Last hurrah for centennial Rolex Fastnet Race
by James Boyd / RORC 1 Aug 12:36 PDT
A highly successful centenary Rolex Fastnet Race is into its last moments © Arthur Daniel
A highly successful centenary Rolex Fastnet Race is into its last moments and with this the northwest wind off Cherbourg's Cotentin peninsula has today been blowing a sturdy 20+ knots, for the first time since last Saturday's start in Cowes. This is providing some welcome momentum to the final boats attempting to finish.
At 13:00 BST today just eight boats were still racing. The next finisher was expected to be the lowest-rated boat, Robert Marchant's Westerly Fulmar 32 Fulmar Fever. With only 10 miles to go they were making more than nine knots over the ground and are expected to finish 61st in class and 280th in IRC Overall.
The last class winners and podia have now been decided. IRC Four was the largest class in the race with 94 from the record-sized fleet of 380 IRC starters and here for a second year Romain Gibon claimed silverware. In 2023 he and his co-skipper Alban Mesnil won both the IRC Three and IRC Two-Handed classes on their JPK 1010 Les P'Tits Doudous en Duo. This year the latter prize has, of course, gone to the Rolex Fastnet Race's overall winners, Jean-Pierre Kelbert and Alexis Loison on the JPK 1050 Léon in IRC Two, but Gibon and Mesnil on their 2023 steed, now renamed Abracadabra", have won the IRC Four prize. This they claimed by a substantial 36 minutes 9 seconds, although they only gained this in the final 25 miles of the race.
For much of the race Ludovic Menahes' JPK 1010 sistership Raphael was the clear IRC Four leader. After a safe start, she was among the leading group exiting the Solent. Negotiating the strong adverse tide at Portland Bill proved to be a pivotal point in the race. Many competitors aimed for the very narrow inshore passage, but either had to make multiple attempts, or tracked south in the strongest stream. In Raphael's case, she made a neat passage 4-5 miles south of the headland, avoiding the strongest stream. It was a lower-risk strategy resulting in a significant advantage, which Menahes credits to "our very talented navigator, Pierrig de Kerdrel."
The IRC Four fleet split again at the Isles of Scilly, the majority taking an extreme westerly option, while the Royal Engineer Yacht Club, competing in their 51st Fastnet Race on their J/109 Trojan took the more classic passage between the east side of the islands and the west side of the Land's End TSS. This split had the effect of upturning the leaderboard. Here Raphael confidently sailed furthest west on starboard tack - some 80 miles to the west of the islands - before tacking onto port, thereby gaining most from a big favourable shift. This strategy worked beautifully for the team and on rounding the Fastnet Rock they had an impressive 45 minutes 23 seconds lead on sistership Marc Lepesqueux's Garuda lV, in turn 4 minutes 31 seconds ahead of Yann Jestin and Romain Baggio on yet another JPK 1010 Papillon 4 (the replacement for Jestin's Sun Fast 3600 which sank in the race exiting the Solent two years ago).
However, passing close to the Isles of Scilly on the return leg Raphael slowed in lighter airs, allowing Abracadabra" to catch up. The two JPKs remained almost neck and neck for the next 160 miles, until they split at Alderney with Abracadabra" going south, trying to gain relief from the strong adverse tide. This caused her to emerge with a good lead. This she held to the end, finishing with a 36-minute 9-second advantage after IRC time correction and with Raphael holding a substantial 1 hour 1 minute 36 seconds advantage over Frank Lavenant's JPK 960 Sur la Mer Contre le Cancer Avec le Centre Eugene Marquis et Les Laboratoires Pierre Fabre (winning the competition for the boat with the longest name), who claimed third place on the IRC Four podium for their worthy cause.
"We had a difficult time on the first day - we were maybe 10th or 15th," said Gibon, "but it's a long race, with time to get back to the front. So you have to keep the morale up and keep pushing, even if you know you're slow, because you know that in the end it will pay."
A key moment was on their way back, near the Isles of Scilly, where they managed to get around the top players in the light airs. How did they achieve this? "As you know, sailing is a sport of experience. We are lucky because we are no longer 20-years-old and also because we have a great environment in south Brittany where there are many people with more experience who can help us and give us good advice.
"Two days before the start I was talking with Didier Greggory from La Trinité-sur-Mer, where we are based. He told us cold water wells up at the Isles of Scilly and, as a consequence, you always have lighter winds in this area. On the way back we saw Rafael getting close to the islands and going slowly, so we said, 'that's not good, let's go as far away as possible, alongside the TSS.' And it paid off.
"We are very pleased to win this year because it was very different to the last edition," Gibon adds, referring to the 2023 Rolex Fastnet Race. "To succeed last time it was mainly a willingness to keep pushing while you are cold and tired. It was not so much of a high-performance regatta, just really tough conditions. This one, the weather was more moderate and so it was normal racing, with strategy and boat speed more important."
While clearly disappointed not to have retained the lead, Raphael's crew of five didn't allow this to overcloud the overall experience. Menahes particularly appreciated "the close fighting spirit throughout the race - each of us was focussed and we had a nice fight with all the other 1010s."
Of his and Nils Boyer's third place Lavenant said: "The race was very, very nice...we are a bit exhausted. And we are very happy to finish third in IRC Four - our boat has a symmetric spinnaker, so it was not ideal conditions for us."
He also noted passing south of the Portland tidal race being a key point in the race, although boats "which were even further south performed better."
This morning delighted Dutch duo, twins Bart and Just Jansen arrived on board Raspa, their 1973 vintage 36ft aluminium Koopmans design, to finish 307th in IRC overall, 73rd in IRC Four and 72nd in IRC Two-Handed. Their arrival had been delayed by a couple of hours when the tide turned against them approaching the Cotentin Peninsula. "We really parked there, we tried to get through it but it didn't work," commented Just of their first Rolex Fastnet Race (they have previously competed in the Azores and Back Race). "In the end we had to go around again. Then we finished under spinnaker so it was fine".
Otherwise he says they came through it well. "We had quite a good start until the Scilly Isles. We were up front. And then on the Celtic Sea, we lost ground. We had 25+ knots and had to lash the sails. We were really banging into the waves and there we lost some ground. Apart from that, it was very nice conditions."
His brother added: "It's funny how that works. It's getting to the Rock, a sort of celebration and then getting back."
Elsewhere, there has been a change of leader in IRC One as 2015 Rolex Fastnet Race overall winner Géry Trentesaux aboard his Sydney GTS 43 Long Courrier has replaced the Swan 53 Bedouin, which was disqualified following a port-starboard incident with the Farr Millenium 65 Celeste of Solent within Hurst Narrows soon after the start. Albeit under less than ideal circumstances, this is, incredibly, Trentesaux's sixth class win in the Rolex Fastnet Race since his first on his IMX40 Courrier Nord in 2001.
The Swiss-owned 63ft Irens-Cabaret trimaran Paradox3 has won the Croda Way Trophy for the best MOCRA multihull overall, a position that surprised the team in a class where the two hot-shot MOD70 trimarans Jason Carroll's Argo and Erik Maris' Zoulou were expected to prevail. Meanwhile third home in the class, former Figaro sailor Didier Bouillard's Dazcat 1295 Minor Swing won the Crystal Trophy for the best MOCRA-rated multihull of <50ft, as well as being the first of seven Dazcats in this record-sized class.
Typically the preserve of the IRC Three and Four winners, this year's IRC Two boats owned the podium in IRC Two-Handed. As on the IRC Two podium, Léon was first and, in a resounding way, almost two hours (on corrected time) ahead of another past overall winner Didier Gaudoux racing with Erwan Tabarly (Eric's nephew) on the NM35 Lann Ael 3, in turn a further 2 minutes 52 seconds ahead of Achille Nebout and Tanguy Bouroullec's Pogo RC Amarris.
The Rolex Fastnet Race is now gearing up for tonight's prize-giving where the winners will include Lawrence Herbert, who will receive the Duncan Munro-Kerr Trophy for the best yacht with a skipper aged between 18 and 30 and Oyster Yachts founder Richard Matthews has won the Dennis Doyle Memorial Salver for the skipper who has done the greatest number of Rolex Fastnet Race, including the current one - in Matthews' case this was his 26th.
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