The JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Yacht Race is sailing’s answer to the London Marathon as 1,600 boats, crewed by some of the biggest names in sailing as well as keen amateur sailors, skim past The Needles, the Island’s distinctive rocky structure, round St Catherine’s Point and Bembridge Ledge and back into the Solent.

Watch the yachts round the Needles rocks and enjoy a hearty breakfast in the Needles Old Battery Café.

The boats cross the start line at Cowes in eleven separate groups, starting every 10 minutes from 0700 until 0840 and heading in a westerly direction towards Yarmouth.

The boats pass round the Needles Lighthouse, along the south-west coast of the Island to St. Catherine's Point and then up across Sandown Bay to round the Bembridge Ledge Buoy.

The fleet then makes its way either side of No Man's Land Fort and across Osborne Bay to the finish line back at Cowes.

Image: © Paul Wyeth