BEN AINSLIE smashed the 12-year-old course record for the J.P Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race by more than 16 minutes on Saturday, in his first race on British waters since a glorious fourth Olympic gold at London 2012.

The 36-year-old and his four-man team made the most of ideal conditions to cross the finish line in 2hrs 52mins 15secs on board Ainslie's 45ft America's Cup catamaran, J.P Morgan BAR, shortly after 8am.

And after the race Ainslie dedicated his victory to late friend Andrew Simpson, who competed in the event two years ago.

"It's really nice to break the record," said Ainslie. "One of the reasons for doing this race really was in memory of Andrew Simpson.

"We had his funeral on the Saturday, which was a huge deal for everyone in the sailing world so we didn't really have the record in mind and we just wanted to do the race.

"It happened that the conditions were perfect and the boat was wonderful and the guys and the team did a fantastic job sailing it quickly, so we ended up getting around under three hours which was an amazing time.

"It ended up being a very special day for us in many ways, not just for winning the race."

On a day of falling records Lymington's Mike Slade's ICAP Leopard was second home to break the fastest-ever monohull mark he set in 2008.

At 100ft the longest boat in the IRC fleet, the crew of ICAP Leopard ended the day 40 minutes behind Ainslie but celebrated after knocking nearly ten minutes off their own record.

In total 1,459 boats and around 16,000 sailors both professional and amateur entered this year's race, with bright sun and a moderate to fresh offshore wind early on leading to one of the fast races of recent years.

Overall honours went to Sir Keith Mills' TP52 5 West but despite crossing the line at 9.35am it wasn't until more than six hours later at 4pm that Mills and skipper Robert Greenhalgh were assured of overall victory in the IRC division.

"It was a great race, although I didn't expect to win as it's usually a small boat like a Folkboat or Contessa 26 that gets it in the end," the 63-year-old after claiming the prestigious Gold Roman Bowl.

"It was great for the team on board today. They really enjoyed it and it was more special because most of us were at Bart's [Andrew Simpson] funeral yesterday - we all thought it would be a fitting tribute to him if we had a good race today."

Ten per cent of this year's entrants were sailing for the first time, including some of the youngsters on the five Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust boats.

But despite their relative inexperience their was no stopping the crew onboard EMCT 2/Scarlet Oyster who finished third in their class.

Despite demolishing the decade-old course record, Ainslie didn't taste victory in the Grand Prix Multihull class, losing to amateur sailor Phil Cotton.

His Seacart 30 trimaran Buzz was third over the line overall but his corrected time put him 30 minutes ahead of the Olympic legend.

It was a good day for the amateurs in the race, with Nottingham's Peter Walters skippering a novice crew onboard Sunsail 4009 to a new record time of 7hrs 6mins 32secs in the Sunsail F40 class. Hamble's Puma Logic also had a fine day on the water winning the IRC Class 1B, Class 1overall and finishing the top IRC Sailing School boat.

The J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round The Island Race is the 4th largest participation sporting event in the UK and the largest yacht race of its kind in the world, attracting anything between 1,500 – 1,800 yachts and 16,000 competitors. www.roundtheisland.org.uk