Fastnet review

Rock n’ roll

Fastnet veteran Rupert Holmes looks back at an action packed edition of this bucket list event

This year’s Rolex Fastnet Race was different to usual in many respects. As well as the longer course, with the finish in Cherbourg, it has been a long time since the race has tested competitors as severely as the first 24 hours of this year’s event.

A solid 25 knots, with stronger gusts, greeted competitors at the start and more was to come, with many reporting gusts in the mid 30s in the

Needles Channel and through the first night at sea.

At the start there was a predictably wide mix of sail choice, with the optimistic only having one reef, but others sporting storm jibs or trysails.

A 300 metre bias at the southern end of the start line meant there was plenty of action here, especially as the strongest favourable stream was relatively close to the Isle of Wight shore. Inevitably there were some collisions, including at least one involving a dismasting, that sadly ended the race early for a few.

Others, however, opted to stay clear of the melée. The immaculately restored 74ft Van de Stadt ketch Stormvogel made a perfectly timed start at the pin end of the line, trading bias and better tide for clean air and many fewer tacks. It was a smart move and she went on to take a very impressive seventh place overall on corrected time.

Dmitry Rybolovlev’s massive new ClubSwan 125 Skorpios took a punchier approach. Although she hung well back from the line at the gun, she started two-thirds of the way down towards the southern end, needing to find space for an early tack onto port to clear the shore.

The Needles Channel provided photographers with rich pickings as deep-reefed yachts jumped off steep breaking waves. It’s no surprise that some, including Richard Palmer and Jeremy Waitt racing the JPK1010 Jangada, opted for the flatter water of the North Channel. In their case the prime motivation was to avoid the risk of damage ahead of October’s Rolex Middle Sea Race in Malta, which marks the first event of RORC’s 2022 season.

With such a diverse fleet, ranging from Contessa 32s to Skorpios, and several 30-plus metre Ultime trimarans, competitors were soon well spread out across almost the full width of the English Channel.

It was no surprise to see boats making a long starboard tack out from the Needles. However, eyebrows were raised when a number of IMOCA 60s, led by Charlie Dalin’s Apivia, along with some of the giant multihulls, didn’t tack back onto port. Instead they continued south, though the Alderney Race, then past Guernsey and Jersey, before tacking nine hours after the start and passing little more than 10 miles off the Brittany coast. Unfortunately, Vendee Globe winner Yannick Bestaven’s Maitre Coq lV wasn’t with them, having been holed in a pre-start collision with a spectator boat.

Just ten and a half hours after the start the leading 105ft Ultime trimaran, Maxi Edmund de Rothschild, was at Land’s End. Meanwhile Skorpios and David George’s Rambler 88 were off Start Point battling it out at the head of the monohull fleet. A freer wind angle

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Blustery conditions at the start gave photographers a treat

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The beautifully restored ketch Stormvogel making a strong start...

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...then getting battered in the Needles Channel

enabled the IMOCAs that went south to gain a substantial benefit from their foils. When they converged at Land’s End, at dawn on day two, Apivia was only four miles behind the giant Swan.

Also doing well at this stage were the Volvo 70 I Love Poland, and three smaller IRC 0 boats – Richard Matthews’ new Carkeek CF52 Oystercatcher XXXV, David Collins’ Botin IRC 52 Tala and Jens Kellinghusen’s Ker 56 Varuna.

However, the bulk of the IRC fleet was still battling between Portland Bill and Start Point, after a tough night in which the slower Class 3 and 4 boats at times made painfully slow progress against the tide, still in the strong winds. Even among the larger IRC yachts, James Gair, skipper of the Carrol Marine 60 Venomous, reported peak apparent wind of 55 knots around midnight on the first night. Unsurprisingly the retirements kept coming, with that first night at sea also punctuated by a number of Pan Pan and Mayday calls.

A surprising number of mainsails were early casualties, including one well known 45-footer returning only a short time after the start with damage to the leech near one of the reef points. As the race progressed more yet more would succumb. At the 48-hour mark some 80 boats had retired and the total crept up to 91.

Among them were some top boats, including 2017 overall winner, Didier Gaudoux’s JND39 Lann Ael 2, the Volvo 70 Telefonica Black, and Giovanni Soldini’s much travelled 70ft foiling trimaran Maserati, which broke the drum of a new primary winch. The final tally included at least four dismastings, plus a further half dozen boats with rigging damage and several with electrical problems.

Maxi Edmund de Rothschild rounded the Rock at breakfast time on day two, 20 hours 47 minutes after the start. She then put in an astonishing performance, completing the 335 mile return leg in only 12 hours, reaching speeds of 40 knots. She took line honours more than nine hours ahead of the next 105ft Ultime, Yves Le Blevec’s Actual.

Skorpios and Rambler split at Land’s End, with the latter taking the more inshore route to the east of the Longships Traffic Separation Scheme. As Maxi Edmund de Rothschild was closing the finish line, the 125ft Swan rounded the Fastnet with a three hour advantage on Rambler.

After rounding the rock the smaller boat again split paths with Skorpios, heading east and leaving the Fastnet TSS to starboard. Given the whole TSS, not just the lighthouse, is a mark of the course it was a mistake that resulted in her ultimate retirement. It’s a stark reminder of how easy it is to get one of the many fundamentals wrong in the heat of the moment. A dozen other boats picked up 10 per cent time penalties for entering the excluded areas at Traffic Separation Schemes.

Apivia continued her break away from the rest of the 13-strong IMOCA fleet, rounding the Fastnet just 50 minutes after Skorpios and a whopping five hours ahead of the next IMOCA, Sebastien Simon and Yann Elies’ Arkea Paprec.

Dalin went on to lead the 13 IMOCA 60s home, in two days 17 hours, with an advantage of more than six hours. However the rest of fleet enjoyed incredibly close competition throughout the race. Jeremie Beyou / Christopher Pratt’s Charal and Simon Fisher / Justine Mettraux’s 11th Hour Racing, crossed the line only 28 seconds apart, followed by the next three boats within 13 minutes.

A key element of any Fastnet Race is the sheer number of transitions that have to be successfully negotiated. A decision to route east of the traffic separation scheme at Land’s End, splitting from the rest of IRC Class 2, was a big break for Tom Kneen’s JPK 1180. This put her just ahead of a high pressure zone that

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The J/109 Arethusa enjoys a lively ride

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Close quarters racing in the Solent

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The maxi trimaran Edmund de Rothschild put in a remarkable performance on her way to line honours

slowed the chasing pack a few miles behind.

“It was a critical moment where we really pushed hard,” says Kneen, “and it was probably the difference between finishing at 10 o’clock in the morning on Thursday or finishing the same time the following day.” As a result Sunrise was third on corrected time at the Rock, behind only I Love Poland and Rob Bottomley’s Mat 12 Sailplane.

Many of the smaller boats rounded the rock just ahead of a cold front that left a patch of very light winds in its wake. A further transition as the bulk of the fleet rounding the Scilly islands saw an eastern group of boats, who left the west Scilly TSS to starboard, including Jangada, Nick Martin’s Sun Fast 3600 Diablo, and Nigel Colley’s Sun Fast 3300 Fastrak Xll, virtually becalmed for almost five hours overnight, while competitors only three miles to the south sailed by in a steady breeze. As a result many of the smaller and older boats in IRC 4 finished at the top of the class rankings, including Alain Guelennoc’s 20-year-old X-332, which ultimately won the class.

A final roll of the dice lay in the last 40 miles to the finish. Some of the faster multihulls sailed a longer distance, routing to the north of the Casquets TSS, as did a handful of IRC boats keen to avoid the lottery of whether or not they would be slowed by a mammoth adverse tidal stream off Alderney and Cap de la Hague.

Many of course were lucky with their timing, sailing south of Alderney and benefitting from a helpful lift in the Alderney race. On the other hand, others encountered an unfavourable stream here. Among them was Stuart Greenfield’s newly restored and updated 54-year-old S&S34 Morning After – he lost an agonising 24 places while kedged for four hours within six miles of the finish.

This edition of the race strongly favoured the Class 1 boats in the overall IRC leaderboard – they took six of the top seven places. However, the overall winner was a superbly sailed Class 2 yacht –- Tom Keen’s JPK 1180 Sunrise, whose mostly young team completed an impressively consistent race.

“It doesn’t really matter what level in the fleet you’re at,” says Kneen, who only started racing offshore seven years ago. “As long as you have a good crew, and the right support, then you can win your class. And if you can win the class you can win overall, although that depends on things like tidal gates and wind conditions – things that are much more in the hands of the gods.

“I think all of us in offshore sailing ask ourselves why we commit to this ridiculous sport where you get mostly cold and wet, and 90 per cent of the time you wish you weren’t there,” he added. “But then you get glimmers of complete elation, adrenaline and an experience that is just unmatchable. There’s no greater sense of achievement. When you get everything in the right place, with the right people, in the right conditions. We had four, five or six hours of that between the Scillies and the Lizard, when we had 25 knots of breeze and the boat – our so called caravan – was flying along at 20 plus knots.”

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A stirring sight on the Solent just after the start

Double handed fleet

This element of offshore racing continues to grow, with this year seeing record entries, ranging from 31-48ft and including many recent competitive boats raced by top-notch teams.

First on corrected time was Alexis Loison and Guillaume Pirouelle’s JPK 1030 Léon, representing Loison’s fourth double handed win in the last five editions of the race, including overall victory in 2013 when racing with his father Pascal. Henry Bomby, racing with double Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson on the Sun Fast 3300 Swell was second, ahead of Olivier Burgaud and Sylvain Pontu’s JPK 1080 Aileau. Sam White and Sam North, a Corinthian team racing White’s father’s Sun Fast 3200 Mzungu, showed absolutely dogged determination throughout the highs and lows of the race to finish fourth double-handed on corrected time, first double handed and seventh overall in Class 4 and 26th overall.