Cowes record

At 08:24 UTC this morning Sharp crossed the start line for the record attempt off the Royal Yacht Squadron, Cowes and completed the circumnavigation at 13:29 UTC. Subject to official ratification, the record will have been secured in 5 hours 5 minutes and 4 seconds, averaging a speed of 9.8 knots (18.1 kilometres per hour).

The time to break was established in 2017 at 6 hours 29 minutes 32 seconds averaging a speed of 7.7 knots (14.2 kilometres per hour) by Alex Alley aboard Class 40 Pixel Flyer. Sharp adds this to his two existing records, the crewed Around Great Britain and Ireland, and the single-handed Cowes-Dinard.

Sharp commented on his record breaking adventure: “It feels fantastic to now have three world records! Today was a very cold, fast, adrenaline packed sprint. My objective was to aim for 5 hours, which was always going to be tricky when dealing with gusty conditions solo and at times today the gusts really were quite severe, which kept me on my toes.

“Today’s record was about raising awareness for the need to accelerate clean energy innovation [...]