Contessa 32 Class set for the Round the Island Race 2025
by Peter Binning 6 Jun 08:21 BST
7 June 2025
The Contessa 32 class has a long and proud association with the annual Round the Island Race run by the Island Sailing Club since 1931.
This year's race promises to be another windy edition although the forecast is nothing like as extreme as last year's race which saw the smaller classes cancelled and many boats wisely retiring from the race or deciding not to start. At the time of writing all classes are still on to race but that may change as Saturday's start time approaches.
The Contessa 32 class fielded a strong fleet of some 30 boats in 2024 of which 5 finished, a measure of the exceptionally windy conditions. The top 4 boats were in tightly contested competition all the way round finishing within 3 minutes of each other with class winner Bugler taking 3rd overall, Binkie II 4th, Jemima of Farley 5th and Drumbeat 6th overall in the ISCRS class. Also to be commended was an impressive 5th in the Contessa 32 class for Corafin. That set of results is some achievement for a 50 plus year old design. One boat recorded speeds of over 14 knots downwind which most people would agree is quite fast in a Contessa!
While this year's fleet is down slightly in numbers, the lead boats are out again in force. Particular mention should be made of Binkie II which has done the race some 36 times and counts 9 race wins to her name.
There can be few other cruiser racer classes attracting such highly competitive one design fleets in a variety of inshore and coastal events throughout the season. The Round the Island Race is one of the premier events in the class calendar, after which the hotly contested class racing continues with inshore events at Hamble River Sailing Club on 21-22 June, the Taittinger Regatta on 5-6 July building up to Cowes Week with the annual Cowes-Poole-Cowes race on 19-20 July. All Contessa 32's are welcome to join in the racing and it is certainly not too late to enter this season's racing events.