“There was a long oily swell and very little wind,” Harold Cudmore recalled more than 40 years later. “We realized there was bad weather coming. So, we had the last supper because we weren’t going to eat again. We headed into nightfall… We were going to get a beating. The glass was falling something like three millibars an hour.”

It was mid-August 1979, and an unsuspecting fleet of more than 300 hundred boats was headed for the Fastnet Rock off the southern tip of Ireland. They were all racing in the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s biennial classic, the Fastnet Race. In the space of the next 24 hours, 24 crews would abandon ship, battered by 60-knot winds and 40-foot breaking waves. Eighteen lives were lost among those who were competing and those who came to rescue them. It was the greatest tragedy in modern sailboat-racing history.

At the time, I was a young dinghy sailor racing out of a small, unfashionable club a long way from Cowes and the Solent, the hub of British ocean racing. The only story that reached me from that storm was triumphant, not tragic, and its star was Harold Cudmore. An Irishman, Cudmore carved a stellar career across several decades, encompassing wins at world championships and the America’s Cup, when he was part of Bill Koch’s successful defense in 1992.

In 1979, Cudmore was racing with his countrymen as a ­tactician on a 44-foot yacht called Golden Apple of the Sun in the Irish Admiral’s Cup team. Golden Apple was, as Harold put it, “one of the glamour boats of the year,” and it was turning out to be a good year. At the start of the Fastnet, the Irish were leading 18 other national teams.

Early on the morning of August 14, with the storm reaching its peak, Golden Apple of the Sun was the first of the Admiral’s Cup yachts around the Fastnet Rock. The boat turned for the Scilly Islands in a world of monstrous waves and howling spray, and when the wind shifted far enough aft, the crew hoisted the spinnaker. Cudmore took some precautions: He had a man strapped to the mast armed with a flare gun. The instructions were simple. If the helm started to lose control, shoot the flare through the spinnaker.

The appeal to a teenage boy disconnected from the tragic realities of that storm is obvious. What nerve, what bravado. Men and women were abandoning yachts all over the Western Approaches, and here was the piratical Cudmore, hurtling through this awesome storm with the spinnaker set and only a flare gun to separate death from glory.

A few years later, I started my pro sailing career with Cudmore’s 1987 British America’s Cup team, and then we raced the Fastnet together in 1989. We even rounded the legendary lighthouse on another wild, black night—but I only recently got around to asking him about the 1979 race.

“We got around the rock, and it was 52 knots across the deck. I remember looking at the dials as we rounded,” he told me. “We were over-­canvassed, we had two reefs in the main. We speared off, and fairly shortly afterwards, when it began to really kick in, we dropped the mainsail. Later we dropped the jib and replaced it with the storm jib. [The wind] was west and then round to northwest. We ended up running back to the Scillys.”

This was the moment for the spinnaker. “We survived the night driving pretty hard, and then come morning it began to ease up and the sea began to build some length into it, and so it was less threatening,” Cudmore continued. “We put the main back up, and I remember saying to the guys, ‘We’re down to 35 knots, we should put the spinnaker up.’ It was the only time—you know what I’m like in a boat—the only time I had a strike. ‘We will not!’ So, we settled for a boomed-out number-two jib. The guys were up on deck to do that when the rudder broke.”

It was the end of their Fastnet. There had been no spinnaker, no flare gun. The crew of Golden Apple had eventually chosen to take a proffered lift ashore with a helicopter that was finishing operations for the day. “The only thing of note that came from that was the note we left on the chart table saying, ‘Gone for lunch,’” Cudmore added. The yacht was later safely recovered, but they were done—the race, the Admiral’s Cup, all gone.

When they were running before a storm, the skippers were said to have chained a man to the main mast, armed with an ax to cut the halyards if the helmsman lost control. If there was one thing that boats built to the International Offshore Rule didn’t need with the spinnaker up, it was extra weight near the bow.

I told Cudmore the story I’d heard more than four decades ago, and his reaction was immediate. “That’s an old story that dates a generation before my time. I heard the story back when I was a kid. It’s an apocryphal story,” he said, before explaining further. “I think the story related back to after the second World War, when you could buy these Very pistols, and the word was…that if you were caught with a sail up in heavy conditions and the halyard jams, what do you do? You fire a Very pistol into the sail—seamanship in the 1950s!”

I did some research, and the story has even older antecedents, back with the clipper ships. When they were running before a storm, the skippers were said to have chained a man to the main mast, armed with an ax to cut the halyards if the helmsman lost control. If anything, the story about the square rigger is more plausible. If there was one thing that boats built to the International Offshore Rule didn’t need with the spinnaker up, it was extra weight near the bow. I suspect that this knowledge, once acquired, was the reason I took so long to talk to Harold Cudmore about it—why wreck a great tale with the truth?

John Rousmaniere’s book Fastnet, Force 10 is probably the most authoritative account of the storm, and he tells of the need for the survivors to talk it down, to somehow “inoculate ourselves against the awareness that, at its worst, the storm was much more dangerous than, say, the 1972 Bermuda Race gale, and that there had been excellent reason to be frightened.” So, was the sailing community reaching for a time-honored myth and recasting it to feel more comfortable with the ferocious challenge of that storm?

If so, there is a reason to puncture these tall tales of daring with a cold dose of reality. In reshaping the experience in this way, the flare-gun story feeds our natural overconfidence and makes these storms less frightening. The effect might be slight, but no one should be going out there without fully understanding what they might be taking on. “It was a pretty wild night, no doubt about it,” Cudmore told me, 40 years too late. “I would be terrified if I was out there today, knowing what I know.”

The post Golden Apple’s Fastnet Mystery appeared first on Sailing World.

The extraordinary 98-foot Ultime Maxi Edmond de Rothschild showed a clean pair of heels to the rest of the fleet in the 49th Rolex Fastnet Race arriving on Monday 9 August at 20:24:54 BST, setting a new record for the race’s new longer 695-mile course to Cherbourg of 1 days 9 hours 15 minutes and 54 seconds.

As the huge blue and white trimaran arrived in Cherbourg’s Port Chantereyne, the marina was packed with cheering fans of the team and of its famous crew of six led by co-skippers Franck Cammas and Charles Caudrelier. Also on board were David Boileau, Erwan Israel, Morgan Lagraviere and Yann Riou.

“The boat is amazing – we have improved since last year, so we are very happy,” said Caudrelier. “The team has done a fantastic job over the last year to develop the boat and we can’t stop that because new boats are coming. We are very happy about this race and the result of it, and the way it has happened.”

After an exciting start Maxi Edmond de Rothschild exited the Solent and then led the Rolex Fastnet Race fleet south towards the Channel Islands. Here, significantly, they tacked further south than their main Ultime rivals.

“For us it was important to get south to get the shift,” continues Caudrelier. “It was obvious and we wanted to stay on the left of the fleet. Then we were worried about getting too close to the south of England approaching the Sevenstones [lightship], so we were very happy with what we did. We didn’t make too many mistakes.”

Cammas added: “Charles and Erwan [Israel] did a good job with the routing and we had one good shift by going further south that enabled us to put more than 20 miles on Sodebo and Actual. What was strange was that the French boats went on the south of the Channel and the English boats stayed in the north! Perhaps they are using different routing software!”

With so much of their race upwind, Maxi Edmond de Rothschild hadn’t often hit super-high speeds. However, they had briefly reached 40 to 41 knots after passing Bishop Rock on their return journey.

Of their arrival into the Rolex Fastnet Race’s new finish port of Cherbourg, Franck Cammas commented: “It is good because there is a very good ambiance – maybe a little more than when we finish in England! We are very happy to come back in two years.”

This edition was Cammas’ fourth Rolex Fastnet Race and he is a fan: “It is a very famous race because it has many boats. It is like the Sydney Hobart – it is not just the professionals, there are many amateur boats too. It is very good to have these all on the same line. It is also very nice to have big multihulls, big monohulls, all the new IMOCAs, etc all on the same start line.”

The post Rolex Fastnet Line Honors to the Ultime appeared first on Sailing World.

Once again, the Rolex Fastnet Race has confirmed itself to be by far the world’s largest offshore yacht race. After the entry for the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s flagship event was opened at 1200 UTC, the 340 available places for boats in the IRC fleet were all taken within just four minutes and 37 seconds. This was just 13 seconds outside the record time recorded in 2017.

The first entry to sign up on the RORC’s Sailgate online entry system for the biennial 605-mile race from Cowes to Plymouth via the Fastnet Rock off southwest Ireland, was regular competitor Derek Saunders and his Farr 60 Venomous. He narrowly beat the German Hamburgischer Verein Seefahrt club’s Judel Vrolijk 52 Haspa Hamburg and Tom Kneen’s JPK 11.80 Sunrise who were next fastest.

After the first two minutes, 180 boats had already been entered successfully. After the first frenetic four minutes and 37 seconds when the maximum entry limit was reached, subsequent requests were filtered through to the reserve list. Ultimately, after the deluge subsided, 440 boats had entered in total.

Yachts from 25 countries are due to take part this year: The bulk of these are from the UK, from where 201 boats were registered, followed by the dominant French (winners of the last three editions of the Rolex Fastnet Race) with 81 and the Netherlands with 33.

The entry includes a strong contingent of 16 boats from the United States, many making the passage across to the UK in the Rolex Transatlantic Race 2019. This leaves Newport, Rhode island on June 25, bound for Cowes via the Lizard and is organized by the RORC in conjunction with the New York Yacht Club, Royal Yacht Squadron and Storm Trysail Club. Entries from further afield have been received from Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Turkey, Hong Kong and Korea among others.

This strong entry shows that the change of date has made little impression on the desire to do the Rolex Fastnet Race: The start date was moved to Saturday, 3 August and for the first time it will be setting off before Lendy Cowes Week (rather than on the traditional Sunday immediately after it).

For the RORC’s Australian Racing Manager Chris Stone this is his first Rolex Fastnet entry day experience since taking up his position in Cowes a year ago: “It has been unbelievably busy. Before 1200 we had about 500 people who were all on standby, logged into their accounts, which was a good indicator about how busy it was going to be. Then we went straight to 340 and on to 440, including the waiting list.”

Among the entries is at least one 100-foot maxi while Stone reckons that one of the top fights in the race will potentially be between the six Cookson 50s.

It should be noted that with the Rolex Fastnet Race the RORC has led the way among the organizers of the world’s classic 600 milers in inviting other grand prix racing yacht classes to compete outside of the main IRC fleet. This has led to the race featuring some of the very best offshore racing hardware from yachts competing in the Volvo Ocean Race to the giant 100-foot long French Ultime multihulls and the IMOCA 60s of the Vendée Globe. For 2019, an especially strong line-up of Class 40s is anticipated. “We are expecting around another 50 boats – thirty Class 40s and twenty IMOCA boats,” Stone forecasts.

Meanwhile for the fleet, there remains the qualification process that will take place over the course of the 2019 season, with teams required to gain adequate miles and experience in order to meet the Rolex Fastnet Race’s stringent entry requirements. Competing yachts must complete more than 300 race miles with at least 50 percent of their Rolex Fastnet Race crew onboard.

The post Full for the Fastnet Race appeared first on Sailing World.

France galvanised its reputation as the world’s greatest offshore racing nation by dominating the results across the majority of the classes in the Rolex Fastnet Race for a third consecutive occasion. Of the 11 main prizes, French boats failed to win just three, and of these one (Dongfeng Race Team) was raced by a largely French crew.

The Royal Ocean Racing’s biennial flagship event this year attracted another record-sized fleet of 362 boats, six more than 2015. It continues to be the world’s largest offshore yacht race, and also the most popular – when registration opened, the IRC fleet’s maximum limit of 340 boats was reached in just 4 minutes and 24 seconds!

As ever the course took the giant fleet west down the English Channel, either side of the prohibited ‘traffic separation scheme’ zone between Land’s End and the Scilly Isles, across the Celtic Sea to the Fastnet Rock, four miles off southwest Ireland, back south leaving Bishop Rock and the Scilly Isles to port and then, on past the Lizard, to the finish off Plymouth – in total 605 nautical miles.

Equally impressive as the size of the Rolex Fastnet Race fleet was its diversity, ranging from many of the world’s top offshore racing teams, either privately owned or sponsored, down to smaller amateur family and friends entries to sailing schools featuring individuals for many of whom the Rolex Fastnet Race would rank as the ‘Everest’ of their offshore racing careers.

The traditional Sunday staggered start on the Solent, taking place the day after Cowes Week, was spectacular, the giant fleet setting off by class, starting with the multihulls at 1100 and finishing 1hr 40 minutes later with the biggest monohulls. They were accompanied west down the Solent by the substantial spectator fleet before squeezing through the bottleneck at Hurst and out into the Channel.

This year’s race was a ‘classic’ weather-wise with a prolonged beat all the way to the Fastnet Rock, followed by a run back to Bishop Rock and a reach to the finish. Conditions for the frontrunners were moderate, albeit somewhat awkward with a front lying across the southern UK creating a small pause in the wind before filling in from the northwest.

The medium-small sized boats got their money’s worth with a hard beat into winds approaching 30 knots en route to the Fastnet Rock. These same conditions made for a blistering sleigh ride back from the Rock for the larger boats.

Course record holder, Yann Guichard and Dona Bertarelli’s 40m maxi-trimaran Spindrift 2 being absent this year, left Tony Lawson’s MOD70 Concise 10 (ex-Virbac Paprec) to claim line honours. Thanks to the long beat, records remained intact with the blue trimaran making it round the course in 42hrs 55mins (compared to Banque Populaire V’s record of 32hrs 48mins in 2011). However if anyone doubted a multihull’s upwind ability, Concise 10’s time to the Fastnet Rock was some 29% faster than George David’s larger state of the art maxi, Rambler 88, first monohull round, more than 10 hours later. Ironically, given France’s dominance in offshore multihull racing, this was the only class won by a British boat in this year’s race.

Favourite for monohull line honours was Rambler 88, owner George David once again facing his demons after nearly losing his life in the 2011 race when the keel fell off his previous 100 footer and he and a group drifted away from the boat. However in with a chance was Finnish round the world race legend Ludde Ingvall’s heavily modified 100ft maxi CQS and the high performance superyacht Nikata – at 115ft, the longest boat in the fleet. All three were full of former America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race talent including most of 2007 era Alinghi, sailing with Dean Barker on Rambler 88, former America’s Cup helmsman Chris Dickson on CQS and with America’s Cup winner Peter Burling having the most comfortable ride on Nikata.

Again, Rambler 88‘s time of 2 days 9 hours 34 minutes and 26 seconds, fell well outside that of the 1 day 18 hours and 39 minutes monohull race record set by Ian Walker’s crew on the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing VO70 in 2011.

While there had been a small park up outbound as the boats crossed the front, on the way back all of the boats got trapped to differing degrees by giant Doldrums-like clouds that sucked away the wind and dumped rain on the crew. The eventual winner in the IRC Zero class was American Ron O’Hanley’s Cookson 50 Privateer, however before this Rambler 88 and Nikata had both been ahead, not just in class but overall under IRC.

Among the professional classes racing outside of the IRC fleet this year were the Class40s, IMOCA 60s and the VO65 one designs competing on ‘Leg Zero’ of the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race. The Rolex Fastnet Race was the first time the seven VO65s had come together in a major race. The Simeon Tienpont-skippered Team Akzonobel got ahead at the Lizard and led round the Fastnet Rock. However the main competition was between the Spanish MAPFRE team, led by Xabi Fernandez and Dongfeng Race Team, skippered once again by France’s Charles Caudrelier. Their sprint for the finish line was won by the Chinese team but by less than one minute. As Fernandez explained: “We were stretching away at the very end, but then a big squall came with 20+ knots. It was way too much for the sail and we had to peel and they overtook.”

However the performance of the VO65s was overshadowed by doublehanders Paul Meilhat and Gwénolé Gahinet on the smaller IMOCA 60 SMA, who posted a similar race time to the VO65s. Aside from being a winning duo, having previously claimed victory in the Figaro’s Transat AG2R, SMA also benefitted from swapping back to her original straight daggerboards, with which (as MACIF) she won the 2012-13 Vendee Globe with Francois Gabart. This proved a superior configuration upwind to the Fastnet Rock and her 48 minute lead there could not be recovered on the subsequent downwind legs by the newer generation foil-assisted 60s such as Boris Herrmann and Pierre Casiraghi, aboard Malizia – Yacht Club de Monaco or Jean-Pierre Dick and Yann Eliès on StMichel-Virbac, who having rounded the Rock ended up second having sailed some 10% faster than SMA between the Fastnet Rock and Plymouth.

The biggest class among the non-IRC fleets were the Class40s, with 26 boats, including all the latest designs, from Verdier, Owen Clarke, Manuard, the newest being Carac, Louis Duc’s Marc Lombard design featuring the highest volume bow permitted under Class40 rules.

Class40 President, Halvard Mabire was sailing with English partner Miranda Merron on Campagne de France, a boat of his own design. They were first around the Fastnet Rock but where then overhauled by the faster, more powerful reaching machines, Maxime Sorel’s V and B and Jersey’s Phil Sharp on Imerys, both designs by Sam Manuard, who was competing aboard winner, V and B.

While these high profile classes grabbed headlines, the majority of the boats competing were in the 312-strong IRC fleet. If already France had won the IMOCA 60 and Class40, where they were in the majority, they subsequently prevailed in the remaining IRC fleets where they were not.

In IRC One, a tough on the water battle for the lead between James Neville’s HH42 Ino XXX and the beautiful Mylius 15e25 Ars Una of Italian Vittorio Bissarini, was won by the British boat. These two pulled out a massive lead on the water, but it was Lann Ael 2, the JND 39 of Parisian Didier Gaudoux, that came out on top, the La Crouesty boat’s time correcting out to more than two and a half hours faster than the Lombard 46 Pata Negra, campaigned by Dutchman Herman de Graaf and his family.

In IRC Two Gilles Fournier and Corinne Migraine’s J/133 Pintia managed to fend off the advances of long term rival Nick and Suzi Jones’ First 44.7, Lisa, skippered for the race by RORC Commodore Michael Boyd. These two boats led IRC Two into Plymouth with the lower-rated Pintia’s time correcting out to 1 hour 13 minutes ahead. On this occasion it was the front runners who prevailed on corrected time.

Boyd observed that Pintia had got ahead of them at Portland Bill. “She went in and we probably should have followed her as they just managed to get through the gap. We went outside and lost quite a few miles. However we gained them back in Lyme Bay when an awful lot of boats went in and many had to anchor.”

For IRC Three it was once again the turn of the JPK 10.80s to come out on top, following Géry Trentesaux’s Rolex Fastnet Race victory on Courrier Du Leon in 2015. This year with Trentesaux crewing for a friend in the multihull class, it was the turn of two French boats to fight for first. Arnaud Delamare and Eric Mordret’s Dream Pearls came out on top, winning by a mere 1 minute and 11 seconds on corrected time from Marc Alperovitch’s Timeline. This outcome might have been different had Alperovitch and his crew not spent six minutes extricating themselves from the Shingles bank as they tried to exit the Solent.

Again these two boats led on the water as well as on corrected time ahead of perhaps the strongest contingent of British boats, all sailed two handed – the mixed duo of Rob Craigie and Deb Fish on the Sun Fast 3600 Bellino, finishing third overall. Another boat to do well was the Russian 10.80, Bogatyr skippered by Melges 20 champion, Igor Rytov.

IRC Four was another all-French affair for the lead between two JPK 10.10s. Here Pascal and Alexis Loison aboard Night and Day won, the Cherbourg-based father and son team showing the same prowess as won them the Rolex Fastnet Race outright in 2013. Just two up, père Loisin, an orthopedic surgeon and Alexis, a successful Figaro sailor, beat their long term fully crewed rivals aboard Noel Racine’s Foggy Dew.

These two boats led at the Fastnet Rock on corrected time, not just in IRC Four, but overall across the entire IRC fleet.

As Racine recounted of how he lost his rival: “We were very close, but we fell into a wind hole 100m from the Fastnet, stopped for two minutes and they disappeared.” Night and Day rounded 20 minutes ahead on corrected time and extended away, Racine explained: “A patch of light wind was coming from astern, so the boats behind had more difficulty than us, but the boats ahead were gone.”

The nearest British competition was, Xara, the Swan SR 38 of Jonathan Rolls which finished fourth, three hours and 23 minutes behind Night and Day.

Night and Day also cleaned up in IRC Two Handed, where there were a record 58 entries. Here British boats faired better with Bellino coming home third behind Dutch two handed champions Robin Verhoef and John van der Starre aboard their new J/122e Ajeto!

Ultimately it was the IRC One winner Didier Gaudoux’s JND 39 Lann Ael 2 that came out on top across the IRC fleet, winning the coveted Fastnet Challenge Cup.

“We had a fantastic race,” said Goudoux. “We were lucky with the weather. Conditions were good for the team and the crew. From Fastnet Rock to the Scilly Isles was perfect for us – the wind angle, the size of the waves, etc. It was windy and these boats enjoy big waves. We were doing over 20 knots – a new record for us!” Having rounded the Rock 29th overall, this latter part of the race won them back their time.

Last year when new, Lann Ael 2 put in a disappointing performance in the Brewin Dolphin Commodores’ Cup, but since then the boat has been heavily optimised with input from her navigator, Figaro veteran and sailmaker Fred Duthil.

For the vast majority of Rolex Fastnet Race crews, the event represented an achievement, being part of a classic ocean race dating back to the 1925. This was the case for the eight inner city kids aged 15 and 18 from Greig City Academy in London sailing their major offshore race as it was for the young Chinese crew from Noahs Sailing Club in Shanghai, led by Ting Lee on board the First 47.7 EH01. It also attracted many famous boats from the yellow trimaran Acapella, Mike Birch’s nimble 1978 Route du Rhum winner to Kialoa II, the 72ft S&S maxi that American businessman Jim Kilroy campaigned to victory in the 1965 Transpac and 1971 Sydney Hobart.

Nick Elliott, Racing Manager of the Royal Ocean Racing Club said: “It was a fantastic race – a tough start with challenging conditions, but a superb way to finish with a downwind blast all the way from the Fastnet Rock to Plymouth, where our sponsor Rolex made everyone feel welcome in the Race Village.

“Congratulations to Didier Gaudoux and the crew of Lann Ael 2, the worthy winners. Thanks to our team of race officers and volunteers, who have worked tirelessly to make the arrival as welcoming as possible for everyone.”

The post France Commands Rolex Fastnet for Third Year appeared first on Sailing World.

Probably the toughest battle in the 2017 Rolex Fastnet Race was the duel for the lead in the largest class of the smallest boats, IRC Four. This was an all-French affair, both in French-built JPK 10.10 sisterships and both teams from northern France. However one was doublehanded from Cherbourg; the other fully crewed from Le Havre. And they have considerable history.

In 2013 the father and son team of Pascal and Alexis Loisin aboard Night and Day became the first doublehanded crew ever to win the Rolex Fastnet Race not just in their class, but outright, ahead of all the fully crewed boats. But in second place overall that year was Noel Racine’s Foggy Dew. This was also the case two years ago when Night and Day finished fifth overall with Foggy Dew ninth. And while it would be nice to say that it was third time lucky for Racine’s Le Havre crew, in fact, Pascal Loisin, the Cherbourg-based orthopaedic surgeon and his professional Figaro sailor son Alexis prevailed once again. This time both boats were racing in the same class, Night and Day’s time correcting to out to 2 hours 13 minutes ahead of her rival, although this year neither made an impression on the overall IRC results, which favoured larger boats.

“It was very nice race…” Alexis Loisin began, his father interjecting: “It was a bit hard at the beginning! I don’t think I have spent the best part of three days of upwind like that!”

The Loisins were pleased with their tactics at Portland Bill where they went very inshore (too far inshore, judging from the look on the face of père Loisin), however that gained them three miles. Crossing the Celtic Sea, their tactics were conservative, not hitting one or other side of the course hard although they are renowned for tacking on every shift. However they did err to the right of the rhumb line en route to the Fastnet Rock leaving them in good shape when the wind veered right.

The fight for IRC Four honours was initially between four boats including the lead duo, another JPK 10.10 Richard Fromentin’s Cocody and the rather different S&S 41 heavyweight, Harry J Heijst’s Winsome. “The first to separate was Cocody which made a small mistake and after that it was Winsome and from Land’s End to the Fastnet it was just the two of us fighting,” recounted Racine.

Incredibly, the two nimble JPK 10.10s led the whole IRC fleet at the Fastnet Rock. Racine continued:

“We were very close, but we fell into a wind hole 100m from the Fastnet and stopped for two minutes and they disappeared.” Night and Day is recorded as rounding Fastnet Rock 20 minutes ahead on corrected time and their lead just increased from there. “Then a patch of light wind was coming from astern, so the boats behind had more difficulty than us, but the boats ahead were gone,” Racine explained, or as Alexis Loisin put it after the Fastnet, “we took the wind and closed the door. Maybe we had 20 knots, but I think Foggy Dew only had 15. We extended by 10-11 miles.”

While the JPK 10.10s had the best conditions going to the Rock, the larger planing boats came into their own, recovering their lost time downwind and reaching in the second half of the race towards the Plymouth finish.

Aside from winning IRC Four, Night and Day also claimed the IRC Two Handed prize, which they had won in 2013 but lost to Kelvin Rawlings and Stuart Childerley on the J/105 Jester in 2015. This year, the Loisins said they had been worried about the bigger J/122e Ajeto! sailed by Dutch Two Handed Champions, Robin Verhoef and John van der Starre. The Netherlands boat had been leading the IRC Two Handed class until Night and Day finally overhauled them yesterday, leaving them second.

The Dutch duo, racing their new boat which they have optimised for two handed racing, had an up and down race.

“We sailed well, but we had some bad luck with a wind hole at the Lizard,” said Verhoef. “We were not close enough to the shore and not far enough from the shore to get away from there. There was a big wind hole and we had to anchor twice for about 30 minutes letting out 120m of line!”

This episode dropped them to 13th by the time they reached Land’s End, however they recovered this lost ground by going up the favourable east side of the Land’s End traffic separation scheme and then sailing into the favourable right hand shift in the Celtic Sea.

“The Irish Sea was like lake sailing – wind shift-tack, wind shift-tack,” said van der Starre. “Then at the TSS we were up with the leaders in the group again.” They rounded the Fastnet Rock shortly before dawn, under the full moon. After the prolonged upwind conditions, there was tangible relief as they turned downwind. “That was one big smile. Then at the Scillies we saw for the first time we were leading our class again.”

However soon after they got stuck in another wind hole forcing them to back down the course and then sail south in order to extricate themselves. It was this that allowed Night & Day to move ahead of them in the IRC Two Handed class.

Third overall in the IRC Two-Handed was Rob Craigie and Deb Fish on the Sun Fast 3600 Bellino. They are also the first winners of a new prize being offered to the first Mixed Two-Handed yacht overall. Craigie and Fish were generally pleased with their race. The low point was went the wind went light for them off Plymouth.

“Some people went right inshore and they pulled out miles on us,” said Craigie. They made a good job of the outbound Celtic Sea crossing and maintaining some height reaped rewards. “We got lifted so we didn’t have to tack in the last bit,” said Fish of the final run into the Fastnet Rock. “Those boats ahead of us that did, like Game On, and had to tack lost a lot.”

Once again the blast back from the Rock was among the most memorable of sails.

“It was moonlit night and we were hooning along, going like a train with a few dolphins around. It was just great, only we were having such a good time we overstood!” recalled Fish, who was helming at that point.

The reach to the finish from Bishop Rock was a case of having the perfect sail for the job even if they were forced to push their asymmetric beyond its comfort zone.

“It really paid over the whole of that 60 mile reach. We were catching Redshift,” concluded Craigie. As to their third place behind Night and Day, Fish admitted: “They are in a different league, but that is the nice thing about the race – you get to pit yourself against the best.”

This morning, the sole remaining all-female IRC Two Handed yacht arrived in Kirsteen Donaldson and Judith Eastwood, sailing the X-332 Pyxis. Donaldson reported that the race itself was not without challenges.

“We endured 400 miles on the wind, which was quite tough. The race wasn’t unkind but it was just a bit frustrating in places, with some very quiet patches. We had to put a lot of tacks in around the Fastnet Rock, and we also encountered a light patch south of the Lizard. We hit a tidal gate there just at the wrong time, so we were stuck for a bit. We had a quiet run into the finish, but although we had to work hard to keep the boat moving the last bit was an enjoyable stretch of sailing.”

The post Third Time’s the Charm for Night and Day appeared first on Sailing World.

Overnight and into a magnificent West Country morning, boats have been streaming across the Rolex Fastnet Race finish line and into Plymouth Yacht Haven. With this the leaders in the bigger classes have begun firming up along with the prospects for the boat will be the crowned overall winner under IRC in the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s biennial flagship offshore race.

American Ron O’Hanley’s Cookson 50, Privateer is the leader in the IRC Zero from the Ker 46 Lady Mariposa, and yesterday seemed to be in good shape to take the overall prize across the 312-boat IRC fleet vying for the Fastnet Challenge Cup. However overnight the IRC One leader Lann Ael 2, the JND 39 of Paris-based Didier Gaudoux pulled into the lead. In IRC One the powerful looking La Crouesty based boat holds a lead of more than two and a half hours on corrected time over the equally angular Lombard 46, Pata Negra, being campaigned by the Dutch de Graaf family of Baraka Ker 40 fame.

“We had a fantastic race – we were lucky with the weather,” said Gaudoux. “The conditions were quite good for the team and the crew and the passage from Fastnet Rock to the Scilly Isles was perfect for us.” However at present there are many smaller boats still capable of lifting the overall IRC prize off the IRC One leader.

Last night, first home on the water in IRC One was James Neville’s Ino XXX, winner of May’s Myth of Malham race. Like all of the planing boats, the HH42 enjoyed the downhill conditions enabling them to blast back from the Fastnet Rock, hitting speeds into the mid-20s and covering 75 miles in four hours. This made up for the headbang of an uphill struggle they experienced outbound to the Rock. As Neville recounted: “We found it quite challenging because the chop was quite short and the heavier boats, like the Italian boat [Vittorio Biscarini’s magnificent Mylius-designed 50 footer, Ars Una], make better way in those conditions. Off the Lizard we went inside and they found more wind offshore. We were the last boat to go to the east of the TSS.”

In IRC Two Gilles Fournier and Corinne Migraine’s J/133 Pintia is looking good for first prize following their arrival at the finish line at 05:33 this morning.

“We had some good results already in IRC Two this year,” said Fournier. “But the Rolex Fastnet Race is the peak of the season. We have had an internal battle with our friends on Lisa, including Commodore of the RORC Michael Boyd, since the beginning of the season.”

Due to the tidal state at the time, Pintia went to the west of the all-important traffic separation scheme off the Scilly Isles. Fournier said he enjoyed rounding the Fastnet Rock, even though it was at night. “You are pleased when you round that because it is an amazing place. You wouldn’t want to spend your holidays there, but it is a legendary place and we are now part of the legend.”

Nick and Suzi Jones’ First 44.7 Lisa, skippered by RORC Commodore Michael Boyd, finished 36 minutes after Pintia this time correcting out into second place, 1 hour 13 minutes behind of the French boat on corrected time.

Boyd acknowledged that Pintia had stolen a march on them at Portland Bill. “We failed to get to there in time. Pintia went in and we probably should have followed her and they just managed to get through the gap. We went outside and lost quite a few miles but we gained them back at Lyme Bay when an awful lot of boats went in and we were surprised to see some of our competitors at anchor there. We were further offshore, in the wind. That kept us up with the IRC One boats.”

The boats in Lisa’s group saw 25 knots on the nose, some of the strongest conditions crossing the Celtic Sea to the Fastnet Rock, requiring the crew to live on the rail. Boyd described the Fastnet Rock, off his native Ireland, as “extraordinary, absolutely magical”. While the First 44.7 isn’t a weapon downwind, the boat had a bowsprit and asymmetric spinnakers added to her Banks sail inventory for this season, aiding their return journey back from the Rock.

Lisa currently lies second in IRC Two and eighth overall under IRC, results with which Boyd was pleased. “I don’t know if we had the best of the conditions, but certainly it is a great result and does seem to show that we were very favoured. But we had a great group of guys, everybody very focused, very good food, lots of stories and lots of laughs.”

This afternoon the leaders in IRC Three and Four are due, along with the Two Handed class, where the Loisin father and son, Pascal and Alexis, on their 2013 overall Rolex Fastnet Race winning JPK 10.10 Night and Day have taken the lead from Ajeto!, the J/122e of Robin Verhoef and John Van Der Starre.

Track the fleet in the Rolex Fastnet Race: http://cf.yb.tl/fastnet2017 www.rolexfastnetrace.com

The post Class Leaders Firming up in Rolex Fastnet appeared first on Sailing World.

Some offshore yacht races struggle for entries, but the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s biennial flagship event is not one of them. When the entry list opened on 9 January, spaces sold out faster than a Rolling Stones farewell concert; the 340 boat limit reached, incredibly, in just 4 minutes and 24 seconds. And this figure excludes the non-IRC fleets which will include a giant international turn out of Class40s and significantly, will be the first occasion the eight VO65s, set to compete in this year’s Volvo Ocean Race, will line up in anger.

When the Rolex Fastnet Race set sails from Cowes on Sunday 6th August, close to 400 boats will make up the combined IRC and non-IRC fleets – the largest ever entry in the race’s 92 year history and a significant step-up from 356 in the last race.

So why is the race so successful? “It is within easy access for the largest fleets of offshore-capable yachts anywhere in the world,” succinctly explains Nick Elliott, Racing Manager of the RORC.

The Rolex Fastnet Race is one of the world’s oldest offshore races, but the 605 mile course represents much the same challenge today as it did to competitors 90+ years ago: Typically an upwind westbound slog along the south coast of England, then full exposure to the open Atlantic Ocean on the crossings to the Fastnet Rock (lying four miles off southwest Ireland) and back, before leaving Bishop Rock and the Scilly Isles to port, en route to the finish off Plymouth.

However today, the standard of yachts and their equipment have improved immeasurably, as have the safety and qualification requirements for competing yachts and crews. This, combined with weather forecasting becoming a more exact science are all designed to prevent a repeat of the 1979 race, when a storm of un-forecast severity devastated the fleet and cost 15 crew their lives.

The modern day Rolex Fastnet Race fleet is also the most diverse, with yachts of every conceivable type represented. These range from the 100ft long Ultime trimarans, the fastest offshore race boats in the world, to the Volvo Ocean Race one designs, to the IMOCA 60s, used in the Vendée Globe singlehanded non-stop round the world race, while, with thirty four boats entered, the Class40s will be by far the biggest non-IRC class.

Meanwhile some of the world’s most prominent grand maxis will be competing in the main IRC fleet. The longest is the Judel Vrolijk 115 Super Maxi, Nikata, while Ludde Ingvall is bringing his radical DSS-equipped 100 footer CQS all the way from Australia and one of the race favourites will certainly be George David’s Rambler 88, that just missed out on line honours in 2015.

But making up the bulk of the IRC fleet are the Corinthian entries. Nick Elliott explains: “The Rolex Fastnet Race has that ‘challenge appeal’ which people are looking for more and more at the moment. It’s something people can tick off their ‘list’. Also, there are lots and lots of boats available for charter and spaces available for individuals who want to do it. Generally instead of people going racing every weekend, these days they’ll cherry pick, they’ll choose to only do bigger, more special events.”

A lot are crewed by families and friends or yacht club teams, many of whom come back year after year.

For example Tony Harwood is returning for his sixth race and his fourth on board Volante, a 1961 Camper & Nicholson 38 footer, in her day a Morgan Cup winner. In 2009 Volante claimed the Iolaire Block for being the ‘oldest yacht to complete the course’, while this year she is the lowest rated boat in the race (IRC TCC of 0.855).

So what is the attraction of the Rolex Fastnet Race? “It’s like ‘why climb Everest?’ Because it’s there, I suppose,” explains Tony Harwood. “We are heavy old crew in a heavy old boat, but we do about 5,000 channel miles a year. I like competitive sailing, even though the starts frighten the life out of me.”

It is also a ‘father and son’ affair, although son Simon races their Prima 38 Talisman. “It’s never the same,” says the younger Harwood. “It is different every time and you always try to do better than last time. About half of the times I’ve seen the Fastnet Rock in daylight – two years ago it was thick fog and in 1999 there was the solar eclipse. Also it is a talking point. ‘Did you do the Fastnet?’ ‘How was it?’ That all brings me back every couple of years.”

When his father last competed aboard Volante in 2009, she finished in just under six days, while Talisman made it round in four days 7 hours and 46 minutes in 2015. A boat that in 2015 was comfortably finishing in Plymouth at roughly the time Talisman was still outbound to the Fastnet Rock and slower Class 4 boats were just passing Land’s End, was Tony Lawson’s Concise 10. The MOD70 trimaran class completed their race in a mere 2 days 17 hours 35 minutes, although this was slow, way off the multihull race record of 1 day, 8 hours and 48 minutes.

“That was the first big offshore race we did with the boat,” recalls skipper Ned Collier Wakefield. “It was pretty light, so we’d like to do a faster race. We should be able to do it in 26 hours if the conditions are right. The Rolex Fastnet Race is a prestigious race, it’s one of the big ones for us and it is nice do a ‘home race’.”

Concise is also planning on entering its Class40.

The 2017 Rolex Fastnet Race sets sail from the Royal Yacht Squadron line to the north of Cowes at 1200 BST on 6th August.

The post Monster Fleet Expected at Rolex Fastnet appeared first on Sailing World.

The 46th edition of the Rolex Fastnet Race, which only takes place every other year, starts this Sunday with close to 400 yachts competing. The race attracts the most diverse fleet of yachts, from beautiful classics to some of the fastest racing machines on the planet – and everything in between.

The world’s biggest offshore racing fleet will start gathering in the central Solent from about 1000 BST Sunday 16th August 2015 and the start sequence will begin at 1200 BST; the leaders should be approaching Hurst Narrows to exit the Solent before 1300 BST.

Follow the Race

After the start full coverage of the Rolex Fastnet Race will continue with pictures and video on the race’s multimedia page, here, the latest news and the Competitors’ Blog to keep race fans up to date. All of the yachts in the Rolex Fastnet Race will have YB Trackers so the worldwide audience can track their progress in real time – 24 hours a day.

Follow the fleet live on the tracker here.

The post Rolex Fastnet Coverage appeared first on Sailing World.

Rolex presents the 2015 Rolex Fastnet Race, run by the Royal Ocean Racing Club. With 90 years of history, the race has become a legend in international sport. Will it be a true test of human endeavour once again this year?

The post 2015 Rolex Fastnet Preview appeared first on Sailing World.