A fleet of 76 Mini Transat 6.50s are currently battling 30-knot winds having rounded the Fastnet Rock overnight in the annual double-handed Mini Fastnet. The enormous fleet of 21-footers is now spread over 280 miles, with some still rounding the Fastnet and the leaders approaching Wolf Rock.
One of the entrants, owned by Guillaume and Laurent Bonniot, was rescued by the Baltimore lifeboat at 3am this morning after being dismasted in a knockdown. Another boat, c20 Marine Feuerstein and Benoit Lenglet, appears to have retired and is heading for the safety of Kinsale harbour.
The fleet is close-reaching in a south-easterly direction at present, with the leaders making up to 7 knots in as much as 30 knots of south-westerly wind, in short three-metre swells.
Follow the fleet here.
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