Cowes, Isle of Wight: The Island Sailing Club, organisers of the world-renowned J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race, is delighted to announce that Raymarine, the world-leading marine electronics manufacturing company, is continuing its support of this unique one-day yachting event, having signed up as a supporting sponsor for a further two year term.

Raymarine, now owned by FLIR Systems Inc., has been a Race Partner since 2003 and is fully committed to its pivotal role in the continuing success that is the Round the Island Race as it enters its 80th anniversary year in 2011.

Speaking on behalf of Raymarine, Fiona Pankhurst, Head of Corporate Marketing and PR, explained that their sponsorship commitment goes way beyond financial support and branding of the event, and includes the now essential and much anticipated, pre-race weather briefing. “Raymarine has developed this all-important weather briefing over the years to make it easily accessible for the majority of the Race competitors to share, even if they are unable to attend the briefing in person. We relay the briefing via SMS messaging and also use a dedicated microsite to host the weather briefing online. This event is appreciated and recognised as a useful addition to the pre-race preparation, especially as the information is prepared and presented by expert marine weather authorities, such as Chris Tibbs and Libby Greenhalgh.”

Lea Bennett is the Island Sailing Club’s Secretary whose year-round responsibilities include looking after the sponsorship and marketing of this most famous of yacht races.

“We would like to thank Raymarine and all our valued Race Partners for their continuing commitment to ensuring the future of this unique sporting event and for their confidence in us as the organisers and hosts.

“The Island Sailing Club has been going since 1889 and as the organisers of this great race which is about to enter its 80th year, we are doing everything we can to ensure that we deliver the very best race to our 1,700 plus competitors, our title sponsor, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and our family of Race Partners. We’ve plenty to celebrate!”

The J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race is the 4th largest participation sporting event in the UK with around 16,000 sailors signing up each year to crew the 1,700 plus boats on the 50 nautical mile voyage around the Isle of Wight over the course of one day every June. It also attracts a massive following online and the mobile phone tracking technology introduced this year has been deemed a great success with some 30% of the competitors signing up to it and thousands following the progress of the fleet online.

Next year’s 80th Anniversary Race is being held on Saturday 25th June and the first gun is at 0600hrs.

http://www.roundtheisland.org.uk