As we count down through the fifty days to the Round Ireland 2026 start at Wicklow on Saturday June 20th, while counting upwards with a good chance of breaking the magic target of fifty entries as they finally come to the line, the question surely is whether the two-handers’ run of classics success can be continued in the 700 mile slug round our very useful little island?

Round Ireland Race organiser Kyran O’Grady of Wicklow Sailing Club with Deb Fish, Commodore Royal Ocean Racing Club. Photo: W M Nixon

After all, that mega event which was the huge-fleet Centenary Fastnet Race last year was won by the admittedly formidable duo of rockstar sailor Alexis Loison and genius boatbuilder Jean-Pierre Kelbert, racing Leon, one of the latter’s JPK 1050s.

FRENCH DESIGNED BOAT WINS FIRST FASTNET RACE, AND CENTENARY TOO

For those with an eye to history, it was remarkable that the Centenary Fastnet should be won by a French-designed and built boat. For so too was the first Fastnet in 1925, when victory went to the former Le Havre pilot cutter Jolie Brise, which was surely a topic worthy of profound meditation.

ACTION THIS DAY

But for others, the news that Loison had done it again was a signal for Action This Day. Sydney Harbour woman skipper Jiang Lin immediately set about ensuring that Alexis Loison would be co-skipper on her JPK 10.30 Min River in the up-coming 80th Rolex Sydney Hobart Race in December, and they won with another two-hander, a JPK 10.80, coming second.

First double-handed win and first woman skipper win in 2025 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race – Alex Loison and Jiang Lin in Hobart with the Tattersall Cup. Photo:RSHR/Rolex

Everything about this was remarkable, as the sprightly 60-year-old skipper was the first woman overall winner in one of the toughest classics of them all, and it was yet another two-handed victory against wave after wave of fully-crewed boats, most of them bigger ones.

FIRST CLASSIC TWO-HANDER WIN IN 2013 FASTNET

It’snow more than ten years since a top duo first won a big race, with Alexis Loison and his father doing the job in the 2013 Fastnet with a JPK 10.10. The experience of not merely managing, but actually excelling in major races with just two totally in-tune crew, has been developing for some time now, and the 2026 Round Ireland entry list includes a duo of the leading practitioners, Rob Craigie and RORC Commodore Deb Fish on the former’s Sun Fast 3600 Bellino which has now won the RORC points championship three years on the trot.

Seasoned two-handers find that the extra shipmates in a fully-crewed boat seem to get in the way at least as much as they provide assistance, but most of the current fleet is fully-crewed.

However, before focusing on them, the two-handers include Bellino, the frequently-campaigned Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl from Kinsale (Cian McCarthy & Sam Hunt), and two CG sister-ships, Sky Business – Game On (Ian Hoddle and Willow Bland), and Galway’s Ronan Considine and Tom Murphy in Paradox.

Ireland’s best-known two-handed team is Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt of Kinsale on the Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl. Photo: Afloat.ie

It will be some going for Ronan Considine to take in this race, as he was the Man on the Spot to welcome the Connnacht crew who won the Dubai-Muscat Race through the Straits of Hormuz about a week before the Iran war broke out. But equally it will be interesting to see which boat Galway star Aodhan Fitzgerald – one of Considine’s hyper-talented crew back in the Straits – is shipping aboard, as his personal record in the Round Ireland includes skippering a fully-crewed First 40.7 to the overall win, and two wins in the two-handed division, racing a Beneteau Figaro 2 with Yannick Lemonnier, and a Class 40 with Michael Kleinjans.

The crew of Johnny & Suzy Murphy’s J/109 Outrajeous (HYC) after winning the 2025 Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race. Johnny Murphy is third from right with a crew largely drawn from Connacht, including the ubiquitously successful Aodhan Fitzgerald of Galway (left). Outrajeous is entered for the 2026 Round Ireland.

SIX CLASS 40 Entries

Much has been hoped for a good Class 40 turnout for this circuit, and the total has currently reached six international boats: Swift (Greg Leonard), VSF Sports (Pep Costa), Maat (Sophie Delanoy), Solano (Robin Follin), Maccaferri Futura (Lucca Rosetti), and Magenta (Djemila Tassin, so we have a real class.

ADMIRALS CUPPERS

It was a measure of the pace of Admirals Cup racing within the Centenary Fastnet Race setup that all the Admiral’s Cup boats finished within the top 50 overall in the vast fleet, with first on the water in AC at the Fastnet, and first in AC line honours at Cherbourg, going to Black Pearl, a Botin 56 which is represented on the Round Ireland lineup by Guy Gillon’s Kumbu. And even meatier in terms of success is third place team member Django JPK 11.80, now owned by Trevor Middleton and signed in for the Wicklow start.

French sailing legend Gery Trentesaux’s Jason Ker-designed Sydney GTS 43 Long Courrier – second overall in the Fastnet Race 2025 - will be spearheading a strong French challenge in the Round Ireland race in June. Photo: Paul Wyeth

Also fresh from a fine performance in the Admirals Cup is Gery Trentesaux’s Sydney GTS 43 Long Courrier, yet another name of fame headed for Wicklow and the best defence that Ireland can offer among the mid-sized boats, with craft like Dingle Race 2025 winner Outrajeous, Johnny & Suzy Murphy’s J/109 from Howth, clubmate Mike Evans’ J/112e The Big Picture, the highly-regarded NMD 43 Cristina (John Treanor) from Dun Laoghaire, and the ‘Steady Eddy” competitor Aurelia, Chris Power Smith’s J/122 Aurelia from the Royal St George YC.

EXOTIC BOAT SIZES

Moving into more exotic boat sizes, Graeme Lewis’s Carroll Marine 60 Venomous must be one of the favourites for line honours, but things have livened up among the biggies, with a Clipper Ventures 68 – CV9 Courageous – signed up and raring to go, though something tells us that she’ll have become Irish under Atlantic Shackleton management by the time that starting gun fires.

The Farr-designed Carroll Marine 60 Venomous (Graeme Lewis) will be among the favourites for line honours

At 20.77 metres LOA, CV9 is the biggest of the current entry list. But much interest has also been piqued by one of the most recent entries, Stephane Gras from France with Neptune, a boat that certainly sets out his stall, as she is currently described as a Prototype, and is a good 18.6 metres long.

Looking ultra-cool when relaxing is essential to one’s image in France, and the crew of Stephane Gras’s Neputune have it down to a fine art.

This might be something new altogether. As for more normal craft, let’s hear it for CHPSC. That’s Clwb Hwylio Pwllheli Sailing Club, beautifully located at the head of Tremadoc Bay in North Wales, with the magnificent panoramic background of Snowdonia in all its glory.

The scenery may be on the grand scale, but Pwllheli sailors in the Round Ireland 2026 are going with two modest enough boats. There’s everyone’s favourite, the rare but swift J/125 Jackknife, campaignd by Sam Hall and his dad Andrew to Transatlantic success during the past year. And there’s the smallest boat in the entire fleet, Paul Sutton’s 9.2 metres long Farr X2 WB Lightning.

It took the rare J/125 fifteen years to become an overnight success, but Jackknife has shown that the Johnstone brothers had got it right after all. She is seen here on her way to overall victory in the 2026 Nelson’s Cup series in Antigua

We wish them luck. But perhaps all that can really be said at this stage is that the Round Ireland Race from Wicklow 2026 is shaping up to be something very interesting indeed, and if you’re still thinking about making a late entry, we’d say: “Go For It!”

ROUND IRELAND RACE 2026 ENTRY LIST @ 02-05-26