This year the race celebrates its 90th anniversary, and with so many high-profile events being cancelled, the Round the Island is being tipped as one of the biggest events to be staged since the UK’s first lockdown a year ago.

The course is an anticlockwise circumnavigation of the Isle of Wight starting on the Royal Squadron Line just off Cowes. A very early start on the Saturday morning is frequently a feature. As dawn breaks you may be rounding the needles, looking aft the fiery horizon will be speckled with the silhouettes of over a thousand yachts behind you, including your competition. This truly is one of the most epic spectacles to be found in yacht racing.