NEW FOREST sailor Ben Ainslie smashed the Round the Island race record on Saturday.
Lymington’s four-time Olympic sailing champion stormed across the finish line aboard the JP Morgan BAR AC45 catamaran in a time of two hours, 52 minutes and 15 seconds to break the previous record, held for 12 years.
He dedicated the win to Sherborne sailor and close friend Andrew Simpson, for whose funeral he was a pallbearer on Friday.
Tributes were also paid to the sailor, who died in an accident in San Francisco, before the race.
Ainslie carved more than 16 minutes off Francis Joyon’s 2001 time for the yacht race around the Isle of Wight.
Second across the finish line was ICAP Leopard, skippered by Mike Slade, who took more than 10 minutes off the monohull record.
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