19:03 – Finally after five hours eleven minutes, Ross blasted into Colwell and stepped off his board with a huge smile on his face, mission accomplished! In fact that was pretty much the first time I had seen him smile since he set off from Colwell at two in the afternoon. The record for round the island is held by a multihull yacht called Foncia which managed to go round in an astonishing two hours, twenty one minutes, averaging 21.3 knots; now that is pretty impressive, less than half the time we had taken. Given the wind direction and the fact he was overpowered all the way round, there is no doubt Ross could easily knock an hour or more off his time if he ever fancies another bash at the record. A northerly or southerly with favourable tides should be the ideal direction, but I don’t think I’ll be asking him in the very near future especially on a 9.6m.
Ross – “It was awesome to finally be back on shore. I immediately thought to myself thank god for that, I’ll never do it again! At that moment, I was spent; I had just sailed 100 miles! Even so, it would be kind of weird to go through my career without being able to say I have sailed around the island. It would have been nicer on smaller gear and with another person but the day just came up, we went for it and I knuckled down and made sure I completed the mission!.”
