Looking forward to the Shetland Round Britain and Ireland double-handed Yacht Race

The Shetland Round Britain and Ireland double handed Yacht Race will set off from Plymouth on 6th June 2010 and see the double-handed crews sail 2000 nautical miles around the entire United Kingdom coastline. 

We will be following the yacht, Fujifilm, crewed by Alex Bennett and Malcolm Dickinson. We have enjoyed following their training videos on Alex's YouTube Channel and reading Alex's sailing tweets on Twitter. Don't forget to check out the official website  Alex Bennett Ocean Racing  and that you can help raise money for Hospiscare through Just Giving on Alex's site.

[Source for the following text -Wikipedia]

"The race has been hosted by the Royal Western Yacht Club every four years since 1966. There are four compulsory stops of forty-eight hours at Kinsale, Barra, Lerwick and Lowestoft.
Following the success of the first two OSTARs, Herbert Hasler proposed to the Royal Western Yacht Club that there should be a two-handed race around the British Isles. The proposal was considered and the first Round Britain and Ireland race was held in 1966. The course, of about 2,000 miles (3,200 km), was be split into five legs separated by compulsory stop-overs of 48 hours each at Crosshaven in Ireland, Castle Bay, Barra in the Outer Hebrides, Lerwick in Shetland, and Harwich on the East Coast. It would circumnavigate Britain and Ireland and, with the exception of the Channel Islands and Rockall, all islands and rocks would be left to starboard.
The first race was a great success and the RB&I was established on a four year cycle (two years off the OSTAR cycle). Lowestoft replaced Harwich as the east coast port from the second race on. Thereafter the course remained the same until Kinsale replaced Crosshaven in 2006.
The RB&I grew rapidly to a multinational entry of many boat sizes and types. In 1982 the 85 starters included an 80 ft monohull, a 70 ft catamaran, several 60 and 65 ft trimarans, down to a 25 ft monohull, and represented over a dozen nationalities.
The following race was held in 1985, since 1986 was given over to the second TwoSTAR so it could run two years apart from the OSTAR. The four year cycle continued with races in 1989 and 1993, but reverted (following the last TwoSTAR in 1994) to its original schedule in 1998 and on to the latest race in 2010.

 The Shetland Round Britain & Ireland Yacht Race Website

[Source for the following text - The Daily Sail - Wednesday March 24th 2010, Author: Claire Gilbert]

"Race Organiser for the RWYC Peter Taylor is thrilled by the number and quality of the entries: “We have crews from the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, France, Belgium and Italy, and of course from the UK including Alex Bennett from the West Country. We’ve had a surge of interest from Class 40 competitors, 10 in the last month alone, and this has resulted in the race filling up so early. These state of the art craft are the fastest 40 footers on the water by far and will make for some very, very exciting racing.”
Taylor explained that limiting the number of entrants to 60 optimized the efficiency of the administration for the race, and also took into account berthing arrangements. The race’s home port, Queen Anne’s Battery Marina, has already joined forces with Sutton Harbour Marina, from where Plymouth itself grew as a major port and city, to provide enough space for all the starters.
Douglas Irvine, Business Development Manager for Shetland Islands Council, which is sponsoring the race, said: “I’m delighted at this news. By the time the race reaches Lerwick the fleet will be spread out so we will have no trouble accommodating all of the crews, even with boats not involved with the race also berthed. Lerwick is the crossroads of the North Atlantic, and we can promise all racers and visitors alike an excellent time on the islands. Any interested visitors should look on www.shetlandmarinas.com for information.”
The Shetland Round Britain and Ireland race has had up to 80 entrants in previous years, but due to the grueling nature of the event not all of the boats made it around the full course. Some, due to lack of preparation, never even made it to the first of four compulsory stops or even the start. As Peter Taylor explained: “All of the yachts and multihulls this year are bigger, stronger and better equipped. We would expect no more than 10% of the entries to drop out which is a phenomenal achievement. However, it may be that some skippers pull out before the start and as the race is held only once every four years we are very keen to have a full starting line up, and therefore for the first time we have started to register reserve boats."
The fleet will be split into two sections for the start to avoid conflict between boats in Plymouth Sound, and spectators will find the best vantage points to watch the majestic start to a great adventure on Plymouth Hoe or at Jennycliff, to the east of the Sound." Author Claire Gilbert. All Rights Reserved.


[entries list sourced from the RWYC RBI site]

Entrants

Boat name	Make	Skipper	Co-Skipper	Nat	Qual
Multi:
Strontium Dog	43' Tri	Andrew Fennel	Simon Redding	GBR	Q
Drama Queen	Dazcat 1150	Simon Baker	Dan Fellows	GBR	Q
Suenos	Dazcat 1195	Rupert Kidd	Darren Newton	GBR	Q
Backlash II	11.6m Cat	Tony Purser	Matthew Theobald	GBR	Q
Cold Fusion Reloaded	Dragonfly 35 Tri.	Tim Wilson	Richard Haynes	TRI	Q
Paradox	Dazcat 10	Will Claxton	Matt Gill	GBR	Q
allez Van Hee	Dazcat 9.2	Tony Van Hee	Bob Beggs	GBR
Freebird	Corsair 31 tri	Mike Wigmore	Grant Kelly	GBR	Q
Mono:
Wolfie’s Toy	Open 50	Bartel Van Holsbeek	Veronique Dierick Xvisschers	BEL	Q
Kindness	Oyster 47	Nicholas Booth	Jonathan Shingleton	GBR	Q
Rafiki	Salona 42	Rein Amels	Ebe Docter	NED	Q
Roaring Forty	Class 40	Andrew Magrath	David Pugh	GBR	Q
Solo	Class 40	Rune Aasberg	Arild Schei	NOR
Spliff	Class 40	Andrew Dawson	Jon McColl	GBR	Q
Fujifilm	Class 40	Alex Bennett	Malcolm Dickinson	GBR	Q
Livewire	Class 40	Stuart Dodd	Ian Marshall	GBR	Q
sec.Hayai	Class 40	Nico Budel	Jules Banffer	NED
Phesheya-Racing	Class 40	Nick Leggatt	Phillippa Hutton-Squire	RSA	Q
SunGard Front Arena	Class 40	Marco Nannini	Paul Peggs	ITA	Q
Orca	Class 40	Richard Tolkien	Neil Brewer	GBR	Q
40 Degrees	Class 40	Peter Harding	Miranda Merron	GBR	Q
Roaring Again	Open 40	Hans Plas	Robin Verhoef	NED	Q
Vijaya	De Ridder 40	Huib Swets	Anne Raangs	NED
Roc	40ft sloop	Desmond Hampton	Adrian Biggs	GBR	Q
Summerbird	Warrior 40	David Southwood	Sebastian Southwood	GBR	Q
Quid Non?	Swan 40	Nigel Philpott	Christian Jeffery	GBR	Q
Jbellino	J 122	Rob Craigie	Charles Allen	GBR	Q
The Shed	Lightwave 395	Pip Hare	Phil Stubbs	GBR
Greyhound	Dehler 39SQ	Gerard Schalkwijk	Laura Engel	NED	Q
Beyond	Comfortina 38	Stuart McDonald	Angus Lawrence	GBR	Q
Zest	Sigma 38	Adrian Bishop	Eric Bates	GBR	Q
Elixir	Elan 380	Felicity Gabbay	Roger Barber	GBR	Q
Change of Course	C&C 115	Keith Gibbs	Robin Tatum	GBR	Q
Thunder	Mills 37	John Fowler	Warwick Samuel	GBR	Q
Ding Dong	Stewart 37	Christopher Rustom	Stephen Homewood	GBR	Q
Home Run	Westerly Typhoon	John Goodchild	Mike Povey	GBR	Q
Krackpot	Dehler 36 CWS	David Gebbett	Steve Lineker	GBR	Q
Ruffian	Sigma 36	Pete McIntyre	Emma Nutt	GBR	Q
Jangada Too	J109	Richard Palmer	Trevor Drew	GBR	Q
Jager	Koopmans 35	Dick Koopmans	Yolanda Cupido-Koopmans	NED	Q
Q II	One off	Mary Falk	Jerry Freeman	GBR	Q
Comedy of Errors	HOD 35	Tony White	Sam White	GBR	Q
Suroma	Starlight 35	Bill Graham	Robin Graham	GBR	Q
Kipper of London	Victoria 34	John Corden	John Nash	GBR	Q
Taika	J 105	Chris Tibbs	Kim Vasey	GBR	Q
Flair II	MG 335	William Mumford	Ned Mumford	GBR	Q
Knight’s Challenge	Sigma 33	Janet Sainsbury	John Futcher	GBR	Q
bluQube	Figaro II	Katie Miller	Matthew Lingley	GBR	Q
Yogo Racing Izara	Figaro II	Oliver Young	Sam Goodchild	GBR	Q
Home of Jazz	Koopmans VQ32	Maarten Russchen	Harry Vogel	NED	Q
Streamline	Koopmans VQ32	Leslie Irvine	Andrew Wood	GBR	Q
Richard House Hospice	Koopmans VQ32	Richard Lett	Sharon McMichael	GBR	Q
Resolute	Contessa 32	Wave Crookes	David Flett	GBR
Fastrak VII	Sunfast 3200i	Nigel Colley	David Bowdler	GBR	Q
Spirit	Corby 30	Richard Versteegh	Jac Sandberg	NED
Santana	Capo 30	Myles Perrin	Ashley Perrin	GBR
Gratifikation	GK 29	Richard Argent	Kevin Ashford	GBR	Q

We are looking forward to following the race from next weekend. We will try and post any interesting video and articles that we find from the event. We wish all the competitors the best of luck!