Following The Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) announcement that it has received expressions of interest from all around the world to compete in the rebaked Admiral’s Cup, an advisory committee has been established for the 2025 event.

The event is being organised to celebrate the centenary of the club and is expected to bring in a diverse range of teams from various countries to compete in the race.

The committee will provide inputs on the event’s framework and other key race management matters. The aim is to encourage participation in the 2025 edition and future regattas for the biennial Admiral’s Cup.

Andrew McIrvine has been appointed as the Chairman of the Admiral’s Cup 2025 Advisory Committee. “The Admiral’s Cup Advisory Committee will cast the net as wide as possible internationally for wisdom and advice to bring back the Cup successfully to its former glory. We encourage teams to come forward to be part of the ongoing discussions,” said McIrvine. “Our goal for the future is to re-establish The Admiral’s Cup as the premier event for inshore and offshore yacht racing.”

Andrew McIrvine has been appointed as the Chairman of the Admiral’s Cup 2025 Advisory Committee

The event is expected to respect the history of the Admiral’s Cup while also bringing the competition into the modern era. The 2025 edition, and those that follow, will encourage diversity through teams competing from many nations around the world, as well as inspiring youth and women sailors to race.

The Admiral’s Cup

“The Admiral’s Cup is a fitting event to celebrate the centenary of the Royal Ocean Racing Club,” said RORC Commodore Deborah Fish. “We are excited to see the level of interest from all over the world and are looking forward to making this event a huge success.”

The Admiral’s Cup 2025 Advisory Committee:

Chairman Andrew McIrvine (GBR) - Secretary General of the IMA, Past RORC Admiral and Commodore. Chairman of the Admiral’s Cup 2025 Advisory Committee.

Dee Caffari MBE (GBR) - Six time round the world sailor, including the Vendee Globe and two Volvo Ocean Races. Double-handed UK National Champion 2020 and 2021, and Chair of the World Sailing Trust.

Stuart Childerley (GBR) - Winner of the Admiral’s Cup, two-time Olympic Finn sailor and two-time Etchells World Champion. Stuart is an International Race Officer and Principal Race Officer for the 2025 Admiral’s Cup.

Steve Cole (GBR) - RORC Racing Manager and Race Director for The 2025 Admiral’s Cup. Steve has been a senior member of the RORC Race team for six years and part of the Rolex Fastnet Race Start Team for 11 editions.

Stan Honey (USA) - World-renowned offshore sailor, Volvo Ocean Race winner and Jules Verne record breaker. Past competitor for The Admiral’s Cup and immediate past President of World Sailing Offshore Committee.

Andrew Hurst (GBR) - The editor of Seahorse magazine is a veteran of six Admiral's Cups, winning in 1999 with the Netherlands. He has also competed for the UK, Japan and Germany and counts further wins in the Sardinia Cup (GBR) and Commodores’ Cup (GER).

Peter Shipway (AUS) - Participated in eight editions of The Admiral’s Cup, one as Team Captain. A life member of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia with 31 Rolex Sydney Hobart Races.

Géry Trentesaux (FRA) - Renowned offshore and inshore sailor, past Admiral’s Cup sailor. Overall winner of the Rolex Fastnet Race. President of UNCL/YCF and past RORC Vice-Commodore.

Rob Weiland (NED) - Past Team Manager of winning Admiral’s Cup team, Admiral’s Cup sailor, construction manager for 18 Admiral’s Cup boats. Class Manager for TP52, Maxi 72 and IMA technical consultant.

“The primary purpose of the Admiral’s Cup 2025 Advisory Committee is to provide advice and guidance to RORC’s Race Management Team on delivering an interesting, varied and attractive regatta,” commented RORC CEO Jeremy Wilton. “The Committee will focus on ensuring that participants enjoy a memorable world-class event to a standard that befits the prestige of the Admiral’s Cup.”

Following the Pre-Notice of Race announcement for the 2025 Admiral’s Cup on 19th July 2023, the Royal Ocean Racing Club has received 17 expressions of interest from yacht clubs and countries worldwide, including Ireland.

Having taken on board comments from the international fleet planning to race, the Club has adjusted the IRC Rating Bands and points scoring for the 2025 Admiral’s Cup.

The Pre-Notice of Race will be amended to reflect these changes.

Amended IRC Rating Bands:

Adjusted Scoring:

Three races (including one offshore race) are required to constitute a series.

There will be one discard for the inshore races, if five or more races are completed.

The offshore races will be non – discardable.

The short offshore will have a weighting of 2.

The Rolex Fastnet Race will have a weighting of 3.

Teams of two boats may enter representing a club or country. There will be no limitation on professional crew or crew nationality. There will be two classes with teams having one boat in each class.

Intended Schedule:

The 2025 Admiral’s Cup will be held in the centenary year of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, the final race of the series will be the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race.

The Royal Ocean Racing Club confirms expressions of interest worldwide for the 2025 Admiral’s Cup.

As Afloat reported in June, RORC has resurrected the Cup for either two boat teams to represent a yacht club or country.

There are no details so far of the type of expression received from Ireland. Ireland has never won the Cup.

Irish Cruiser Racing Association Commodore Dave Cullen told Afloat that the Admiral's Cup 2025 is on the agenda for its next meeting.

Significant notice has come from four nations that have won the Admiral’s Cup multiple times in the past: Australia, Great Britain, Germany, and the United States of America.

RP90 Wild Oats: The Australian team from the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club in Sydney are the holders having won the 2003 Admiral's Cup Photo: Rick Tomlinson

More expressions of interest have been received from Finland, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and Trinidad & Tobago.

A total of 11 countries, some wishing to field multiple teams, are eager to race for the Admiral’s Cup, RORC says.

The Admiral’s Cup is honoured throughout the world of sailing as the "unofficial world cup for offshore racing Photo: Matthew Dickens

RORC has published the Pre-Notice of Race for the 2025 Admiral’s Cup. Download it below as a pdf.

On 19th July 2025, racing will begin for the solid silver gilt trophy in exactly two years. The Pre-Notice of Race sets out the intended schedule of racing and the weighting and scoring rules for the series.

The RORC is currently fully focused on the 50th edition of the Rolex Fastnet Race, which will start this Saturday, the 22nd of July. A record fleet of 465 boats with sailors from 44 different nations is expected for the 695nm classic. The 2025 Admiral’s Cup will be held in the centenary year of the Royal Ocean Racing Club; the series' final race will be the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race.

Nearly thirty years ago, the growth of sponsorship in sailing could result in a confusion of results if rules from the era of total Cornithian participation were applied with precise regard for the last letter of the law writes W M Nixon. Thus although there were many sponsored entries racing in national teams in 1987’s highly competitive Admiral’s Cup for which the Fastnet Race was the climax, the peculiar reality was that none of them was eligible – because of being sponsored – to win the Fastnet Challenge Cup for the overall winner.

With a record fleet lining up for the Fastnet Race itself, and with thirteen teams competing with ferocious enthusiasm for the Admiral’s Cup in the best series for several years, it was so hectic in Cowes that the thought of an acute results problem arising in Plymouth after the Fastnet Race had finished was simply not contemplated. Yet this is precisely what happened, and needless to say it was an Irish boat which was right at the eye of the storm.

Stephen Fein’s Dubois 40 Full Pelt was a late addition to the Irish Admiral’s Cup team. Skipper Tom Power of Dun Laoghaire had found that the boat he had originally chartered came with intractable rating problems. But in being forced into relatively last-minute negotiations with Full Pelt, the Irish fell on their feet.

Full Pelt was the result of a dynamic linkup between owner Stephen Fein, his ace boat optimizer and tuner Jo Richards, and designer Ed Dubois. Yet despite being a boat which was clearly showing further potential with every outing, Full Pelt had yet to find a guaranteed team place as the Admirals Cup moved up the agenda.

Negotiations took place with some urgency. With the support of non-sailing Team Captain Sean Flood, sponsorship was secured from the Irish Independent newspaper, and the delicate task of balancing a crew panel between Full Pelt’s core crew and Tom Power’s own talented squad – which included helmsman Tim Goodbody – was set in train. With generous give and take on both sides, a real team spirit emerged, and as the 1987 Admirals Cup got under way, it was clear that Irish Independent was very much a boat to be taken seriously, with Tim Goodbody proving more than a match for international superstars of the calibre of Lawrie Smith.

The crew of 1987 Fastnet Race winner Irish Independent at the Royal Irish YC on 2nd December were (left to right) Billy Pope, Tom Power, Jo Richards, Stephen Fein, Sean Flood (Team Captain), Tim Goodbody, Tom Roche and Graham Deegan. Photo: W M Nixon

The Fastnet Race itself was a classic. In those days the big race started on the Saturday, and Irish Independent was very much in contention overall as she rounded the rock on the Monday evening. Then with the wind freshening wetly from the west, progress was rapid towards the finish at Plymouth, with the 40-footers finishing in a bunch around 0300 hrs on the Wednesday morning.

This closeness of finish was exactly as Jo Richards had anticipated, and thus he had always been focused on keeping Irish Independent/Full Pelt’s rating a point or two below comparable boats. This meant that while the Richard Burrows-skippered Dubois 40 Jameson Whiskey rated 1.0195, Irish Independent clocked in at 1.0188. As often as not, Irish Independent would be ahead on the water anyway, but there was always this tiny ratings gap to fall back on, something which increased in significance with longer races and particularly with the Fastnet.

So on that wet pre-dawn Wednesday morning, Irish Independent was already well launched on her way to being declared overall winner of the Fastnet Race. But in the euphoria of this achievement, it took a while before it was fully realized that despite the clarity of her victory, there was no way she was going to win the coveted Fastnet Challenge Cup. That would go to the top-placed non-sponsored boat.

In the end, the strongly-bonded band of brothers which had emerged from the melding of two crews aboard Irish Independent/Full Pelt had to be content with receiving a little silver dish – “a leprechaun’s hub-cap” as Tom Power described it – as the only acknowledgement of what they had done.

While everyone knew what the real situation was, the fact that the official records stated otherwise tended to obscure the facts with every passing year, and the untimely death earlier this year of designer Ed Dubois – who had been an active crewmember on the boat during the Fastnet Race – was a reminder that something needed to be done to put things in proper perspective.

Friday December 2nd would normally be a day on which people start seriously anticipating Christmas. But for those for whom Irish Independent/Full Pelt was a very special boat at the centre of an unusual but successful crew-merging project, Friday December 2nd 2016 was the day on which the current Commodore RORC, Michael Boyd, and the 1987 skipper of Irish Independent Tom Power, jointly hosted a lunch in the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire to honour the memory of Ed Dubois and to celebrate the sportsmanship and goodwill of Stephen Fein and Jo Richards in throwing themselves so completely into campaigning with a crew of Irish strangers who had become close friends by the time the series was completed.

Janet Grosvenor of the RORC and Graham Deegan, crew member on Irish Independent in 1987. Photo: W M Nixon
An official stamp of approval was put on it all by the welcome presence of Janet Grosvenor, Assistant Secretary at the RORC in 1987, and key administrator of the Admirals Cup. And thanks to links with Irish Lights, a new trophy – made from a prism from the light on the Fastnet Rock – was presented to Stephen Fein and Tom Power, complete with the names of the crew.

As for the full supporting cast, it was extraordinary, as it included both the 1987 Team Captain Sean Flood, and the Team Manager Terry Johnson, it also included former RORC Commodore John Bourke who was navigator of Jameson Whiskey back in 1987, and it numbered almost the entire crew panel for Irish Independent/Full Pelt, including those who had sailed some of the races, and those who had stood aside to allow the core squad to race the boat round the Fastnet.

Twenty years were to elapse before another Irish boat was to win the Fastnet Race overall in the form of Ger O’Rourke’s Cookson 50 Chieftain. But now, just in time for the 30th Anniversary of the 1987 Fastnet Race, the record has been put straight as to which boat actually won nearly three decades ago.

The names of the crew inscribed on the new trophy