Eric Williams Wins Round The Island Race Golden Roman Bowl

22 June 2009

Congratulations to Dragon sailor Eric Williams on his team's victory over 1735 other competitors in Saturday's light airs but extremely challenging Round the Island Race.  Eric, who was sailing a Folkboat called Tattarat with his son Philip, enjoyed an eventful day including a unscheduled dip off Ryde.  Tattarat completed the course in 10 hours and 46 minutes despite the swimming expedition off Ryde to take the prestigious Golden Roman Bowl overall winner's trophy.  Eric's son Philip takes up the story:-

"Our race was quite eventful. We touched on Ryde Sands and my 62 year old father jumped over the side to push us off!  We started in a very light breeze and had a difficult beat to The Needles. Later in the eastern Solent it went light again. Basically we hugged the Island shore all the way round to get out of the tide.  We were close in at The Needles, St Cat's and Bembridge. It was a difficult, testing time but a good race."

Congratulations also to Mike Issaias, Matthew Lingley and Mark Bevan who raced their Dragons Round the Island.  We hope to have a more detailed report on their race for you shortly.

Fiona Brown
Press Officer
Fiona.Brown@fionabrown.com