A relatively brief but extremely strong period of southwest winds forecast as increasingly likely for Saturday afternoon and evening along the south coast of England will have the RORC's Fastnet Race Team contemplating a day's postponement as one of their options, as the adverse conditions are expected to be approaching their peak when the bulk of the record fleet are battling clear of the ultra-rough wind-over-tide conditions in The Needles Channel.
Time was when the postponement of a RORC start was unthinkable, as skippers were expected to make their own responsible and seamanlike decisions. But in August 1974 in similar conditions, the first ever RORC delay came when the Cowes-Cork Race start was postponed by the highly experienced secretary Mary Pera, a veteran of many rough offshore races - she said she'd never seen anything to match the violent sea state close to the northwest of the Isle of Wight.
This example was then followed for the 2007 Fastnet Race, despite which a second gale when the fleet was off the south coast of Devon and Cornwall saw multiple retirals. But although the very rough sailing caused Ger O'Rourke's Cookson 50 Chieftain from Kilrush to lose all electric and electronics, he still went on to win overall with a combination of paper charts and GPS on mobile phones.
Any postponement decision will not be lightly taken, as it seems possible the very strong winds will be followed by lighter winds and then a period of calm, which would put finishing arrangements at Cherbourg into some disarray.