J/105 Wins Doublehanded, J/111 Takes IRC 2A(Cowes, Isle of Wight, England)- The Rolex Fastnet Race, the event that caused the formation of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, celebrated its 90th birthday in 2015. The founding fathers of the club and its flagship event would have been in awe of their creation with 300 boats signing up within just 24 minutes of the entry list opening in January, a record-sized fleet of 356 boats starting from the Royal Yacht Squadron line making the Rolex Fastnet Race by far the largest of the world’s classic 600 mile offshore races, in terms of participation. The race attracts top teams from around the world with boats ranging from SPINDRIFT 2 and COMANCHE, the world’s fastest offshore racing multihull and monohull respectively, down to the J/97 cruiser-racer with every conceivable flavor of offshore racing yachts in between.
The upper echelons in the fleet are packed with America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race winners plus Olympic and World champions, while the bulk of entries are Corinthian with sailing school and family crews for whom the biennial race from Cowes to Plymouth via the Fastnet Rock off southwest Ireland represents the pinnacle of their sailing season, if not their careers.
The
prognosis for this year’s 90th Rolex Fastnet Race was less than
overwhelming. The forecast for this year’s race was extremely light. In
fact, the nine fastest boats made it around in reasonable order before
high pressure over the Celtic Sea saw the wind disappear from the
racetrack for 36 hours. This caused multiple park-ups, huge compression
in the fleet and several attempts at deep water kedging. These
conditions affected all but the smallest in the giant fleet, and
continued until Wednesday when the more usual frontal systems resumed
rolling through, providing a fast finish especially for the mid-fleet.
In fact, it was so alarmingly, frustratingly slow that by the time some
boats drifted to the Lizard Point off Land’s End, boats were beginning
to retire and head home due to family and/or business commitments.
It
was not what anyone in the record-sized fleet initially expected and
planned for as they set off the starting line on Sunday. COMANCHE
skipper Ken Read (6x J/24 World Champion) shared his take on the race:
“It was honestly one of the most bizarre races I’ve ever been in in my
life – starts and stops and people being left behind for dead and then
all of a sudden they are sailing around you. It was phenomenal.” Just
after reaching Fastnet Rock, Ken reported: “We sat there for exactly
four hours not moving - I know that because it was almost to a minute
the duration of my watch! We had a little westerly-going current early
on and some easterly current for the last hour and a half and we
zigzagged back and forth with the current waiting for the breeze to fill
in.” Imagine that. A 100-foot all carbon and foam epoxy $15 million
offshore racing machine parked. Yes, parked. Going “triple naught” for
four hours. Yup, afternoon tea on the poop deck would’ve rivaled
anything on the green at Hyde Park, imagine the views? Too bad Jim
doesn’t allow the crew to post “selfies” on Facebook!
Fastnet
Races can be epic affairs, at least that’s the impression one gets
reading the Rolex Fastnet brochure and propaganda. Nevertheless, most
years it’s basically a coastal race headed west then east along the
southern shoreline of Great Britain. That means tidal gates along at
least two major “points” (Start Pt off Dartmouth and the Lizard Point at
Land’s End) and working with ever-changing fronts rolling through at a
reasonable pace. Then, the round-trip across the Celtic (Irish) Sea
from the Scilly Isles to Fastnet Rock (Ireland) and back (about 150nm
each way) can be tricky, but is often just a slog beating under white
sails into 4-8 ft high choppy confused seas or a wild reach (in the same
seas) but burying the bow and hoping no one gets washed overboard. As they often say in such unusual scenarios, “never seen anything like this before”! Forty-year veterans of “the race” have, in fact, never experienced such a slow race before. Think about this, the 130 ft record-breaking trimaran SPINDRIFT II sailed by her owner/skipper Donna Bertarelli took two DAYS 11 HOURS to sail 605nm?? This same boat can do 45 kts practically on “cruise control” and do 605nm in 24 hours no problem. Yet, they only beat Lloyd Thornburg’s electric green/silver MOD 70 trimaran called PHAEDO by just two hours. Do the math. To everyone’s surprise, ultimately, SPINDRIFT II finished at 22:57:41 BST on Tuesday night, more than a day outside of her own record at the average, tortoise-like speed of 10.25 kts! The big canting-keelers, COMANCHE and RAMBLER 88, weren’t far behind.
The
big news for British sailors (and the J/Tribe) was the fact that a
couple of old hands absolutely slammed home one of the most amazing
performances ever in the IRC Two-Handed Division. Stuart Childerley and
Kelvin Rawlings took victory in the usually French-dominated Two-Handed
class aboard their J/105 JESTER. Remarkably, they beat the Overall
2013 Rolex Fastnet Race winning father and son team (Pascal and Alexis
Loison) on their JPK 10.10 Night And Day by a mere 14 seconds!!
Childerley and Rawlings’ performance was such that the J/105 JESTER also
ended up top British boat, finishing fourth overall under IRC! An
absolutely extraordinary performance in the 20+-year-old first-ever
sprit-designed keelboat in the world. Here’s one for Nautical Trivial
Pursuit- the Loison’s of France were also former J/105 owners for years
(perhaps now regretting their decision to change horses)!Generally, the top spots overall in IRC were filled by boats from IRC 3 and 4, suggesting that the best vessel to suit this year’s weather was a well-sailed, fast, IRC-friendly small boat. Tactically the most significant parts of the race for these boats was being able to shave the north side of the Casquets TSS on the first night and then hugging the Devonshire-Cornish coasts between Start Point and the Lizard. Importantly, boats in these classes generally managed to avoid the high pressure between the Scilly Isles and the Fastnet Rock and the resultant park-ups that affected the bigger, faster boats.
Royal
Ocean Racing Club CEO Eddie Warden Owen (J/24 UK and European Champion)
observed of this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race: “I think it has been an
incredibly challenging race - one of the best for a while. The teams
that won had to work really hard. They had all conditions: Drifting,
light winds up to strong winds – very challenging.The Two-Handed class impressed me: 68 boats, including the IMOCA’s and the Figaro’s, shows that to be an area of sailing that is on the rise and it is an interesting discipline. The winners of the Two-Handed class under IRC were two very good sailors – Stuart Childerley and Kelvin Rawlings - and to beat the 2013 overall winners is a big achievement. You can believe that those two guys would have been grabbing every inch of performance out of their boat.”
Given the magnitude of their achievement, the J/teams in the Two-Handed class faired quite well. The extremely competitive team of John van der Starre and Robin Verhoef sailing their J/111 XCENTRIC RIPPER finished 7th overall in 2H and also ended up winning IRC 2A class against fully-crewed teams! Then Neil McGrigor’s J/109 BOO, placed 10th in IRC 2H and one of the RORC Season series leaders, Nick Martin’s J/105 DIABLO-J was 13th in class. Yvonne Beusker & Edith Voskamp’s J/105 PANTHER finished 38th in class and were, in fact, TOP WOMEN’s team in the entire race!! That is very cool.
IRC 1 Class was an interesting mix of boats, all with the hotter than hot IRC latest designs like Ker 40s, Carkeek 40 MK 2s, GP42s, etc. etc. The two highest rated J’s in the event included Peter Gustafsson’s J/111 BLUR and David Ballantyne’s J/133 JINGS. Extraordinarily, they practically finished within sight of each other after four days of sailing and rating near identically under IRC, 1.110 and 1.109, respectively. Peter’s BLUR crew finished 6th and David’s team placed 8th, just one hour apart!
If
one were betting on ultimate outcomes sailing the Fastnet Race, most
would place their money on the mid-fleet boats that sail in IRC 2
Class. More often that not, they’re fast enough boats to hang on to
tactical/ strategic “windows” that larger boats cannot get away from,
but they are fast enough to eclipse the 34-38 footers. In the end, the
“rubber-banding” effect on the fleet as they crossed holes, tidal gates,
and so forth meant it was going to be a tough race for all. In the IRC
2 Class, it was the J/111 XCENTRIC RIPPER that took 4th overall in
class and 1st in IRC 2A division. Just behind them was the J/122
LORELEI sailed by the husband/wife team of Alain and Marie Catherineau,
taking 7th in class and 3rd in IRC 2A division. In addition to their
extraordinary achievements, as LORELEI’s skipper, Marie Catherineau, won the Maite de Arambalza Trophy for the best yacht with a female skipper.
Taking 9th in class and 4th in IRC 2A was Gilles Fournier’s J/133
PINTIA (at one point, they were leading the entire race on handicap,
such are the changing winds of fame and fortune!).No question, IRC 3 Class was pretty hyper-competitive. It produced the overall winner (all Figaro champions) and it also produced the top J/Team- Stu and Kelvin’s J/105 JESTER. Winning 2H for them was the crown jewel, but finishing 3rd in class and winning IRC 3B didn’t suck either— just more silverware and more “brag flags” for this motley duo! A tough competitor proved to be David McGough’s J/109 JUST SO, taking 5th in class and 3rd in IRC 3B. In 7th place IRC 3 and 4th in IRC 3A was Jean Jacques Godet’s J/120 RHAPSODIE V.
Finally, in IRC 4B, in her first Fastnet Race ever, Helen Hofmann’s J/97 JASLAN managed a 10th in class- an epic performance in her 30 footer!! Kudos to her and crew for their perseverance against all odds in what was the most difficult Fastnet Race ever. Yes, Fastnet 1979 was physically demanding, but Fastnet 2015 was psychologically and mentally exhausting for most crews. Sailing photo credits- ROLEX/ Kurt Arrigo and Daniel Forster. For more Rolex Fastnet Race sailing information
For more Rolex Fastnet Race YouTube sailing video coverage:
IRC 1 Class Start IRC 2 Class Start IRC 3 Class Start IRC 4 Class Start
Overall Rolex Fastnet Race Summary
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