At least 15 Irish or Irish-crewed entries have been confirmed for for the 2023 instalment of the Rolex Fastnet Race.

The 50th anniversary edition of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s flagship event will set sail from Cowes to Cherbourg via Ireland’s Fastnet Rock from Saturday 22 July.

And the provisional entry list of 491 yachts from across the globe has assured another record-sized fleet for this year’s race.

Familiar names on the list of Irish entries include Royal Cork’s Nieulargo, the Dingle-based Swan 46 Mynx and Checkmate XX, the First 50 from Howth Yacht Club that’s a three-time veteran of the Fastnet run — and only last week became Sovereign’s Cup Coastal champion.

Sailed by a close group of friends who describe themselves as “a bunch of young-at-heart racers that have sailed together since our late teens”, Checkmate XX will this year plot an extended course for its first Cherbourg finish, adding to the challenge of the race.

Checkmate XX has been part of the ISORA series | Credit: Afloat.ie

“We aim to finish intact, having had a laugh, with the best result we can manage” says crew member David Cullen.

Meanwhile, Irish farmer and lifeboat volunteer Keith Miller is returning to the race with a new, more competitive yacht.

Miller was a popular figure in 2019 when he decided to do the Fastnet Race for the first time, having only started offshore sailing three years previously.

Roll on four years and this is now Miller’s third Fastnet, this time on a new yacht — a competitive Mills 36 that formerly raced as Quokka IV.

Prime Suspect was bought by a syndicate in Wexford in 2022, competing in the ISORA series and SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race that same year. Following a refit over the winter, the yacht is ready for the next challenge.

Prime Suspect at the start of the 2022 Round Ireland Race | Credit: Afloat.ie

“We aim to be competitive in our class,” says Miller. “This is our third time. My crew was so excited in 2021 racing Andante [a Yamaha 36] that we pooled together to buy Prime Suspect and up our game!”

The tillage farmer from Wexford will be joined by a builder, engineer and teacher as well as Rosslare Harbour RNLI’s resident mechanic on his crew.

The 50th Fastnet also features a blast from the past in the famous Ron Holland-designed IOR 40 Imp.

Built in Florida in 1976 for American owner David Allen, the following year Imp was top-scoring boat for the second-placed USA Admiral’s Cup team and won the Fastnet Race outright. She also completed the disastrous 1979 Fastnet Race taking the USA Admiral’s Cup team to another second placed finish.

Since then, perhaps because of her stripy 1970s green paintjob, she has passed through several significant Irish owners and is today considered something of an Irish national maritime treasure.

Since 1994, Imp has been owned by Cork-based George Radley who has continued Imp’s winning ways: coming first in the 1996 and 2000 Round Ireland Races and nearly winning again in 2002. Imp also won her class in the 1987 Fastnet Race, with Radley repeating this in 1997: “We were sixth overall out of 268 boats. I’m not saying she is going to do it again this time but she has always had a good run in the Fastnet.”

A freshly restored Imp on the water in June 2022 | Credit: Robert Bateman

Radley and a semi-shorthanded crew raced Imp in the IRC class of the 2006 ARC and then in the Pineapple Cup from Miami to Jamaica followed by two editions of Charleston Race Week before the boat shipped back to the UK for an intended refit that never happened.

Finally, Radley in 2017 got Imp back to Ireland on a lowloader and began the overdue refit, which was completed in 2022: “I just put new Harken deck gear and winches on her and I made the foretriangle a little smaller because she had 60sqm headsails — I can’t get anyone to pull those in anymore! You can’t even see where you are going!

“Around the cans she is a handful but in any offshore stuff, she is still able to go, believe it or not. Down to the Fastnet and back we held our time against a J/122,” Radley says. Part of the reason for entering the Rolex Fastnet Race is that Radley’s son and bowman, also called George, is enjoying it just as much as his dad. “He just lives for it. I am trying to bring him along.”

Other Irish entries include Dundalk skipper Susan Glenny in the First 40 Olympia’s Tigress, the mixed international crew of the Clipper Race yachts CV2 Ambitious, CV7 Curious and CV8 Tenacious, the latter skippered by Philip Quinn.

Irish entries in the Fastnet Race 2023 - entry data from RORC