A record fleet of 80 yachts will be competing in the 9th edition of the RORC Caribbean 600 starting from Antigua this morning.

This year's race will see the most spectacular line-up of high performance boats and crews racing from 30 different countries.

The crew list reads like the 'Who's Who' of international sailors with hundreds of round the world, America's Cup, Olympic and Volvo Ocean Race professionals rubbing shoulders with passionate corinthian sailors on the same 600 mile race course around 11 Caribbean islands.

Check out the pre–event video below with an interview with RORC Commodore Michael Boyd of Dublin Bay. 

 

Both monohull and multihull Round Ireland record holders are part of a fleet of over 80 yachts expected for the ninth edition of the 2017 RORC Caribbean 600 in which 900 sailors from 30 different nations will race non-stop around 11 Caribbean islands, starting and finishing in Antigua.

Passionate corinthians will be rubbing shoulders with Olympic medallists, America's Cup winners and round the world sailors in a race to take home the coveted RORC Caribbean 600 Trophy. The 600 mile course is designed to offer a tactical, high speed race with stunning vistas at every corner.

"The RORC Caribbean 600 is very different to the other 600 mile races and definitely not a holiday race in the Caribbean," commented RORC Racing Manager, Nick Elliott. "The race has many tactical legs with land effects and wind-driven currents which are both difficult to predict. The heat of the day and the long nights are also unusual features for an offshore race making it every bit as challenging as the Rolex Fastnet Race, and just as exciting. It is interesting to note that the records for the Rolex Fastnet Race and the RORC Caribbean 600 are very similar."

Featuring a magnificent collection of yachts, an incredibly varied fleet will be racing under the IRC, CSA and MOCRA rating systems, as well as Class40s racing under class rules. Rambler 88, Phaedo3 and Maserati will be gunning for course records, however, the winner of the RORC Caribbean 600 Trophy will be decided by the yacht with the best corrected time under IRC.

George David's American Maxi Rambler 88 is back with an impressive crew line-up for another tilt at the race record, the overall win and class honours. New Zealand's multiple America's Cup winner, Brad Butterworth is part of an impressive afterguard including fellow Kiwi, Brad Jackson and Australian navigator, Andrew Cape. Virtually the entire crew are America's Cup winners and stars of the Volvo Ocean Race.

Phaedo3 has assembled a phenomenal crew for the race and multiple world record holder, Brian Thompson is joined by Volvo Ocean Race winners Robert Greenhalgh and Damian Foxall. Extreme 40 champion, Pete Cumming and the formidable talent of Michel Desjoyeux, the only sailor to have won the Vendée Globe twice. Maserati's skipper, Giovanni Soldini is Italy's most decorated offshore sailor and Maserati has been fitted with foils which can provide a speed advantage over Phaedo3. A fascinating contest for multihull line honours is expected.

The winner of the Multihull Class will be the yacht with the best corrected time under MOCRA. Seven teams are entered including Shaun Carroll's Australian Modified Sea Cart 30, Morticia which is the smallest yacht competing in the entire fleet, and the head-turning all-carbon R-Six, skippered by Robert Janecki, which is the first ever entry from Belize.

IRC Overall for the RORC Caribbean 600 Trophy

Overall winners of the previous eight editions of the race have all come from IRC Canting Keel and IRC Zero. Amongst this year's favourites are two Maxi 72s: Hap Fauth's Bella Mente - overall winner in the 2015 race, and current holder of the RORC Caribbean 600 Trophy, George Sakellaris' Proteus.

Whilst the two Maxi 72s are firm favourites, the stellar cast racing in IRC Canting Keel and IRC Zero includes; Farr 100 Leopard and three Volvo 70s, Lionel Pean's SFS II from France, Trifork skippered by Dutchman Bouwe Bekking and Green Dragon, skippered by Austrian Johannes Schwarz. The dark horse of the canting keel class is Maverick, skippered by Oliver Cotterell. The Infiniti 46 with DSS side foils was class winner for the RORC Transatlantic Race and the Rolex Middle Sea Race.

In IRC Zero, the 182ft schooner Adela, skippered by Greg Perkins is the largest yacht taking part and making a RORC Caribbean 600 debut is Anders Nordquist's Shamanna. The 115ft superyacht is the largest of nine Swans competing this year and boasts a crew including many of Malta's best sailors from the Calascione, Podesta and Ripard families. RORC Admiral and IMA Secretary General, Andrew McIrvine is a guest aboard Grant Gordon's Maxi cruiser 72, Louise. Overall winner of the 2017 Cape to Rio Race, Stefan Jentzsch's German Carkeek 47, Black Pearl is the smallest yacht in IRC Zero. South African America's Cup sailors, Mark Sadler and Marc Lagesse form the afterguard.

With 17 yachts, the largest class competing this year is IRC One and a huge variety of yachts includes Giles Redpath's Lombard 46, Pata Negra, with RORC Commodore, Michael Boyd among the crew. Bernie Evan Wong's RP37, Taz will be proudly flying the Antiguan flag once again. Bernie is the life and soul of the race having competed in all nine editions as skipper.

The IRC Two champion, Ross Applebey's Scarlet Oyster is back attempting to win the class for the fourth consecutive race in a highly competitive field including; Ed Fishwick's Redshift on El Ocaso with a young, top-class crew including, 2012 Olympic Silver Medallist Luke Patience and Figaro sailors, Alan Roberts and Nick Cherry, as well as Volvo Ocean Race sailor, Nick Bubb.

Close racing is expected in IRC Three among four vintage Swans, including two Sparkman & Stephens designed Swan 48s, Jonty Layfield's Sleeper X and Andrew & Mia Schell's Isbjorn. Peter Hopps, skipper of the Sigma 38, Sam has competed in every edition of the RORC Caribbean 600.

Short-Handed Challengers
A number of young talented Figaro teams are expected from Guadeloupe and James Heald's British Swan 45 Nemesis will be racing Two-Handed. Five Class 40s will be competing including Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron's Campagne de France which won the Class40 division in the 2016 RORC Transatlantic Race, Catherine Pourre's Eärendil, Peter Harding's Phor-ty, Mikael Ryking's Talanta and Marc Lepesqueux's Saint-Pierre & Miquelon.

Royal Cork Yacht Club in conjunction with ICRA and RORC will be running an IRC Measurement weekend on the 5th, 6th and 7th of May.

The aim of this weekend is two fold:

IRC Measurers:
• To train up new people on the south-coast to be qualified to measure boats. This will be done over the one evening and two day course, the cost of this will be €50 per person and will include lunch during the course.
Boat Measuring:
• While the course is on, RORC will be offering to measure boats at a substantial discount to normal cost, so if you are interested in getting your boat weighed and measured it will be done here in Crosshaven for a cost of €200 per boat. Spaces will be limited for this offer so it will be on a first come first served basis.

If you are interested in either of the two option planned for this weekend as places will be limited, so book early to ensure you get in. Further details here.

This month sees Conor Fogerty of Howth Yacht Club, preparing for one of the most prestigious and demanding solo ocean races in the international yachting calendar. 

The latest instalment of the OSTAR (Original Solo Transatlantic Race), commences on 29th May 2017.

This will see Fogerty, bring his much loved and widely campaigned Sunfast 3600 'Bam', to the start line off Plymouth Sound in the English Channel. This gruelling race which is taxing on both body and mind, heads across the North Atlantic Ocean, to Newport Rhode Island, over 3,000 miles of Ocean.

Although the race name OSTAR may trip easily off the tongue, this generally upwind race, is not for the faint hearted or indeed occasional offshore adventurer.

Fogerty and Bam surfing at 20–knots during a 2016 transatlantic crossing

The event sees the solo skippers pit themselves against strong gales and big seas as a matter of course, not to mention, ice, fog, shipping and the occasional whale attack is not unknown.

He will follow in the footsteps of a veritable who’s who of sailing greats and pioneers of ocean racing. The names of Chichester, Knox Johnson, Blyth, Tabarly, Peyron, not forgetting Ellen McArthur are some of those who have sailed this great race before him.

In an Irish context, solo sailor Barry Hurley of the Royal Irish Yacht Club took a class win in the 2009 Ostar after a 21–day match race with an Italian competitor.

OSTAR history can be traced to an English war veteran Blondie Hassler who set about organising the race in 1956 and saw it first run in 1960 under the guidance of The Royal Western Yacht Club. From those early days of sextants and hand bearing compasses, the race has witnessed the trialling of most major innovations in boat design and on board equipment common in modern day sailing. This includes the advent of multi hulls, autopilots, water ballast, GPS, and weather routing. Whilst all of the above have certainly revolutionised sailing for the modern day solo adventurer, they do little to diminish the stark reality of dealing with the conditions, the low pressure systems of the North Atlantic create.

After 21 days at sea Barry Hurley makes a dawn finish and a class win in the 2009 Ostar

Conor is a seasoned campaigner. Last year alone saw his 11–metre Bam start the year with a win in the RORC Caribbean 600. From there a 16–day solo trip to the Azores and then after some much needed R &R in Horta, back to Ireland.

Next up were the ISORA races across the Irish Sea and forays to the South Coast of England and North of France competing in RORC races. Not forgetting a 3rd place finish in the Round Ireland and a Solo Fastnet (SORC) challenge, which but for a fickle wind at the end line, would have seen him claim the top of the podium. The season came down with the Middle Sea Race off Malta which saw Fogerty and Bam claim the 3rd overall in class for the RORC 2016 season.

This was a fitting reward for skipper and crew for the thousands of hard miles campaigning in 2016, without the big budgets of some competitors or indeed sponsorship.

It has been said that the major achievement racing the OSTAR is to get the boat to the start line.

These campaigns do not come easily or cheaply to the racing privateer. The aim now is to get as many sponsors as possible on board, to back this commendable Corinthian challenge.

Conor is in discussions with potential sponsors at the moment, but he also provides a grass route sponsorship option for an individual to have their name displayed on the hull to show support, and to give his attempt every chance of success, and to fly the Irish flag with distinction. If you are interested in providing support, please contact [email protected]

Next month, more than 70 yachts are expected to take part in the RORC Caribbean 600, the Royal Ocean Racing Club's stunning race around 11 Caribbean islands. American yachts have had a winning streak in this classic offshore race, winning five out of eight editions of the 600-miler, starting and finishing in Antigua.

With 16 entries, the largest number of American boats ever seen on the race course will include several serious race teams with a chance of winning the overall trophy. Past winners from the U.S. on the start line on Monday 20th February will include the current holder of the RORC Caribbean 600 Trophy from 2016, George Sakellaris, Proteus, Maxi 72 (USA) as well as some of the other American overall winners: 2015: Hap Fauth, Bella Mente, JV72 (USA); 2014: George Sakellaris, RP72, Shockwave (USA); 2013: Ron O'Hanley, Privateer, Cookson 50 (USA) and 2011: George David, Rambler 100, JK 100 (USA).

Favourites, for both line honours and the overall win are likely to come from the USA, even though British contenders lead the impressive list of entries in terms of number of boats from around the globe.

The fastest boat in the race is the American trimaran, the MOD70, Phaedo³ owned and skippered by Lloyd Thornburg who grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Phaedo³ set the multihull record last year, hurtling around the course at speeds in excess of 30 knots and topping out nearer 40, crossing the finish line in an elapsed time of 31 hours, 59 minutes, 04 seconds and breaking their previous race record. Team Phaedo is back to defend their title and will be taking a tilt at their own record once again.

15 Maxi yachts have already entered the RORC Caribbean 600, including American Maxi, Rambler 88 skippered by George David from New York. In 2011, George David's Rambler 100 scorched round the track in a time of 40 hours 20 minutes 02 seconds setting the monohull race record and winning the race overall. This year, George David's Rambler 88, although smaller than his previous Rambler 100, will be hoping for the right conditions to better the race record.

Two American owned boats, that on recent results must be regarded as joint favourites, are the highly tuned and professionally sailed Maxi 72's, Proteus and Bella Mente. George Sakellaris from Massachusetts, USA has won the race twice before and will hope to be the first team to retain the RORC Caribbean 600 Trophy and win the race for a third time. He will however have to beat the highly competitive world-class team on Bella Mente, skippered by Hap Fauth from Long Island, New York. Bella Mente won the race overall in 2015, however, last year the Maxi72 had to retire after suffering a major failure to her keel.

Two-time Olympian and multiple World Champion, Mark Mendleblatt from Florida, USA has won the race as part of George Sakellaris' afterguard and will be racing on Proteus this year:

"I don't know why more American boats do not participate," commented Mark Mendleblatt. "From Florida you can easily deliver the boat there on its bottom. Logistically, the race starts and finishes in Antigua and the marina, facilities and accommodation are excellent and less expensive than back home. The RORC Caribbean 600 is a fantastic race with great breeze, a lot of tactical calls, manoeuvres and sail changes. The start line is something really special; racing past a dramatic coastline, with superyachts, schooners and top ocean racers. During the race there is no respite and we are sure to have a great battle with Bella Mente. Whoever pushes the hardest will probably win. I am happy to take any role on board, but when you are at the helm with world class trimmers and crew calling the breeze in fast reaching conditions, it is the kind of racing that we all dream about."

Over 900 sailors from 24 different countries are anticipated to take part in the 2017 RORC Caribbean 600.

RORC CARIBBEAN 600 TROPHY - IRC OVERALL WINNERS
2016 - George Sakellaris, Proteus Maxi 72 (USA)
2015 - Hap Fauth, Bella Mente, JV72 (USA)
2014 - George Sakellaris, RP72, Shockwave (USA)
2013 - Ron O'Hanley, Privateer, Cookson 50 (USA)
2012 - Niklas Zennström's JV72, Rán (GBR)
2011 - George David, Rambler 100, JK 100 (USA)
2010 - Karl C L Kwok, Beau Geste, Farr 80 (HKG)
2009 - Adrian Lee, Lee Overlay Partners, Cookson 50 (IRL)

Royal Cork YC's Paul Gibbons, racing Quarter Tonner Anchor Challenge, who was the winner of the inaugural IRC European Champion Trophy last July, will be travelling to France this summer to defend his Euro title and the hope is other Irish IRC campaigners will make the journey to Marseille too.

After its inaugural outing at Cork Week 2016, Marseille is the venue for the 2017 IRC European Championship. The RORC championships will be organised by the Union Nationale pour la Course au Large (UNCL), the Cercle Nautique et Touristique du Lacydon (CNTL), the Societe Nautique de Marseille (SNM) and the Union Nautique Marseillaise (UNM), from the 5th to the 9th July 2017 in Marseille. A date that clashes unfortunately with Ireland's biggest regatta in Dun Laoghaire.

The French event was officially launched at the UNCL stand at Paris Boat Show, in the presence of the Presidents of the four organising clubs.

It will be the second edition of this international competition, after a first and successful one held in Cork Harbour in July 2016.

All the IRC rated boats, with a TCC equal or more than 0.900, are invited to participate to the Marseille 2017 IRC European Championship.

Crews from Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom, among others, have already announced their intention to participate in this new challenge, with Ireland's Gibbons declaring his intention to defend immediately on lifting the antique silver cup in Crosshaven. 

The traditional timing of the London International Boat Show as soon as possible after New Year’s Day may have been shifted about in recent years as the changing dynamics of the European marine industry and the sheer dominance through size of Dusselboot (this year’s is 21st to 29th January) have changed the map of international boat selling. Nevertheless the idea that the very beginning of the New Year is an ideal time to interest people in a new boat still holds good, as they’ll invariably be convinced they’ve thought only of gifts for others over Christmas, while their entire lives have been taken over by family festivities. So when New Year arrives, a personal treat with a change in boats is well earned. But is it necessary to get a completely new boat? W M Nixon points to a different solution.

The most significant fact to emerge from the final results of this week’s Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race is that no new boat figured in the top five places overall. All were boats of varying vintage, some quite old relatively speaking. And all had been - at the very least - tinkered around with more than somewhat, even if none had been modified so frequently and completely as the Oatley family’s hundred footer Wild Oats XI.

Admittedly Wild Oats didn’t even finish, but she was leading on the water well past the halfway stage when she had to pull out with a failed keel ram. It could well be that this was one of the few original items in the boat, for Oats has been radically changed so often - with new longer bows fitted at frequent intervals with the stern shortened still further to keep her under a hundred feet – that she now looks for all the world like a one-masted schooner.

Wild Oats XI has had so much added to her length forward and so much chopped off her stern that she now looks like a one-masted schooner

Yet at no stage have any of her skillfully-executed hull mods failed. Down in Australia, and in New Zealand too, they’re past masters at doing incredible things with epoxy which, once the job has been finished, look as if they’ve been there from the start. And the fact is that when we look back on the history of sailing development, when timber construction was dominant, the more individualistic shipwrights were game to take on all sorts of challenges for they knew – or at least most of them new – just what could be done with wood while retaining the overall sea-going integrity of the much-changed vessel.

It was only when fibreglass took over as the dominant boat construction material in the 1960s that we went through a period of nervousness of configurational change, when what you got in a plastic boat stayed as what you got in that plastic boat. For a while, people were scared stiff of making any changes to what had emerged from the mould and subsequently from the finishing shop.

But if your boat happened to be of wood, or better still of aluminium or steel, you could emulate the modifiers of old and introduce changes which managed to be locally strong, and also strong within the overall structure of the boat.

Once upon a time, back in 1974, we found ourselves berthed in Crosshaven outside Eric Tabarly’s 64ft ketch Pen Duick VI after an RORC race from Cowes, which he had won both on the water and on IOR. Despite this, the great man was dissatisfied with the location of the sheet leads for the Yankee jib (he had an Illingworth-style cutter rig). So he and his lads got hold of a generator, and there before our very eyes they set up an aluminum welding workshop, cut off the eye, and re-located the sheet leads to the skipper’s satisfaction.

Only the coachroof coaming was timber - Eric Tabarly’s alloy ketch Pen Duick III was easily modified if you’d the aluminium welding kit.

For sure there was singed paint in every direction, but the job was done, and Pen Duick won the next RORC race to somewhere in Brittany even more convincingly, while we sailed home to Howth reflecting that maybe there was more to aluminium than a rather soul-less material best used for building aircraft.

But of course we didn’t need to look very far to see boats that had been modified, sometimes beyond all recognition, in order to maintain appeal to a new generation of sailors. While the Howth 17s of 1898 may have stuck stubbornly to their original design – which they still do – the Dublin Bay 21s of 1902 had since 1963 been changed to Bermudan rig with a new coachroof.

Dublin Bay 21 in original form – they kept their crews busy, and offered scant comfort or shelter. Photo: Rex Roberts

The Dublin Bay 21s as they were from 1963 until 1986 - more easily handled, and the luxury of a doghouse,

Cork Harbour One Design with classic rig, and open cockpit. Photo: Tom Barker

Cork Harbour One Design in bermudan-rigged cruising mode, complete with coachroof and doghouse. Photo: W M Nixon

And in Cork Harbour, the more senior Cork Harbour One Designs of 1896 vintage had become able little Bermudan-rigged cruisers with an extensive coachroof – complete with doghouse – which allowed them to log some very impressive cruises.

But in both cases, while the boats may have looked completely different above the deck line, their basic hull shape remained the same. Yet if you cared to look in the Coal Harbour in Dun Laoghaire, until the early years of this century a regular resident was the 32ft Bermudan sloop Bonito, which had started life as a plumb-bowed gaff cutter built in Strangford in 1884, yet by the time she reached Dun Laoghaire she was spoon-bowed and sloop rigged under the Bermudan configuration, her owner-skipper being Roy Starkey, whose regular crewmate was Bob Geldof Senr.

In fact, re-configuration seems have been a fact of life for Bonito during much of her existence, as at one stage she was yawl rigged too. But the fascination abut her lay in discerning where the constructional changes had been made to transform her appearance, and it’s a matter of regret that when her life came ignominiously to an end some time after Roy’s death, with the powers-that-be breaking up Bonito and consigning her to a landfill, it was over and done with before anyone was sufficiently aware of what was happening to ensure that her breaking-up a forensic dissection rather than a crude scrapping.

Of particular interest would have been the way in which her straight stem was lengthened into the spoon bow which became fashionable in the 1890s, and has remained fashionable with foredeck crews ever since, as it means you can work at the stemhead without being immersed in every wave, whereas straight stems – or worse still, the reverse stem as seen on CQS in the Hobart race – are a semi-permanent waterfall.

Yacht design undergoes strange mutations which can persist in exaggerated form, and one of the worst was the heavily-canted rudder which began to emerge in the 1840s when the main measurement for handicap and other purposes was along the length of the lower side of keel. The boat builder and designer Thomas Wanhill of Poole in the south of England was soon turning out boats which were significantly larger than their keel length – and hence their rating measurement – suggested, simply by increasing the angle of the rudder.

John Mulholland’s 1865-built Egeria
So even though the sweetly-steering schooner America with her vertical rudder came across the Atlantic in 1851 and swept all before her, in England the trend towards angled rudders persisted, and in 1865 Wanhill built his most successful schooner, “the wonderful Egeria”, a 99-footer for linen magnate John Mulholland of Belfast, and she performed like a dream despite her markedly angled rudder.

Having the angle enabled the rudder head and the tiller to be well aft to keep the deck amidships clear for crew work, but somehow the idea persisted and indeed became exaggerated until the 1960s, with the Sparkman & Stephens-designed Clarion of Wight, overall winner of the 1963 Fastnet Race, having a rudder which today looks absurd. Admittedly she was a dream to windward, but offwind and particularly with spinnaker set, she was a nightmare on the helm.

She may have won the 1963 Fastnet Race, but in her original form Clarion of Wight had carried the angled rudder to absurd levels.

Clarion’s successor Firebrand in 1965 showed some modifications to the old rudder shape, but Dick Carter’s new find-and-skeg configured Rabbit won that year’s Fastnet.This particular line of development was knocked in the head when Dick Carter won the Fastnet Race overall in 1965 with his own-designed Rabbit, which was fin-and-skeg with a virtually vertical rudder, and was well-behaved on all angles of sailing. But at the time most sailors persisted in what they thought were improved versions of the old form, and in ’65 Dennis Miller, one of the part-owners of Clarion in ’63, appeared with the new similarly-sized Firebrand with a less steeply-angled rudder which had a pointed tail to give extra power at maximum depth, and that did improve things slightly. But nevertheless Firebrand continued to be the most beautiful-looking boat with the drawback of challenging helming under spinnaker, though as we’ll see, that was to be sorted in due course.

Meanwhile Clarion of Wight continued to be a handful, so before the 1960s were out, builder Clare Lallow of Cowes was asked to perform the then-major operation of transforming her after-body underwater to give her a fin-and-skeg configuration master-minded by Sparkman & Stephens, who were now advocating this shape with all the zeal of the convert, and in fact had used early versions of it in boats like Deb, later Dai Mouse III, now Sunstone, which had been built in 1965.

Clarion of Wight in the 1971 Fastnet Race in Rory O’Hanlon’s ownership, when she won the Philip Whitehead Cup. Her new vertical rudder arrangement is discernible.

Thus to some extent it was the conservatism of owners which persisted in keeping the old style, and of course the vertical separate rudder had long since been advocated by designers like Ricus van de Stadt and Uffa Fox. However, getting the change to into favour with the mainstream in sailing was a different proposition altogether, and you’ll still meet those who prefer keels as long as possible with “gracefully angled” rudders, and good luck to them.

But increasingly the tendency was to the new form, and for those who cannot see any boat without wishing to modify her in some way, it was a magic time, particularly in places like Australia and New Zealand where there seems to be a skilled craftsman round every corner, and regular major boat modifications are almost a way of life.

As for the mainstream, the process was more gentle, but when the most accomplished offshore racers of their generation, the Americans Dick Nye and his son Richard, went to designer Jim McCurdy for a new race boat in 1968, the 47ft alloy-built Carina was given a conservative fin and skeg configuration complete with trim tab on the aft end of the fin keel.

Jim McCurdy’s plans for Carina in 1968 showed a conservative interpretation of the fin-and-skeg form, and relied on a trim tab on the aft end of the fin keel to give added lift to windward.
Carina as she is today, and still winning races. She has a spade rudder and Peterson/Holland fin keel arrangement designed by Scott Kaufmann.

But that trim tab was punished by changes to the rating rules in the early 1970s. So by 1978 they’d gone to New Zealand-born, New York-based Scott Kaufmann, and he came up with a real dream of a re-configuration with a very positive spade rudder with perfect end-plate effect on the underside of the counter, and a fin keel of the type favoured by Doug Peterson and Ron Holland.

Thanks to Carina’s alloy construction, it was a very manageable job, even if those actually doing it in Bob Derecktor’s famous boatyard found the initial aluminium grinding and cutting to be dusty hard labour. One of that work team was Rives Potts, who has now owned Carina himself for many years, and she continues to win races.

As for her seaworthiness under her new keel and rudder, that was immediately proven beyond all doubt with her successful participation in the 1979 Fastnet. But not all rudder conversions have been so successful. The lovely Firebrand ended up in America, and some owner decided she needed a fin and skeg rudder arrangement. The job was done, but then when she was sold back to Europe, the new skeg broke clean off while sailing Transatlantic. But thankfully it was an add-on rather than an insert into the basic construction, so she got across in one piece.

And then her luck turned. She was spotted by international yacht designer Ed Dubois, who fell in love with her, and decided to make Firebrand his pet boat. Her personally designed a special spade rudder which would retain the classic character of the yacht while improving the steering, and under this arrangement, between intervals of designing superyachts for other people, he had many cherished times sailing and cruising this most beautiful vanished boat before his untimely death at the age of 63 earlier this year.

It’s a great compliment to the beauty of the hull designs of Olin Stephens that a designer of Ed Dubois’s standing should not only choose one of his boats, but at the Dubois home it was a fine photo of Firebrand under sail which had pride of place above the living room fire.

So boats can go through good times as well as bad, and one much worked-on boat which is currently sitting pretty is Anthony Bell’s hundred foot Perpetual LOYAL, line honours winner in the Rolex Sydney-Hobart race, and second overall on corrected time. In that kind of company, it is an achievement comparable with Rambler 88’s performance in the Volvo Round Ireland Race back in June. Yet in all the excitement, how many now remember that back in August 2011, Perpetual LOYAL was Rambler 100, and she was very upside-down with a broken keel out at the Fastnet Rock?

Perpetual LOYAL leads the fleet out of Sydney Harbour five days ago in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race 2016. Photo Rolex

Once upon a time, near the Fastnet Rock..…..Perpetual LOYAL as she was as Rambler 100 in August 2011

Lloyd Thornburg's American MOD70 Phaedo3 has taken Multihull Line Honours in the RORC Transatlantic Race for the second year running. The American MOD70 completed the course in 6 days 13 hours 39 minutes and 55 seconds. Although the team was outside their race record set last year (5 days 22 hours 46 minutes 03 seconds), Phadeo3 is well ahead of their 2016 rivals, Giovanni Soldini's Italian MOD70 Maserati, which is expected to finish the race on later night.

Phaedo3 skipper, Brian Thompson, spoke on arrival in Camper & Nicholsons Port Louis Marina.

"Friday evening and we've just arrived into Grenada at the finish of the RORC Transatlantic Race from Lanzarote. We've sprayed ourselves with champagne, given Pablo (Pete Cumming) a birthday cake and now we are going to settle down for some late dinner in St George's. It's great to be here; the tree frogs are singing out, the reggae music is blasting out and we are very happy to be here. We had a great last day in the race with 15-17 knot tradewinds; quite gentle, clear skies and then as we approached Grenada, a beautiful crescent moon and Venus setting in the west in front of us. We arrived three or four hours after sunset and it was a very, very good arrival. There were lots of people to welcome us on the dock.

"Thanks a lot to RORC and to the Calero family in Lanzarote, and to the team at Camper & Nicholsons here in Grenada. We are looking forward to welcoming Maserati in later today, and then we are off up to Antigua. Next stop: the RORC Caribbean 600. It's been a great race."

Team Phaedo for RORC Transatlantic Race:
Brian Thompson
Pete Cumming
Miles Seddon
Kelvin Trautman
Paul Allen
Henry Bomby
Fletcher Kennedy

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

Lloyd Thornburg's American MOD70 Phaedo3 is flying towards Grenada's Camper & Nicholsons Port Louis Marina and expected to touch down in about 24 hours. Mike Slade's Maxi 100 Leopard 3 is racing against the clock in an assault on the RORC race record. The IRC Fleet and Class40 Division are getting a savage taste of ocean racing.

MOD70 Phaedo3 is screaming towards the finish line outside Port Louis Marina in Grenada. Skipper Brian Thompson has told the crew to fasten their seatbelts and stow their dinner tables. For nearly a week, the crew have had no more than a few moments sleep in cramped conditions, living off freeze-dried mush and warm desalinated water. A hot shower, a proper bed, delicious food and a cold beer is just a few more hours away! A warm welcome is set for Phaedo's arrival and for Giovanni Soldini's MOD70, Maserati. However the Italian flyer is estimated to be as much as 24 hours behind their rivals.

The crew aboard Mike Slade's British Maxi, Leopard 3 have a huge lead on the water over the IRC fleet, vying to win the IMA Transatlantic Trophy. This morning the powerful Maxi had reduced speed as they passed through a transition zone created by a low pressure system to the north and solid trade winds in the south. The clock is ticking away, as Mike Slade explains via satellite connection:

"What a night! Almost every sail we have took a share of a battering; 80 degree wind shifts and wind speeds ranging from 6 to 40 knots, demanding at least 12 sail changes. Leopard never knew what the fuss was all about! Now into more stable conditions charging along at 16 to 20 knots, still hoping for line honours but the record will be won or lost by a matter of minutes. Once again the drone caused excitement reaching huge heights taking fab photos. We need to finish by 6 December at 1900 GMT, 1500 local time. After last night we all need a rum or two, but will have to wait. 1,500 miles to go."

Leopard's complications have been to the advantage of the variety of yachts that are also racing in the IRC Division. Arco Van Nieuwland & Andries Verde's Dutch Marten 72, Aragon has continued to perform. Approaching the halfway mark, the team are back as race leaders contesting for the RORC Transatlantic Race Trophy, and making a move south to hook into the trade winds. Leopard 3 is estimated to be in second overall, but should increase speed over the next 24 hours which may propel the team back to the top of the leaderboard. Swan 82 Stay Calm is already further south than Aragon and could well make up time on their immediate rival. All of the IRC fleet have now turned south away from the highly unusual westerly winds to the north. However the last 24 hours have been tough going for the Class40 division and smaller yachts in the IRC fleet.

Leader of the Class40s, Halvard Mabire & Miranda Merron's Campagne de France has sent in their latest blog. The team are racing Two Handed:

"Campagne de France, somewhere in the Atlantic on a very dark night. We must have read the wrong brochure. Trade wind route it isn't. Still upwind since the night before last, but on the way to better things, although the wind is refusing to match the forecast at the moment. Upwind = bouncing/ slamming off waves and into troughs. Getting water into the Jetboil and then pouring boiling water into a mug and keeping the contents in it while placing the lid on it are activities best undertaken in foul weather gear and boots, despite the heat. Every four hours we receive a position report (or punishment report depending on performance), where we see how Campagne de France, or more precisely her crew, has fared against the competition. There are still 2,000 miles of race course to go. Many more miles than that to sail as the direct route is closed, at least if we want to get to the finish this year, and a lot can happen in that time," writes Miranda Merron.

James Heald sent an SMS via satellite from on board his IRC Two Handed entry, Swan 45 Nemesis. James and his crew Ben Harris have 2,000 miles to race to complete an epic challenge.

"Man thinks he's king of the world. Yet Mother Nature rules out here as we beat into 20 knots, of that there is no doubt. Course is sort of towards Grenada; it's going to be a long one. Boat and us getting a beating today and looks set to continue before we hit forecast light winds again. Perhaps the southerly route via the Cape Verdes would have been more favourable, though I still believe in the Rhumb, or is it Rum! Routine and camaraderie are our friend, from our daily Iridium forecast we continue to execute our best attempt at using these contrary conditions to our goal. Ben broke a finger nail today. Me, I am just racing my yacht in an iconic race on my own terms and at times wonder WTF I am doing. One things for sure, it's a true adventure and that's what we were put on this planet to do: explore, sail, live. Checking off watch," Capt James Nemesis.