Fastnet Race Start: On Saturday afternoon, the Solent shoreline was packed deep with spectators braving the conditions to witness the greatest assortment of offshore yacht racing hardware ever assembled. The special 50th edition of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s Rolex Fastnet Race set sail with 430 yachts - up from the previous record of 388 that took the last pre-COVID race in 2019.

While pundits were comparing the wind this afternoon to that of the last Fastnet Race in 2021, in fact, it was gustier, and conditions were otherwise quite different with a densely overcast sky, drizzle that built to rain, and enough mist to obscure the mainland. What was consistent was the heinous washing machine sea state that competitors encountered at the western exit of the Solent at Hurst Narrows, as they passed the Isle of Wight’s most famous landmark, the Needles and beyond. As usual, this built increasingly with the ebb tide, especially affecting the smaller yachts.

Mercifully the measures that the RORC introduced this year to help minimise the risk of collisions, including course marshalls and increasing the time between starts to 15 minutes, there were no pre-race collisions as there were two years ago. Another rule was introduced this year to dissuade boats from being over early – those OCS 30 seconds out from the line would incur a mandatory two-hour penalty instead of having to turn back into the next group of starters to recross the line. This caught out a few boats, including a significant number in the third start for the Class 40s, when the tide was properly beginning to ebb off around the Royal Yacht Squadron line.

As usual, the two 32m long Ultim trimarans, Banque Populaire XI and SVR Lazartigue and Erik Maris’ MOD70 Zoulou, plus the lead flying IMOCAs created the most dramatic spectacle as, with sheets slightly cracked, they literally flew upwind in the brisk conditions.

The Class40 THE3BROS of Renaud Courbon Photo: Paul Wyeth

Prior to the start Charlie Dalin, the outright Fastnet Race IMOCA class winner in 2021, back now with his brand new boat MACIF, commented: “We are really pleased to be here after just four days of sailing. The team did an amazing job to get the boat ready in such a short period of time. Obviously the boat is not up to its potential, but that is why we are here - to keep working and testing.

“It will be a pretty windy course, especially the first eight to 10 hours. The wind should ease fairly rapidly after Start Point but until then it will pretty full on. There will be a lot of manoeuvres and sail changes, even on the way back from the Fastnet. We will have less breeze just before we reach the Irish coast for a while and perhaps once we get back into the Channel, from Land End’s to Cherbourg, but the forecasts are a bit different now. It is going to be an intense race.”

Despite this, by the time MACIF exited the Solent she was leading the IMOCA class alongside Jérémie Beyou’s Charal, while British hopes Pip Hare and Nick Bubb on the former’s Medallia (also newly relaunched) had to return to the Solent briefly to fix a problem with her furler. This year the IMOCA fleet split between going south or following Dalin on via the North Channel. At 1800 this evening MACIF was leading the IMOCAs past Portland Bill with Britain’s Sam Davies on board Initiatives Coeurs holding third in the 29 boat fleet.

Meanwhile in Ultims, Banque Populaire disappeared off to the Cotentin Peninsula which she reached in just five hours and tacked, preparing to pass to the south of the Casquet TSS exclusion zone as SVR Lazartigue was lining up to stay north of it.

The startline scene in Cowes for the start of the 50th Fastnet Race Photo: Carlo Borlenghi

In the IRC fleet, the highest rated yacht, American Bryon Ehrhart’s Lucky (ex-line honours winner Rambler 88) had done well in the Solent and, despite starting some 30 minutes behind, was already half way up the IMOCA fleet as she prepared to tackle Hurst Narrows. At 1800 she was alongside the lead IMOCA but sailing a knot slower.

Above and below The lead IMOCAs were able to fly upwind in the Solent at the start of the Fastnet Race Photos: Rick Tomlinson

Currently, two Italian teams are leading the annual Class40 Championship and one, Ambrogio Beccaria's Alla Grande Pirelli, had already pulled out a substantial lead by the time the 22 Class40s exited the Solent. Like the IMOCAs there was an equal divide between the Class40s leaving the Shingles Bank to port or to starboard, with Alla Grande Pirelli heading south before tacking west. At 1800 she had just passed St Alban’s Head.

The other Italian Class 40, Alberto Bona’s Mach 40.5 IBSA, was in eighth. IBSA recently won the class’ Les Sables-Horta-Les Sables Race in which she managed to set a phenomenal Class40 24-hour record of 430 miles, sailing downwind in 25-30 knots. Bona, who sailed the last Fastnet Race as navigator on board the former line honours winner Stormvogel, said before the start: “For us, the conditions are not good. We will be in a very difficult position - the first 16-18 hours will be more survival than sailing because we are really flat with a lot of volume in the bow, so going upwind in a strong and choppy sea (wind against tide), is not our favourite condition. But the boat is great so we are aiming to survive the first 24 hours, and then we can switch to race mode. There are many other competitive Class40s - it will be a tough battle for everyone.”

This evening IRC Zero was being led on the water by a Botin Partners trio of designs as they approached Portland Bill: with Jean-Pierre Barjon's the 65ft Spirit of Lorina ahead of Stefan Jentzsch's 56 Black Pearl and Max Klink's 52 Caro, the leader under IRC corrected time.

Meanwhile, IRC One was up with the Class40s, the leaders just passing St Alban’s Head. Making up for the start line collision last year that had put them out of that race, the Fournier family's J/133 Pintia was leading IRC One both on the water and under IRC corrected time. Under IRC she was ahead of Dr Herve Benic's First 40 Iritis and Ed Bell's JPK 1080 Dawn Treader (the other party involved in Pintia’s 2021 collision). These three were all closest to St Alban's Point with the Rolex Fastnet Race's defending champion, Tom Kneen's JPK 1180 Sunrise to their southwest, alongside another previous class winner, French veteran Jacques Pelletier's Milon 41 L'Ange de Milon. Several contenders, including Andrew and Sam Hall's Lombard 46 Pata Negra, had tacked off south, mid-Channel.

IRC One sets sail at the Fastnet Race start off Cowes. Photo: Paul Wyeth

Prior to the start, Will Taylor-Jones commented: “It could be our weather. It could be worse, but it could also be quite brutal. We have a relatively young crew that has only sailed the boat for a couple of seasons and we haven’t actually had this type of weather for any length of time, so it will be a challenge for us.”

As to the weather, Taylor-Jones was expecting to encounter holes in the breeze crossing the Celtic Sea, but stronger wind for the way home. “But I think as ever the race will be won or lost on the way out. But there is a lot of windward work so we can’t complain because Sunstone is good in that. The boat will look after us. We are mindful she is an old lady now but I think she might still be stronger than the crew!”

The Fastnet Race's IRC Super Zero and Zero fleets set off from the Royal Yacht Squadron line Photo: Paul Wyeth

Meanwhile, the biggest class in the fleet, IRC Two-Handed, is being led by Archambault 40RC Vita of Martin Hingst, racing in IRC One.

German entry ELIDA, a new 48 feet cold moulded mahogany racer-cruiser,  in big breeze on the Solent at the start of the 50th Fastnet Race Photo: Paul Wyeth

French JPK 10.80 entry Karavel skippered by Frederic Nouel on starboard tack at the start of the 50th Fastnet Race Photo: Paul Wyeth

The conditions have taken their toll on the fleet, with a number of retirements or boats that are moored waiting for tonight’s big conditions to pass. These include past winner and race veteran Gery Trentesaux’s Sydney 43 Long Courrier with mast issues. Meanwhile, from a mooring off Cowes, the oldest boat in the race, the magnificent 1903 Fife Moonbeam, skipper, round the world racer Jacques Caraes reported, “we shall be racing again early tomorrow morning. We didn’t want to break the pretty old ship Moonbeam.”

Chris and Justin Wolfe's Red Ruby mid-fleet at the start of IRC Two in the Fastnet Race  Photo: Paul Wyeth

Fastnet Race 2023 start - The Murphy family of Cork's Grand Soleil Nieulargo, racing in IRC 2, had one of the best starts of the entire Fastnet Race 2023 fleet in a rain-sodden Solent this afternoon, conditions which - when combined with a strengthening west-going ebb tide - made the fresh to strong southwest wind seem more powerful than it initially was. However, with all sorts of unpleasant weather conditions forecast for the course area tonight, some boats were already setting their orange headsails, but Nieulargo's steady progress under exactly the right amount of sail means that she is now (16:00 Hrs) lying second in class on handicap and well up the fleet.

Today's IRC 2 start of the 2023 Fastnet Race via Facebook live

Another of the entries from Ireland, Robert Rendell's Grand Soleil 44 Samatom from Howth, was also right in the frame with an inner end start, but in her case, she may have cut it so fine that she might be carrying the 2-hour OCS penalty. Meanwhile, the most intriguing boat in the race, Sean Langman's gaff-rigged 1932-built Maluka from Sydney with Gordon Maguire in the crew, was dealing with the awkward conditions with much more confidence than many boats around her and was significantly out-performing modern machines which should have been showing her a clean pair of heels.

Momentum is building towards tomorrow afternoon’s start of the 50th Rolex Fastnet Race.

More and more boats are arriving in Cowes and to moorings and berths across the Solent. Meanwhile, an armada has left from Cherbourg and numerous ports around the Breton coast. All are aiming to get to the vicinity of the Cowes start line in good order prior to the first starts of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s special anniversary race at 1300 BST.

Of great concern to all is the start and opening part of the race being a brutal re-run of the 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race. At today’s skippers briefing French meteorologist and offshore yacht race routing expert Christian Dumard said the forecasts for start time were showing 20-25 knots upwind from the southwest out in the central Solent. The wind would build as the ebb tide gained momentum in the western Solent. By the time boats reached the Needles Channel (frankly not long in the case of the large trimarans and the IMOCAs setting sail first) the wind would have accelerated to 35 knots, possibly gusting to 40.

Given the conditions, the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s race management team, led by Race Director Steve Cole, last night issued an Amendment to the Sailing Instructions, which included a revision of the start order. In particular the sequence of the IRC fleet setting off is being reversed (as it was also in 2021) and the gap between individual class start sequences reduced from 20 minutes (doubled this time from the usual 10) to 15 minutes.

New start order: Multihull – 1300 BST; IMOCA – 1315; Class 40 – 1330; IRC SZ/Z – 1345; IRC 1 – 1400; IRC 2 – 1415; IRC 3 – 1430; IRC 4 – 1445.

The crew of Tulikettu are looking forward to showing their new boat's full potential Photo: Tim Wright

The all-important tide in the Solent will be flooding for the first start, then going slack before the ebb begins, increasing the chance of boats being pushed over the line early for the later starts. This year new test rules are being tried whereby any boat that is over the line (OCS) less than 30 seconds before the start gun will receive an automatic two hour penalty. “This addresses a safety issue - we don’t want boats struggling to get back uptide to restart if they are OCS,” explains Cole.

In addition to the gale force winds at the Needles and Hurst, Dumard also warned of the sea state there: “It will be quite bad because we expect for the first boats a 1.5-2.5m wave height and the last boats at around 1700 [at the height of the ebb] it will be 2.5m. So be careful in these rough conditions. There is always the escape route up the North Channel into Christchurch Bay if you wish to avoid the very strong wind.”

Generally, there is a depression centre moving east across Northern Ireland and northern England over Sunday night and into Monday. Ahead of this is a dying occluded front which will cross the fleet on Saturday afternoon, followed in swift succession by a warm front and cold front, which Dumard reckons the fleet will encounter in the early hours of Sunday morning. This will also bring rain (which he hopes will not be present for tomorrow’s start). “The sea state will deteriorate as the front approaches. The [cold] front should be over the fleet at 2300-0200 and after that conditions will improve very quickly the further west you are.” Post front the wind should decrease to 20 knots.

Following on the eastbound meteorological conveyer belt is a trough with westerlies to its south and northerly or northeasterlies behind it, but Dumard warns: “The models still diverge at this point. In the ridge there will be very light wind conditions, 5-10 knots, but the first boats will be in Cherbourg already so won’t be concerned by it.

“As the ridge moves away, we have another low pressure arriving with a warm front ahead of it and a cold front behind it. The wind tends to increase quite a lot, up to 25 knots from the west, ahead of the warm front.”

As ever the significant final hurdle approaching the finish of this course is the Alderney Race where the current can run at up to 5-6 knots - a monumental problem for those arriving when it is foul and the wind light, although this is unlikely to be the case this year. Dumard warns: “If you see 25 knots on the GRIB file, it could be 32 knots and 35 knots in the gusts and the sea state will be very rough. Be careful with this.”

The maxi catamaran Allegra is most used to racing in strong conditions Photo: Arthur Daniel/RORC

So does this forecast mean it will be a Rolex Fastnet Race likely to favour boats of a certain size range as it so often does? “It is very difficult to know if it will be a big, medium or small boat race as the models are still unstable for the end of the race. It could be both – a big boat race and then a small boat one. The problem for the small boats will be that the beginning of the race will be slow for them.” Other unknowns remain the exact timings of the arrivals of the fronts and the exact shape of the trough (which for example will dictate if boats are upwind, fetching to reaching towards the Fastnet Rock) and how much wind might still remain in it.

At today’s press conference held at the RORC Cowes Clubhouse just prior to the skippers’ briefing, Andrew Cape, navigator on Bryon Ehrhart’s Lucky, the 88ft canting keeler (ex-Rambler 88) that is the scratch monohull in the IRC fleet reckons it was likely that they will break the ClubSwan 125 Skorpios’ race record on the new Rolex Fastnet Race route to Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. “It is 75% chance - around 2 days 2 hours, so it is looking pretty good. But like anything with weather we will just have to wait and see. 5/6 of the models have us breaking the record. You just have to avoid the light patches – they will be the decider. At the moment there are not many for us.”

Adrian Keller and his 84ft Irens catamaran Allegra are back to defend their title in the MOCRA multihull class. Allegra’s crew led by fastest yachtsman on the planet, Paul Larsen are comfortable racing her in strong conditions and they have just returned from the Round Gotland Race where Allegra achieved a new personal best top speed of 35.5 knots. “We are looking forward to it although the weather forecast is a little iffy!” said Keller. “This time [compared to 2021] it will be a little less choppy but less wind too. We just did Round Gotland and we had similar conditions.

“The Fastnet Race is the ultimate. I have followed it since I started sailing and it is its grand tradition. The other one we would like to do is Newport to Bermuda.”

Richard and Sophie Palmer's Jangada is a favourite among the smaller boats Photo: James Tomlinson

From Finland and competing in IRC Zero is the DSS-equipped Infiniti 52 Tulikettu of Roschier Baltic Sea Race backer Arto Linnervuo, for whom this will be his second Rolex Fastnet Race: “It is an interesting race course because the weather fronts move quickly so it is quite difficult to plan tactics beforehand. But I like the race course because here, like the RORC Caribbean 600, there are more chances to use all of the set-up, including our ‘secret weapon’, our DSS foil.”

Currently in Gosport is one of IMOCA’s latest recruits in Britain’s Sam Goodchild and his For the Planet, part of the class’ first two boat campaign with Thomas Ruyant’s For People. This will only be Goodchild’s second race in his new steed and his first major one. “What we are all most concerned about is the start and doing that carefully. With almost 450 boats jostling for position, there is the potential for some errors. Then obviously our boats are made for sailing fast in a straight line for long distances, and there isn’t much of that in a southwesterly in the Solent! So we have to be careful tacking up the Solent doublehanded as even off the start line there are 28 other boats in our class. The first 12-18 hours will be full-on with wind against tide. So we need to make sure we do that safely without taking any unnecessary risks.” Among this huge line-up IMOCA favourites seem likely to be For People and Jérémie Beyou’s Charal.

Among the smaller boats one of the favourites will certainly be Richard Palmer’s well-travelled JPK 1010 Jangada, the 2022 RORC Season’s Points Championship winner and overall winner of the Sevenstar Round Britain Race. In IRC Three, Palmer on this occasion will be sailing with his daughter Sophie. “There is a feeling of déjà vu here – it is a bit like two years ago,” said Richard Palmer. “Hopefully it will be not quite as mental on the actual start line itself, but getting out through the Needles Channel in 25-30 knots with wind against tide, getting over that bar will be quite a challenge. We will look at the escape route option of going out through the North Channel.”

As to whether it will be a big boat or small boat race, Palmer reckons it will all depend on the passage of the weather systems, with for example the faster boats having to sail more miles to reach the Rock compared to the smaller, slower boats that might be able to lay it from further out.

The 50th edition of the Rolex Fastnet Race starts from Cowes, Isle of Wight on Saturday 22nd July.

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that prediction can be a dodgy business as it involves the future. And when that future is reckoned to include – as it does for today (Saturday’s) Fastnet Race start in the Solent – a volatile and windy weather system heading east and a record and very varied fleet of maybe 450 boats heading west through a crowded wind-over-tide sea passage, the temptation is to step back completely, and take stock instead of the almost equally volatile recent story of the Fastnet Race as it marks its 50th staging this year, and looks forward to its Centenary in 2025

Ireland’s totally unmistakable and magnificently emblematic Fastnet Rock is a maritime symbol with unrivalled international recognition and unique promotional value. Yet in our bumbling generosity, we allow it to be used for free as the key turning mark in one of world sailing’s super-star events, now on such a scale that it has - since 2001 - officially been known as the Rolex Fastnet Race, and is big business with it.

Thus the freely-donated use of our most famous Rock by the flaithulach-minded Irish is at variance with what happens around the start and finish. Much money has already been made ashore, and there’s even more to be made at the finish. So maybe a modest income can be derived from what happens in between?

“Help yourself to our Fastnet Rock, folks”. Jolie Brise made free use of Ireland’s icon as a turning mark to win the first Fastnet Race in 1925, and she’s still using it for free.

With the Royal Ocean Racing Club in an expansionist frame of mind, the traditional finishing port of Plymouth (where the Royal Ocean Racing Club was actually founded after the inaugural 1925 race) no longer had the capacity or local authority resources or mindset to offer the necessary package. But the Port of Cherbourg and its Cotentin region in France had all three, and they made an offer the Fastnet Race organisers couldn’t refuse, even if it meant extending the course by 90 miles back in 2021.

In contemplating this civic power-play, we are reminded yet again that the European Continental model of highly-organised cities and regions, with all-powerful and substantially-budgeted Mayors, can run rings around those countries with traditional speed-of-treacle over-democratic local authorities, with slow decision-making processes when it comes to bidding wars for increasingly attractive international events.

That said, a certain climatic realism is required. Only this week, there was a painful reminder of this harsh reality when the defending America’s Cup team Emirates New Zealand was seen blithely sailing up and down in one of their machines on the very blue Mediterranean off the mighty and generously-hospitable City-state of Barcelona in the buildup to the next AC there – the 37th - from 12th to 20th October 2024.

Not quite Rushbrook. America’s Cup defenders Emirates New Zealand in action beside a classic yacht regatta at Barcelona this week

It was impossible not to reflect that had the Quixotic notion of Cork Harbour hosting this particular AC series succeeded, the same scene would not have looked quite so appealing when transposed to our weather of recent weeks.

Meanwhile, back home in New Zealand, the ETNZ team’s notional home club of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Auckland was teetering in the edge of bankruptcy, and the limited-finance local authorities were faced with dealing with left-over detritus from previous close encounters with this fatally-attractive event.

OVERSEAS ENTRIES PREPARE FROM CHERBOURG

As for the Fastnet, the news that a number of overseas entries in today’s race had already established themselves with a comfortable base in Cherbourg and planned to sail the 80 miles from there straight to the start in the Solent is food for thought, as it reduces the stately Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes to the role of a glorified Starters’ Hut.

Fastnet Race entries being prepared for the race in Cherbourg this week

That’s surely a hugely-exaggerated conclusion, but the changed look of the modern Fastnet Race course – with many of its most interesting areas now forbidden zones under a profusion of Traffic Separation Schemes – is such that all sorts of crazy ideas seem possible, including the thought that they might as well have the start at Cherbourg, and just use the Isle of Wight as a mark of the course, to be left to port.

The latest Rolex Fastnet Race course in simplified form – it would be only a minor modification to have the start at Cherbourg, and leave the Isle of Wight to port as a mark of the course.

ELECTRONIC TOLLS?

If that happens, we could see an electronic M50 Westlink-style Toll Gate being installed at Hurst Narrows. Cork County Council should note that, technically, it’s increasingly feasible at the Fastnet Rock too. It’s also perhaps an insane thought. But we can only wonder what the great Harry Donegan of Cork and his six fellow skippers in the first Fastnet Race of 1925 would make of their innovative event in its 50th manifestation.

Yet either way, today’s Irish offshore sailors continue to carry the torch first held aloft by Donegan and the Gull in 1925, and there are 15 boats which are specifically Irish entries, while leading Irish and ex-Pat international sailors are to be found throughout the fleet.

IRELAND’S BIGGEST NAME RACING THE SMALLEST BOAT

Surely the most bizarre of these has to be five times Sydney-Hobart Race winner Gordon Maguire, originally of Howth but for 20 and years and more a pillar of Australian sailing at professional level. He has chosen to race this 50th Fastnet with Australian maverick sailing squillionaire Sean Langman on his restored 1932-built gaff-rigged Ranger 30 Maluka.

She only just scrapes through the 30ft minimal hull length overall requirement, and looks for all the world like a 1920s fishing-boat-style motor-launch, but sets notably high-quality sails and has notched some significant successes to match the trophies collected by Langman in his more orthodox state-of-the-art racers.

Gordon’s new mount - Maluka out on the ocean. The 2023 Fastnet Race start is unlikely to be as sunny

At a much more appropriate boat size heading for the Fastnet is Howth’s rising international star Johnny Mordaunt, who was commissioned by Swiss owner Christian Zugel (a Royal Cork YC member) to bring the Volvo 70 Wizard, winner of the 2019 Fastnet, back to life as the good-as-new Tschuss 2. This Johnny not only succeeded in doing, which was quite an achievement, but he then skippered her to a record win every which way in the recent RORC Cowes-Dinard-St Malo Race.

A third Howth sailor usually performing at this level is Laura Dillon helming Dutch owner Harry Heist’s still-competitive S&S41 Winsome. But although Winsome is going round the Rock, Laura is sitting it out this time as she’ll need the energy to defend her 2022-won title with Winsome as “Woman Sailor of the Week” at Cowes Week in August.

However, the Howth colours will be carried in more direct style by Nigel Biggs and Dave Cullen with the powerful First 50 Checkmate XX, which is on an impressive roll with recent victories in the offshore division in both the Sovereign’s at Kinsale and the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta in Dublin Bay.

Power and comfort – The First 50 Checkmate XX starts the Fastnet 2023 with an impressive record of offshore regatta success already logged this year. Photo: Afloat.ie.

ROYAL CORK LEADS THE WAY

The Royal Cork Yacht Club may be the world’s oldest with its 1720 foundation date, but these days it seems to be more at the forefront of welcome developments than ever, as its three boats from Cork Harbour - the Murphy-Fegan family’s Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo, Noel Coleman’s Oyster 37 Blue Oyster, and the Radley family’s Holland 39 classic Imp – are all very much family entries, with the first two in particular each including four women sailors in their personnel lineup.

RCYC Vice Admiral Annamarie Fegan spearheads an impressive inclusive Cork Harbour participation in the big race. Photo: Robert Bateman

When we remember that this rather special club representation in Europe’s greatest offshore race is taking place at the same time as the Royal Cork at Crosshaven is hosting the biggest-ever World Topper Championship, the only conclusion can be that today’s crisply contemporary Royal Cork has emerged from a quaint 18th Century adult-male-only organisation mainly because they didn’t wait for other clubs to show the way – they were often showing the way themselves.

REAL ORIGINS OF “THE OCEAN RACE”

We’re reminded of this as some of the chat about the Fastnet Race this week has been about it being known at first with supposed novelty as “The Ocean Race”, until it was realized that “The Fastnet Race” had brand power to die for. But in any case, way back in 1860 when the Royal Cork’s elderly but young-at-heart Admiral T G French was successfully promoting the idea of a completely new type of race from Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour, he called it “The Ocean Race”. And the name still occasionally re-emerges for an August Bank Holiday race from Cork Harbour to Kinsale for any boats which haven’t gone off down west for Calves Week.

TRALEE BOOSTS FAMILY INVOLVEMENT

The Cork pace in family campaigning is matched by the Cunnane family’s Swan 46 Mynx from Tralee Bay SC. Ken Cunnane’s clan are into all sorts of sailing, but for the Fastnet they’ve pooled energies for racing in water more crowded than those you’ll find off Northwest Kerry, with the crew in a different world in the 204-strong fleet in their qualifying Cowes-St Malo Race, keeping clear in any night-time hour of more ships than you’ll see in an entire night in the approaches to the Shannon Estuary.

The Team from Tralee – Swan 46 Mynx (TBSC) is a Fastnet Race newbie.

DUN LAOGHAIRE’S SEASONED CAMPAIGNER

When Ronan O Siochru acquired the 2002-vintage and well-used former Greek Isles charter Sunfast 36 which was to become Desert Star to set up his Irish Offshore Sailing School in Dun Laoghaire, she needed much TLC to come up to standard. But now she has done five Fastnet Races, and none was better than the most recent in 2021 – the first to finish in Cherbourg – when she was 13th overall and best of the Irish to win the Gull Salver.

As they raced the final long stage, Desert Star’s unexpectedly good position at 4th in Class IV was discussed by the official commentariat, and they said it was most unlikely that the old war horse would still be in that placing by the finish. They were quite right. Desert Star just went better and better, and finished a very close second in Class IV, making such an impression that’s she’s now up in the official lights as a boat to watch in 2023, which is probably the last sort of attention any sailing school operator wants in taking a tyro crew in their first Fastnet Race.

The sweet smell of success – Ronan O Siochru (right) and his crew aboard Desert Star in 2021 approaching the finish in Cherbourg, on a day when every move they made was tactically on target

SUCCESSES OVER THE YEARS

Such is the price of success, and success or prominence over the years has often gone the way of Irish boats. When the Centenary comes up in 2025, it will be interesting to see how many still extant Irish links can be found to the early races. Gull may have gone, but the line honours winner in the 1926 Fastnet, the 70ft Fife cutter Hallowe’en, is still very much alive under a Royal Irish YC syndicate.

1926 Line Honours winner Hallowe’en at the Royal Irish YC. Photo: W M Nixon

As for 1927, the winning gaff cutter Tally Ho is restoring at Port Townsend in the US’s Pacific northwest, and the dramatic participation of Conor O’Brien’s Saoirse under her sail-spreading brigantine rig – more vividly remembered now that Liam Hegarty of Oldcourt has re-created Saoirse for Fred Kinmonth - attracted much attention at the time.

O’Brien was accustomed to having his sisters crew for him, so he accepted a female crew-member. Yet you wouldn’t know it from the crew-list, as it included one Peter Gerard. The world of London sailing journalism knew this was the new wife of fellow nautical scribe Maurice Griffiths, but as “Peter Gerard’s” real name was the distinctly non-nautical Dulcie Kennard, she’d to find something more appropriate to sell sailing stories in the dog-eat-dog conditions of the 1920s London magazines industry.

Saoirse’s 1927 brigantine rig “was not meant to go to windward” – and it didn’t

FIRST WIN IN CLASS IN 1947

The first Irish class win came in 1947 when Billy Mooney’s 16-ton ketch Aideen from Dun Laoghaire took Class 3 – her restored sister-ship Maybird is under Darryl Hughes’ ownership at Crosshaven - and through the 1950s, the Hopkirk brothers’ up-dated 1894-built Glance (Royal Ulster YC) was in the frame. Then in 1960s with Denis Doyle of Cork starting his four decade career of serious annual campaigning on the RORC circuit, everything moved up a step or two.

The massive Irish campaigning of 1979 saw a win by one of the Admiral’s Cup team as increasingly likely, but after that year’s super-storm had seen the rudder stocks snap off on front runners Regardless (Ken Rohan) and Golden Apple (Hugh Coveney), that hope was gone.

Winner all right. The Dubois 40 Irish Independent at the Fastnet in 1987

Thus the first overall win came in 1987 with Tim Goodbody (RIYC) as lead helm on the Admirals Cup racer Irish Independent, a Dubois 40. This achievement was properly recognised when Michael Boyd as Commodore of RORC organised the presentation of a special trophy to the RIYC, and just this week that trophy has gone public as the award for any RIYC member turning in the best performance in an event more than 600 miles long.

Back in Fastnet history, meanwhile, fresh heights were scaled in 2007 when Ger O’Rourke of Kilrush with his Cookson 50 Chieftain won overall in style, apparently un-hampered by the fact that for much of the decidedly rough race, Chieftain was racing without electrics or electronics, relying on torches and GPS from mobile phones and very damp-to-the-point-of-disintegrating charts.

KEEPING GOING NO MATTER WHAT

It is this unquenchable determination to keep going at peak performance, no matter what, that brings out the Fastnet Race winners. In 1957 the great American skipper Dick Nye with his 53ft Rhodes-designed yawl Carina II came through the gale force wind-over-tide conditions in the Needles Channel at such speed that a virtually airborne Carina crashed into a head sea so violently that ribs up forward were cracked or fractured, and caulking was spewed.

When the reports from down below confirmed the inevitable leaking in significant quantities, Nye declared that he was going to keep racing flat out, and it was up to the crew to keep the boat afloat. In easier stages, it required something like 12 minutes of heavy manual pumping in any hour to keep the ingress under control, and in rougher conditions it would be much more.

But Nye continued to race out flat out without easing until they had crossed the finish line in Plymouth to take line honours against – in some cases – much bigger boats, and they won overall as well, with the skipper finally relaxing and lighting up one of his giant trademark cigars that he had somehow kept dry.

“Right boys”, says he, “now you can let the damned boat sink”.

“With nothing working and everything working” – Chieftain coming in to the finish to win the 2007 Fastnet Race overall at Plymouth

As Carina II had already convincingly won the 1955 Fastnet Race, she would have been a good bet for the 1957 Race in any case. But that was with a fleet of modest size. Today, with record numbers vying for just the IRC awards, it really is anybody’s bet, and following it all with regular updates here on Afloat.ie is going to be absorbing and then some.

But for now, the word is the runes have been read down in Glandore, and the word from the Street is that the smart money would be on Chris Sheehan’s notably successful Pac 52 Warrior Won from America, as Don Street’s grandson Dylan Vogel is on the crew, as he has been for every big Warrior win.

That said, with a name like that, shouldn’t he be getting his act together for Electric Picnic?

Two Belfast Lough sailors are racing in the 50th Anniversary Rolex Fastnet Race, which starts on Saturday from Cowes on the Isle of Wight and finishes in Cherbourg.

Ewan Finlay is racing as foredeck crew on Mark Emerson’s A13 Phosphorus II, an Archambault A13, the one and only A13 ever built. It was formerly known as Teasing Machine and sailed very successfully by a professional French crew. Phosphorus II was sixth overall in IRC in the 2021 Fastnet Race.

Belfast's Ewan Finlay (second left) on board Phosphorus II that competes in this Saturday's Fastnet Race from Cowes

Ross Boyd is on onboard Robert Rendell’s Samatom from Howth. Regular Aflaot readers will recall she won the 2021 Sovereign's Cup Regatta Coastal Divison at the first attempt. Boyd says he is pleased that there are two RUYC members racing in this Fastnet, and he says he is “looking forward to the competition in the 104 boat class”.

This Saturday’s 2023 Rolex Fastnet Race will be the biggest offshore race of all time, with a record-breaking entry list of over 490 yachts for its 50th-anniversary edition.

At one point it was thought that the start might have to be delayed as a relatively brief but extremely strong period of southwest winds forecast seemed likely for Saturday afternoon and evening along the south coast of England, but the expected wind and weather conditions for the race while still unsettled, look to be averaging out. 

Starting from The Royal Yacht Squadron line in Cowes, the course is about 695 miles via the Fastnet Rock to the finish line at Cherbourg.

The expected wind and weather conditions for Saturday's Fastnet Race, while still unsettled, look to be averaging out. The dominant factor is a low-pressure area of 1008 currently (Thursday afternoon) off southeast Greenland. It will only deepen slowly as it curves southeast through the north of Ireland and the north of England on Saturday before heading northeast towards Norway, where its current predicted lowest pressure will be 991 by Tuesday afternoon.

Nevertheless, with unstable conditions generally, fresh bursts of weather energy could be generated at any time and in any area, and for now, we can be reasonably certain that the commentary team, which includes Ireland's Michael Boyd, will be kept busy as the lengthy starting procedure is implemented in a breeze Solent. After that, the likelihood is of windward work in pressure of varying strengths the whole way to the Rock.

Former RORC Commodore Michael Boyd of the Royal Irish Yacht Club is one of the commentary team on the RORC's live Youtube broadcast on Saturday (July 22nd)'s Rolex Fastnet Race 2023 start, with transmission beginning
at 12:30 hrs.

A very experienced offshore racing skipper, he first came to prominence with the overall win in the 1996 Round Ireland Race sailing the J/35 Big Ears. Since then, he has amassed a significant collection of silverware in major international events, including the RORC Championship.

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.

As competitors in this special anniversary edition of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s 50th Rolex Fastnet Race arrive in the Solent, or Cherbourg in preparation for Saturday’s start from Cowes, focus is turning to the weather forecast. Forecasts get increasingly accurate the more short term they are, but five days out from departure days, a few tentative observations can be made already.

In 2021 the start of the Fastnet Race was a dramatic one, taking place in breezy upwind conditions with gale-force gusts. At present, the forecast shows this scenario may repeat on Saturday. Volvo Ocean Race winning navigator Jules Salter, who this year is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his winning the Fastnet Race outright on Charles Dunstone’s maxi Nokia – Connecting People, is racing on the Maxi 72 Notorious, owned by another ex-Nokia crewman, Peter Morton. Salter observes: “With the amount of heating we have got going on - it could easily be gusting over 30 knots by the time we start at 1520. It is really a day where you should be wind surfing or kite boarding!” This means that it may be a fraction less when the first starters set sail, beginning with the multihulls at 1300 BST and the IMOCAs at 1320. However, at that point the tide is still flooding in the western Solent and the water will be flatter. This year for safety reasons, the eight starts have been separated by 20-minute intervals so by the time the last, for IRC Zero and Super Zero, takes place, there should be a stronger sea breeze, but also a lumpy wind-against-tide chop, accentuated when the boats pass through Hurst Narrows at the western exit to the Solent.

On his Maxi 72 Notorious, Peter Morton and navigator Jules Salter hope to repeat their 2003 victory Photo: Paul Wyeth

While even five days out there is some confidence in the forecast for Saturday’s start, it is also looking likely that the race will be upwind in lively conditions all the way to Land’s End. But after this, says Salter, it is anybody’s guess. “It is quite complicated because the European model has a secondary low spinning up off the front that goes through on Saturday and that is pretty ill-defined, hovering out there in the Western Approaches, but that secondary low hasn’t even formed yet – that is still something in ‘computer world’. Some models have you sailing through the middle of it in absolutely no wind and others have you on the back side of it in 25 knots.

“Some models show the low as elongated, more like a trough line, so you almost get north easterlies on the other side of it off the Irish coast. So it is dynamic at the moment. Plus it is hot to the south and cold to the north and we are right on the boundary, so there will be some big breeze within that. It is just how it forms, where those lows form, how quickly they deepen, how much warm air mixes with how much cold air.”

Christopher Sheehan's Pac 52 Warrior Won en route to victory in the RORC Caribbean 600 Photo: Robert Hadjuk

Come start day on Saturday the forecasts may still not align with what actually transpires on Monday/Tuesday warns Salter. “The secondary low could be 30 miles north or 30 miles south and suddenly you have got a different scenario depending on if you are on the right or wrong side of it. There is always the chance that the small boats might end up getting left a long way behind, but might get a 25-30 knots southwesterly and just beam reach in and then run up the Channel at the end. It is pretty open at the moment.”

In essence, Australian Will Oxley agrees. This year the round the world race veteran is navigating on Christopher Sheehan Pac 52 Warrior Won, outright winner of the 2022 RORC Caribbean 600 and the Transpac and one of the favourites for this year’s race. “It totally depends on the movement of that low, so I have an open mind at the moment. If someone looks at the American model, they’ll call Armageddon on the 25th! If someone looks at the European model, they’ll say the start will be terrible. The bottom line is that we don’t know yet, because it is a low that is not particularly fixed to anything so it can move around a bit.” Oxley reckons it may be lighter come start day, with around 16-24 knots, building to 30 knots in the gusts once the current kicks in in the evening.

“I was pretty comfortable with the timing being pretty similar on both models getting to the Scillies, but getting up to the Fastnet, the GFS model had a large area of light airs. It is just too early to tell. As I told the crew earlier - this is not a race where we can have a plan. On average, there was 50-60% upwind and 30% downwind, and 10% reaching for us – ie very little reaching on both runs – but the strength and when it will be upwind or downwind is not so clear. I have much less confidence than I would normally have.”

What seems certain is that in this 50th Fastnet Race, competitors could well end up using their entire sail wardrobe before they reach Cherbourg. The winner may come from whichever part of the fleet is able to reach to, and back from, the Fastnet Rock in the best pressure.

Saturday's Fastnet Race start is likely to be in brisk southwesterly headwinds © Rick Tomlinson

The 50th edition of the Fastnet Race starts from Cowes, Isle of Wight, on Saturday 22nd July.

When the first Fastnet Race was sailed in 1925 amidst controversy over the foolhardiness of bringing “reckless competition” into ocean voyaging, the last thing on the organisers’ mind was the crazy thought that by 2023, with the 50th Fastnet getting underway this Saturday (June 22nd), a significant number of boats will be racing with family-oriented crews, in some cases with as many or even more women than men, including some notably young people.

In 1925, it seems there were no women in any of the seven crews. And despite the fact that, just seven years earlier in the Great War of 1914-18, boys in their teens had been sent to almost-certain death on the front line, the impression of 1925 is of an all-male ruggedly adult lineup which subscribed to the notion that the necessary stamina and toughness came only with male maturity.

WOMAN SAILOR IN THIRD FASTNET RACE

It wasn’t until the third race in 1927 that there was a woman recorded as starting the race as crew, and she was aboard Conor O’Brien’s world-girdling Saoirse - we’ll elucidate the facts on that intriguing snippet in more detail in Sailing on Saturday’s race morning overview. Meanwhile, back in the day in the RORC’s annual programme, things continued to improve, such by the early 1930s the annual season-long championship was won by the Hunt family with their fast and able gaff cutter Spica.

1977 Fastnet Race overall winner Imp on her way ten years later to win the Philip Whitehead Cup in the 1987 Fastnet for Roy Dickson of Howth. In 2023’s race, she is being campaigned by Royal Cork’s George Radley II & George Radley III

Fast forward to 2023, and this week sees three of the Royal Cork YC entries with a clear family emphasis positioning themselves in the Solent area for Saturday’s extraordinary starting sequence, which will now involve 460-plus boats and still counting. George Radley’s legendary Holland 39 Imp – overall Fastnet winner in 1977 under the ownership of Skip Allen of San Francisco, and subsequent winner of the race’s Philip Whitehead Cup ten years later for Howth’s Roy Dickson – will have owner George Radley of Cobh and his son George Jnr aboard. My reckoning makes them George II and George III, but we may be much further down the line than that, as George Radleys seem to have been in and around Cork Harbour sailing for quite some time.

Then yesterday (Monday) morning, Noel Coleman’s Oyster 37 Blue Oyster took her departure from Crosshaven with daughter Karen and nephew Alan on board, soon followed by the ICRA 2021 Champion Nieulargo, the Grand Soleil 40 campaigned by RCYC Vice Admiral Annamarie Fegan and her husband Denis Murphy, with lead roles in their personnel lineup being filled by their daughters Molly and Mia. This means there’ll be four women on board in all for the race, as will also be the case on Blue Oyster.

The Coleman family’s Oyster 37 Blue Oyster is a family-friendly boat. Photo: Robert Bateman

Forecasting the weather in the current volatile conditions is even more of a guessing game than usual, but it looks like being a classic Fastnet Race start, beating into a westerly. Fortunately, you have most of the width of the Solent for the starting line if you want to avoid the usual melee close in at the Squadron end, but as Kenneth Rumball of Dun Laoghaire’s National Sailing School so effectively demonstrated on his way to victory with the J/109 Jedi in 2017, a good if inevitably port tack start in there in the thick of it sets up crew morale for the rest of the race.

Nerves of steel – Kenneth Rumball’s brilliant port tack start at the inner end of the line with Jedi in the 2017 Fastnet Race. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi/Rolex