It is arguably the greatest on-water fleet organisation in world sailing. In a week’s time, the 450 or so boats in the 50th staging of the 695-mile Rolex Fastnet Race will be sent on their way from Cowes in a generally orderly fashion through the relatively confined waters of the Western Solent. Those of us with less than 20/20 vision and increasingly stiff necks will note with approval that it can only be done so very effectively from a shore-based starting line using well-lit fixed transits, rather than through a pattern of difficult Committee Boat starts.
Indeed, such is the importance of a smoothly-organised start for this Classic of Classics, that when some rebellious sailing minds wonder just what is the useful purpose – if any - of the ancient and privilege-laden Royal Yacht Squadron, with its castle HQ in the prime position on the west point of the Cowes waterfront, a suavely confident member will assure them that it’s primarily to cater for the biennial Fastnet start - everything else in the other 729 days of the two year period of the Fastnet Race cycle is secondary to that.
As clear as can be. The business end of the Fastnet Race Start Line at the RYS at Cowes. Photo: RORC
Sorted. The very diverse Fastnet fleet finds it own sense of order as it beats towards the Needles after clearing the West Solent through the Hurst Narrows Photo: Kurt Arrigo
Whatever your attitude, there’s no doubt there’s something magnetic, charismatic in fact, about the Fastnet Rock and this particular race around it. The big race only dates back to 1925, but we know that the amateur sailors of Cork were racing round it long before that, but usually with a finish point in West Cork, where an annual Schull Regatta preceded by a round Fastnet Rock from Cork Harbour dates from 1884.
The magnetic attraction of the Fastnet Rock with Deilginis making better than “hull speed” towards it. Back in June, the Howth 17s felt they hadn’t properly marked their 125th year until they’d rounded the Fastnet. Photo” Howth 17 Assoc
CORK HARBOUR SUCCESS IN GOLDEN JUBILEE RACE OF 1975
But with Ireland seen from elsewhere in 1925 though the foggy and biased prism of a recent War of Independence, the turbulence of Partition, and then a Civil War, any longterm Irish involvement with using the Fastnet Rock as a racing mark would have been largely overlooked, were it not for the fact that one of the seven competitors in the new race from the Solent round the Fastnet and back into Plymouth was Harry Donegan’s hefty gaff cutter Gull from Cork. She led at one stage, and was third at the finish, the winner being one of the innovative race’s moving spirits, George Martin, with his magnificent former Le Havre pilot cutter Jolie Brise.
The magnificent Jolie Brise, winner of the first Fastnet Race in 1925
Gull from Cork, setting acres of sail as usual. Photo courtesy RCYC
The longterm active sailing of Harry Donegan (1870-1940) – both racing and cruising – with his close involvement with the first Fastnet Race, and his implementing of many key concepts and structures in Irish sailing, reinforces the feeling that he may well have been, in his quiet way, the greatest Irish yachtsman ever.
The multi-talented Harry Donegan. Photo courtesy RCYC
Certainly, in remembering Gull’s key role in the inaugural Fastnet, there was a special Irish effort in 1975 when the Golden Jubilee came around, and Cork Harbour had indirect interest in the overall winner, the new souped-up but otherwise standard Nicholson 33 Golden Delicious raced by the Bagnall brothers. They admitted to links to Bagenalstown on Ireland’s River Barrow, but more directly, their boat was designed in the rapidly-expanding Ron Holland office in Crosshaven.
The “Cork Enclosure” in Millbay Dock, Plymouth, after the 1975 Fastnet with overall winner Golden Delicious berthed outside Archie O’Leary’s Holland 40 Irish Mist and Denis Doyle’s S&S 47 “The Blue Moonduster”. Photo: W M Nixon
BRYNOTH ONLY IRISH WINNER OF MAJOR TROPHY
Yet in a record fleet, only one directly Irish boat was winner of one of the 24 major trophies, and that was the oldest Irish boat present, Hugh Sherrard’s 1905-vintage former Clyde 30 Brynoth. She was and is an elegant and distinctly Fife design which had long since been converted to Bermudan rig and given basic sea-going accommodation. This was subsequently added to, such that in the 1950s and ’60s she was still something of a force to be reckoned with in open racing - whether club, regatta or offshore - under the ownership of Ross Courtney of Howth.
Brynoth at Howth in the early 1960s, chasing the former Olympic Medal winning 6 Metre Caprice. Photo:HYC
Under Ross Courtney’s ownership, Brynoth was multi-purpose – here, she is maximising numbers on board for the annual fund-raising Lifeboat Day at Howth. Photo:HYC
By the 1970s, after a period with Pierce Roche of Howth, she went into the ownership of the Hugh Sherrard (1931-2011) of Cork, and he was as keen as his predecessors to show that Brynoth was going better than ever, with that very special winning of the Iolaire Block for best performance by a boat of 1905 or earlier in the 1975 Fastnet Race becoming a truly magic moment.
Brynoth became a familiar sight on the Cork Coast. Photo: Robert Bateman
In time, Brynoth passed to Hugh Sherrard’s nephew Damien McGovern, who commissioned a new lease of life from Fife restoration specialist Duncan Walker. Duncan had been claiming that he’d retired after sixteen such projects, including the Royal Cork OD Jap. But the availability of a shed in Fairlie in Scotland near where Brynoth had been designed and built – rather than beside the Hamble where most of the Walker restoration work was done – swung the scales in favour of undertaking Project 17.
BRYNOTH RESTORATION IS 17TH FIFE PROJECT FOR DUNCAN WALKER
This was to be the restoration of Brynoth’s hull in its original and continuing shape, but with the up-grading of the much newer coachroof and retention of a Bermudan rig. As Damien McGovern put it after last month’s completion: “She’ll last for years in this restored form. If a future generation wants to go all the way and put her right back to gaff rig and minimal racing accommodation, then that’s their affair”.
Brynoth’s near-sister, the Fife-designed Clyde 30 Mikado, setting the original rig in 1905. Initially they were totally racing boats, but most were converted over time to become fast cruiser-racers
New and old combined – the restoration of Brynoth was a painstaking process. Photo: Damien McGovern
This patient combination of new and old-while-sound has retained the spirit of Brynoth. Photo: Damien McGovern
Restoration work in shed complete, with Fife dragon added to cove line. Photo: Damien McGovern
Brynoth restored has her first sail in June, revealing that her sail number follows directly on to the 107 of the Donegan family’s Gull. Photo: Malcolm McGettigan
Brynoth has only just been returned in restored form to Cork from Scotland, so there was never any question of her contemplating this year’s 50th Fastnet Race, but we can hope for a dramatic re-appearance in West Cork competition in August. Meanwhile, we can detect a certain confusion out there with all this talk of a 50th Fastnet Race staging in 2023 when it is coupled with talk of a Golden Jubilee back in 1975.
HOW WE HAVE SEPARATE GOLDEN JUBILEE AND FIFTIETH FASTNETS
It’s simple really. It took a while for the Fastnet Race to be accepted by the Sailing Establishment. It was annual when founded in 1925, but the course was initially eastward out of the Solent from the Royal Victoria Yacht Club at Ryde, then via the Fastnet Rock and back to Plymouth and the Royal Western Yacht Club.
It became biennial after 1931, and in 1935 the Royal Solent YC at Yarmouth was persuaded to host the preferred west-going start. But that was just the once. For 1937, 1939 and 1947 it returned to the east-going start from Ryde (though losing three races to the Hitler Unpleasantness) until, with the RORC’s John Illingworth a global force in world offshore racing, for 1949 the Royal Yacht Squadron were finally pulled into line to provide a west-going start, which soon was so established within the biennial format that everyone assumed that was the way it had always been
The Fastnet Race shown with its extenson to Cherbourg added to the “traditional” course. In reality, in its 98 years the race has now sailed four different courses
And so it went on until 2021, when the race could just be fitted into pandemic restrictions despite the fact that the RORC had found a generous new package offered by the Port of Cherbourg was more attractive than the limited facilities and support that Plymouth could provide for the finish. And so the course extended to 695 miles, and was well supported despite mixed feelings about this Cavalier disregard of popular sentiment.
Defending champion, The JPK 11.80 Sunrise with owner Tom Kneen, who - as a loyal Royal Western YC member - had opposed the lengthening of the course to Cherbourg instead of Plymouth. Yet it’s highly likely that Sunrise would not have won without the extra miles
The ultimate irony was that the overall winner was the very French-in-Concept JPK 11.80 Sunrise, but sailed by the very English Tom Kneen of the Royal Western YC in Plymouth, who had supported the RWYC complaints about the loss of the Fastnet finish. Yet had the race finished in Plymouth instead of sailing on the extra ninety miles to Cherbourg, it’s unlikely that Sunrise would have won.
As for making a bit of a celebration of the “50th Fastnet Race staging” aspect of this year’s use of the Cherbourg finish for just the second time, well, that’s a bit of a rapid setting-in-stone job. For as 2025 and the Centenary approaches, not only will there be those who will point out that surely the Royal Western YC in Plymouth should have look-in as it took the official responsibility for the first race in 1925, but for real authenticity it should start from the Royal Victoria YC in Ryde, heading initially east and going south of the Isle of Wight.
FOUR DIFFERENT LOW PRESSURE SYSTEMS
That’s all in another day’s work. Meanwhile with our weather currently dominated by four different low pressure areas dancing a messy quadrille around each other, with each one determined to put in a dramatic solo performance from time to time, the coming weather is anyone’s guess.
Back in the day when the Fastnet Race started in August after Cowes Week, Uffa Fox always said that it signalled that onset of the Southwest Monsoon. Officially, it has been moved back to July - well clear ahead of Cowes Week - in order to provide a bit of much-needed space for organisers and participants alike. Yet it could also be argued that July gives more daylight and better weather prospects. Or it would, except that the Southwest Monsoon also seems to fancy showing itself in July this time round as well.
The Volvo 70 Wizard on her way to wining the 2019 Fastnet. Now re-born as Tschuss and racing under the command of Johnny Mordaunt, she has already won the RORC Cowes Dinard St Malo Race
As for boat prospects, our own Johnny Mordaunt has put down a mighty marker by skippering Swiss owner and Royal Cork YC member Christian Zugel’s former Volvo 70 Tschuss to line honours, the overall win and a course record in the recent big-fleet Cowes to Dinard (St Malo) Race. As Wizard, Tschuss won the 2019 Fastnet on the “Old Course That’s Not As Old As They Thought”. But with a fleet well over twice the size of the 204 boats going to St Malo, and a much more complex course made even more so by a clutter of TSS (Traffic Separation Schemes), the Fastnet itself will be no cakewalk.
TRALEE BAY SC INVOLVEMENT
Nevertheless the Rock and its most famous race provide an ever-stronger siren call, and this year there’s the first entry from Tralee Bay Sailing Club in the form of Ken Cunnane and his family with their Swan 46 Mynx. They’ve come through the St Malo test, and have carved out the time despite the family’s involvement in the 49er circuit, which daughter Elle races with Erin MacIlwaine. Both of them are transferring aboard Mynx for the 50th Fastnet Race. Seems they’re sailing-mad on the Kerry Swan 46. We wish them the best of luck.
The Swan 46 Mynx (Ken Cunnane, Tralee Bay SC) will be racing the 2023 Fastnet with significant family input in the crew
