The world's biggest regatta, the Round the Island Race, has attracted almost 1,600 yachts entries for the 2002 event which is staged on June 22.

Boats of all shapes and sizes will gather at the Royal Yacht Squadron start line, with the big multi-hulls and grand prix yachts crossing first and the rest following.

Skippers will be looking to break more records after the spectacular race last year where blowy conditions helped French trimaran Dexia Eure et Loir, helmed by Olympic medal-winner Rodney Pattisson of Poole, take almost an hour off Pattisson's own 15-year-old record, also set in a trimaran, completing the course in just 3hr 8min 29sec.

Later in the year, Steve Fossett's 125ft catamaran PlayStation, went round in 2hr 33min 55 sec and, while that was not a Round the Island Race record, it has set a target for potential record breakers.

A new monohull record was also set in 2001 by Mike Slade's 90ft Skandia Leopard but, sadly, the boat will not appear on the 2002 start line since a succession of incidents have confined her to a repair shed for five months.

Leopard completed the course in just over four hours, taking more than an hour off the old record. It was the third time Mike Slade set a round-the-Island monohull record.

In all ten monohulls in the 2001 race achieved better times than the previous record of 5hr 12min 3sec, including the GBR Challenge training yacht GBR 44, Kit Hobday and Tim Louis's Farr 52, Bear of Britain, and two Ultra 30s.