Sir Geoffrey Mulcahy, former chief executive of Kingfisher plc, together with Mike Gilburt, smashed the anticlockwise round the Isle of Wight double-handed race record on Sunday.

Racing Mulcahy's Swan 56, Noonmark VI, the pair shaved some 13 minutes off the monohull record, which had stood for 11 years.

The weighty boat, that is normally raced by 20 crew, finished the Island circumnavigation in six hours, four minutes 51 seconds.

Just shy of a 140 yachts completed the 23rd two-handed race in four classes in a south to south-westerly breeze touching 20 knots.

Coming back through the forts off Portsmouth, the clear leader was the J125 Wings of the Wind, Robert Andrews and Andrew McIrvine, and they were looking to reduce the old record by an even greater margin.

But as many have done before them and no doubt will again, they dodged too far out of the tide by Ryde Sands. They grounded and had to retire from the race after vain efforts to get off under sail - leaving the way open for Noonmark VI.

Meanwhile, the 43ft trimaran Mollymawk sailed by Ross Hobson and Andi Newman was first overall.

With the multihulls last to start Mollymawk led the pursuit of the 125 monohulls on a beat down to the Needles, where Mollymawk rounded in fifth place.

The boats enjoyed a close reach to St Catherine's Point, by which point Mollymawk had gained the lead and was working on maximising boat speed to try and break the race record.

The final leg to the finish at Cowes was very quick with Mollymawk holding a steady 13-14 knots, completing the race in a time of five hours 18 minutes for the 51 miles - 31 minutes ahead of the next yacht.

The 44 boats in IRC Class 1 included 14 J-Boats and six X-yachts. Although Noonmark VI was home a quarter of an hour ahead of the next to finish, her high rating told against her in the handicap results. It was Clemency Williams and Dom Akers-Douglas on the J/105 Jos of Hamble which won on corrected time by two minutes from Rob Boulter and Donald Wilks on the Mills 37 Thunder 2.

Thirty-eight boats in IRC Class 2 ranged from a Starlight 39 to a First 211 and saw William Tremlett's Furia 37 Cruella de Vil take line honours.

On corrected time, as so often in round-the-Island races sailed mainly with the tide, it was the smaller boats that came to the fore. The winner was Edward Donald, the 2000 winner, in his Folkboat Madelaine, ahead of Martyn and Magnus Wheatley's H-Boat Cloud Nine.