Feature
Fun facts about
the Round the
Island Race
• Charity fund-raising has always
played a big part in the Race,
with many charitable causes
benefitting. The official Race
charity, The Ellen MacArthur
Cancer Trust, raised £267,000
from its recent involvement.
This enabled an additional
472 young people to join the
Trust for a four-day trip and
119 young people in recovery
from cancer to be able to sail in
the Race. In total, the amount
raised for good causes since
2010 has reached £500,000.
• Probably one of the best-known
Gold Roman Bowl winners of
modern times was the former
Prime Minister Sir Edward
Heath, who won the race
four times - three of them in
consecutive years in the early
1970s on “Morning Cloud II” and
“Morning Cloud III”, and then
in 1980 he took the top trophy
again in “Morning Cloud IV”.
ensure that hand-written finishing
records reach the results room, (still
known as “The Bunker”) despite
Cowes Combined Clubs’ excellent new
facilities, within a matter of minutes.
Both competitors and spectators can
then see fast on-screen results flashed
up on Event TV sites in Cowes, or pick
them up from around the world via the
dedicated website. 2008 saw an even
bigger march forward in technology when
declarations could be made by mobile
phone text messaging - sending the old
floating “dec barge” system into retirement.
This was followed by the introduction
of GPS tracking in 2010 and the launch
of the race’s own dedicated broadcast
TV channel, RTI-TV in 2015, allowing
friends, family