Olympic Gold medallist Ben Ainslie

In what has become an annual tradition at the ISC, Lea Bennett, Club Secretary, telephoned Martin Thomas this morning to congratulate him on being the first entry and also revealed to him that he had in fact just pipped the triple Olympic Gold medallist Ben Ainslie CBE to the post with his Race entry which was filed just two minutes later!

Martin Thomas said, “I am extremely happy and very proud to be the first entry in but also feel incredibly privileged to be racing against an Olympic champion in surely one of the only yacht races where this is actually possible!”

As it commences an eighth year as Race Title Sponsor, J.P. Morgan Asset Management confirms that Ben, whom the company also Title sponsors, has indeed entered this year’s Race and, furthermore, it’s the only time when he will be competing outside of the Finn class before the Olympics. In this most historic of sporting years for Great Britain and one in which Ben, GB’s most successful Olympic sailor ever, is hoping to make history, he will skipper J.P. Morgan Asset Management Winston (GBR 2806L), a very competitive Beneteau First 40 yacht.

The first Race start is scheduled for 0700 on Saturday 30th June.