Time was when doing the Fastnet Race seemed a natural part of sailing life. The world was young, yet we'd sufficient maturity (no sniggering at the back, please) to appreciate the full meaning of the experience as a uniquely significant element in the tapestry of world sailing. Thus it looms large despite the fact that I've only done three, but they were sufficiently varied to provide a complete kaleidoscope of many memories.
After that, the newly-introduced Round Ireland Race and the later Dun Laoghaire to Dingle sprint provided more accessible distance racing when ISORA events could also assuage the sea racing fever, while cruising loomed ever larger in a complex life matrix in which a family somehow also appeared.
Of those three Fastnets, the best was 1971. And this morning is the exact Golden Jubilee, for in those more civilised days, the race went off westward on the Saturday at the end of Cowes Week - almost invariably slugging into a westerly - and of course it ended in Plymouth as Nature intended, where it almost equally invariably rained.
With the privilege of having this entertaining suite of classic Fastnet Race personal memories, it was with only mildly mixed feelings that we greeted the news that in 2021 the course was to be lengthened 15% to 695 miles to move the finish to Cherbourg. For the world of offshore racing at this level is much changed anyway, yet no matter what they do to the course now – provided they retain The Rock itself - they can't change the precious personal memories that the previous generations of Fastnet contenders cherish, in which the highly romantic atmosphere of Plymouth's Millbay Dock in the rain is an integral part.
The 1971 Hustler 35 Setanta as she is today, a familiar summer resident of Dun Laoghaire Harbour. Photo W M Nixon
Does it really matter that much now? The fact is that in a week's time, there'll be a whole new wave of Fastnet Racers for whom the Cherbourg finish is the only known finish. And though there's talk of Plymouth returning to the equation for the centenary Fastnet Race in 2025, with the fleets probably returning to enormous levels again as the pandemic memories recede (we hope) in 2023, it's likely that Cherbourg will have bedded in with limpet-like determination.
As it is, despite the continuing though easing pandemic problems, there are 353 boats listed to be heading off tomorrow as the extraordinary choreography of a Rolex Fastnet Race start in the Solent swings into action. However, before we look at those with special Irish interest, a bit of clarification on the events of fifty and more years ago mightn't go amiss. For in fact, it all started in 1969, when I got involved with a prodigious bundle of energy called Ronnie Wayte, who had a factory in Carrickmacross in County Monaghan which – at that stage – was making oil tanks for Ireland's rapidly-expanding domestic central heating market.
BOAT-BUILDING IN COUNTY MONAGHAN
These were steel tanks, but despite that, Ronnie had decided he wanted to build a fibreglass 35-footer in his factory for the 1969 Fastnet Race. As I'd been in the frame in a couple of offshore races, he reckoned I should be involved from the start, even with zero boat-building experience. Somehow, despite our boat building project in County Monaghan not getting fully under way until April 23rd 1969, the resulting boat Mayro of Skerries was on the starting line for the 1969 Fastnet on Saturday 9th August, having survived a busy little gale of 66 knots off Land's End while heading Cowes-wards.
We knew it was 66 knots, for that was where the needle had jammed on the anemometer dial when the masthead kit was blown clean away. The experience gave us considerable confidence in this crazy craft built in "The Marblehead of Monaghan", and in the 250-boat Fastnet fleet, we placed 122nd, leading to the modest claim that the front part of Mayro was in the top half of the fleet, even if the back part wasn't, with another crew response being that it had taken a helluva lot of boats to beat us.
Mayro of Skerries with Rockabill beyond in 1969. In those days, when you opted for an over-lapping genoa, there was no messing about……
Mayro ended her days at Skerries (under a subsequent ownership) after breaking her moorings in a severe Autumn nor'east gale and going onto on the beach, where it took forever for her to break up in the surf - we'd known nothing of GRP construction, and she'd been grossly overbuilt.
However, just one significant bit of memorabilia survives. Ronnie was so sublimely confident that he could build anything that the already absurdly over-crowded construction programme was further cluttered by the additional manufacture of a glassfibre mast.
In the circumstances, it was quite a good bit of work, but it was too flexible.
THE ETERNAL FLAGSTAFF
So while the boat was in the final fitting-out stages in Skerries, the fiberglass mast was replaced by an orthodox aluminium extrusion, and in due course Mayro's original mast became the Skerries Sailing Club flagstaff. It's still there. In fact, when the oceans of the world rise higher, and Red Island in Skerries reverts to being a disappearing island, the Mast of Mayro will continue in position as a matter of enduring mystery, defiant above the rising ocean.
Meanwhile in 1970, I reverted to a work area in which I was marginally better qualified, editing what was then Irish Yachting magazine and spending some of the summer in Cork for the Royal Cork Quarter Millennium, while Ronnie coined it in with Ireland going bonkers for central heating. So when he asked me for a suggestion for a competitive new 35-footer for a fresh tilt at the Fastnet in 1971, I enthused about the new Holman & Pye-designed Hustler 35 which had seen off most of the then-dominant S&S 34s in the RORC Cowes-Cork Race, and seemed a better all-round proposition, for the S&S 34s were miraculous to windward, but decidedly less so on other points of sailing, whereas the Hustler 35 was a good all-rounder.
Compact but comfortable – the standard layout of the Hustler 35. In Setanta's case, there was an additional pilot berth on the starboard side of the saloon.
Thus where 1969 had been a hellish rush of sticky and filthy 24-hours-plus work binges, 1971 became a matter of stylish elegance, with the new Hustler 35 Setanta of Skerries arriving at Bill Partington's yard in Pwllheli fresh out of the wrappers, complete with an Irish wolfhound depicted as leaping across the fashionably forward-raked transom.
Our English competitors - showing the usual Saxon lack of respect for Irish mythology – were soon calling her The Flying Poodle. But that didn't bother us in the least, as it meant they were seeing more of the stern than the bow, and by the time we departed for a cruising delivery to The Big One in Cowes, Setanta of Skerries had already won her Class Championship in the 1971 Irish Sea offshore programme, including victory in the RORC Morecambe Bay Race.
The routine for civilised Irish Fastnet Race participants in those days was a businesslike cruising delivery to the Solent – businesslike perhaps, but definitely cruising nevertheless, and we'd a fine time – then you did the RORC Channel Race when it was still a proper channel triangle on the Friday night before Cowes Week, then you'd do at least two and possibly as many as four races during Cowes Week, and then on Saturday – after close-up witnessing of the Friday night Cowes Week fireworks display – out you went for the Fastnet start.
Setanta of Skerries (centre) berthed in Cowes in 1971, with Ted Heath's new 40ft S&S-designed Morning Cloud on left. Photo: W M Nixon
By 1971 the fleet numbers were already pushing towards 300, and they kept increasing until 1979's Fastnet Storm softened everyone's cough for a while. But in 1971, only one Fastnet drowning had ever been recorded, and that was way back in 1931. Yet it was a nervy enough fleet which manoeuvred for each class start, and our division – Class IV – being one of the most numerous, there were the usual crowded dry-mouthed moments in under the Squadron battery until we got cleanly away to battle for clear air among the S&S 34s, which were everywhere and revelling in the stiff beat down Solent.
CREATING A CREW
But we were lucky in our crew. Somehow through the first half of the season, Setanta had whittled her way through a large potential panel until the six who did the Fastnet were like a harmonious yet competitive nest of singing birds. Ronnie had persuaded Mermaid superstar Harry Grimes of Skerries into the show, and there was nobody better at making Setanta go to windward in light airs and a sloppy sea – usually her weakest point. Dickie Gomes was there too, in a league of his own helming in a breeze. Pete Adams – who in the 1980s was to be a contender for the British Admirals Cup team despite racing his X40 with a totally Corinthian crew – comfortably fitted into any role, and then we'd Johnny McWilliam, whose only stipulation was that we carry a new McWilliam-specified Rolly Tasker mainsail made for the loft which he was planning to set up at Crosshaven after a hectic few years as a jet fighter pilot.
Setanta had comfortable but compact accommodation, and though I wouldn't say our crew of 1971 was made up of six fully-charged alpha males, somebody else certainly did. Yet as Johnny Mac pointed out when it was over, while it was beyond his previous personal offshore racing experience, there had not been a single bad word said throughout.
Sometimes when you experience a happy ship it's better to simply accept it rather than overdo the analysis thing, but the memories are so good that even the fact that we finished second in class rather than winning it all seems part of the path of destiny. Winning might have given us notions, whereas we'd one mighty fine sail, and getting a second in class was apparently the best Irish placing since Billy Mooney's Aideen had been in the frame in 1947, and Frank and Eric Hopkirk's Glance was up in lights in 1953.
RACING TED TURNER
In those days offshore racers were true cruiser-racers, racing a boat like Setanta was a matter of being efficient yet reasonably comfortable, and you expected moments of semi-relaxation now and again. That said, this photo taken on the Sunday afternoon does seem to over-egg it a bit. But then, we had been the last Class IV boat to be overtaken by Ted Turner's all-conquering 12 Metre American Eagle in the ebb tide rush towards the Needles, subsequently while short-tacking to successfully dodge inside the tide at Portland Bill on Saturday evening we found ourselves in close company with Denis Doyle's 47ft Moonduster, and then after gliding across West Bay towards Start Point through the Saturday night, at first light we came upon a group of boats at the point held back by the last of an adverse tide, and just as the tide turned in everyone's favour, we found we had glided up to be within talking distance of Dick Nye's new 48ft Jim McCurdy-designed Carina - not that they were in a particularly chatty mood.
The hard life. Aboard Setanta on the second day (the Sunday) of the Fastnet Race 1971 with (left to right) Johnny McWilliam, Pete Adams, and Dickie Gomes on the helm. The off watch have two berths on the port side, so they just absolutely had to sit like this to maintain optimum trim. Certainly it was working well, as the nearest boats were larger ones, that's Start Point on the horizon astern, and The Lizard is fine on the starboard bow. Photo: W M Nixon
Hubris was bound to strike at some point, and we got our come-uppance while closing in on The Rock from the east, close-hauled on starboard. It had been a wet and breezy night - some said they got 40 knots – but now the rain had gone, the sun was out, and then suddenly – around four miles from the rock – we and about half a dozen other boats found ourselves flat becalmed in our own little private and extremely frustrating mill pond. It was freaky, and it took at least half an hour to crawl out of it, but the wind was piping up again at the rock such that we were soon running flat out for the Bishop, but in comfortable Setanta style so that foul weather gear was draped around the cockpit to dry out.
But darling, back in 1971, EVERYONE wore an Aran jersey….Mermaid Champion Harry Grimes, Dickie Gomes on helm, and Pete Adams re-arranging the drying gear as Setanta runs back from the Fastnet in rather more wind than seems apparent in the photo. Photo: W M Nixon
When we got to Plymouth there wasn't another Class IV boat about the place, and for around half an hour Setanta of Skerries was posted as Class IV leader. But then Alan Bourdon and his merry men from Poole came in out of the rain in their new van de Stadt Pionier 10 after surfing like mad things virtually the whole way from the Fastnet, and with a slightly lower rating they pipped us by 17 minutes for the win.
We'd already got to know them in previous races and got on well together, so much so that after the Friday afternoon prize-giving at the Guildhall, some peculiar genius from the Bourdon boat decided both crews should go together for celebration at the only strip club open in Plymouth on a Friday afternoon. In getting out of one of the taxis at the club entrance, Alan stumbled, and the Class IV Cup rolled across the rainy street. So while the winning crew looked after their tired and emotional skipper, one of our lot scooped up the cup, and they asked him to look after it while they minded their boss. So in getting into the hyper-grubby club for an outrageous fee, when our man arrived in clutching the trophy, the gloomy doorman suddenly cheered up and said: "You won the Cup, you can come in for free". The strip show? It was awful, since you ask.
Clarion of Wight (Rory O'Hanlon) on course for the Fastnet Rock and the Philip Whitehead Cup in the 1971 Fastnet Race
1971 was a good year generally for the Irish contingent in the Fastnet, as Rory O'Hanlon's veteran Clarion of Wight won the Philip Whitehead Cup for the Beta Division for Golden Oldies.
As for Setanta, she has remained in Irish ownership ever since, and for many years now has been based in Dun Laoghaire, where it's grand to see her in good heart. But for the Band of Brothers from 1971, what happened with Setanta stays with Setanta. There are now only four of us still on the planet, and who needs a reunion when the memories are so much better, and there's been an impressive amount of living afloat and ashore going on ever since?
THE IRISH OFFSHORE PACE ACCELERATES
Certainly back in 1971, things were only getting going, and by the mid-1970s Cork had become a global focus of offshore racing development, with Johnny McWilliam's sail-making being joined by Ron Holland's design creation and the Bushe family's wonderful boat-building. Admittedly it suffered a setback when the high likelihood of winning the Admiral's Cup in 1979 and the Fastnet Race with it was wiped into oblivion by the Fastnet storm. But by the 1981 Fastnet, things were in the move again, and Ken Rohan's Regardless had a convincing Class I and Admiral's Cup class win, sailed by rising stars such as Robert Dix, Des Cummins and Drewry Pearson.
After the 1979 Fastnet storm, Ken Rohan's Regardless got things back on track with Fastnet Race victory in Class I and the Admiral's Cup division. Photo: W M Nixon
There was better to come, and from a new direction. The overall winner of the 2007 Rolex Fastnet Race was Ger O'Rourke's Cookson 50 Chieftain. It was a beautiful win in a difficult race, and for my money it is still the greatest Irish sailing achievement of them all, for the resilient Ger was largely his own support team, and the way that he and his navigator/tactician Jochem Visser sailed the race was a joy to behold.
The all-conquering Chieftain racing down the Solent, Fastnet Race 2007.
Since then, while Irish boats have had class placings, the only trophy collected has been the Roger Justice Cup for sailing schools, won by Ronan O Siochru of Irish Offshore Sailing with the Sunfast 37 Desert Star in 2015, and Kenneth Rumball of the Irish National Sailing School with the J/109 Jedi in 2017.
Desert Star rounding the Fastnet in 2015, on her way to winning the Roger Justice Cup. She is back again this year on the longer course.
So in contemplating 2021's lineup, we're casting the net very wide as to what constitutes Irish interest, and we can begin right at the top, as the biggest boat in the race and the favourite for mono-hull line honours, the ClubSwan 125 Skorpios, was built in a 44-month quality project by Killian Bushe, working closely with designer JK, or Juan Kouyoudjian if you prefer.
The exceptionally complex high tech construction of the ClubSwan125 Skorpios (mono-hull line honours favourite for the Rolex Fastnet Race 2021) proved to be a 44-month work project for specialized boatbuilder Killian Bushe from Crosshaven
If there's any sort of breeze towards the time she is finishing, Skorpios will be at an advantage, for the outstanding feature of the new longer course is that whereas the previous Plymouth-finishing courses had tidal gates at Portland Bill, Start Point and to a lesser extent The Lizard, most boats could get past with a decent sailing breeze, particularly if they were prepared to dodge dangerously close inshore.
NEW FASTNET COURSE'S MONSTER TIDAL GATE
But in the approaches to the new finish at Cherbourg, there is something of a complete tidal barrier, an extension of the Alderney Race at Cape de la Hague, the northwest corner of the Cherbourg Peninsula. If the tide is with you when you get there, then you're winning twice over, but if it's adverse, then having a boat with the highest speed potential confers an inbuilt advantage – biggies get through, but little 'uns stop.
The sting in the tail……the old and new Fastnet Race courses. The extension to finish at Cherbourg gives the fleet the additional challenge of the biggest tidal gate of all at Cape de la Hague.
But though Skorpios may be the biggest by far, the sheer speed potential of George David's round Ireland mono-hull record-holder Rambler 88 can never be discounted, she'll seem very nimble by comparison with Skorpios, and this clash of the titans will be fascinating.
Slightly down the size scale, that gallant old war horse, the Irish-Chinese Volvo 70 Green Dragon, continues to sail the seas and race the Fastnet under Austrian ownership, and while the new course changes many things, we mustn't forget that a Volvo 70 was overall winner in 2019.
In IRC Class 1, Cracklin' Rosie, the veteran Corby 40 created by the late Roy Dickson, is still active and very much entered under Stven Anderson's ownership, while closer to home Andrew Hall of Pwllheli is also in Class I, racing the chartered Lombard 45 Pata Negra, which has taken silverware under Irish command.
The late Roy Dickson at the helm of his Corby 40 Cracklin' Rosie in the 1997 Fastnet Race. She goes again this year under the command of Steven Anderson. Photo: W M Nixon
IRC Class 3 includes the Isle of Man-based First 40.7 Polished Manx, which is also in the two-handed division, but with due respect to all the other boats of Irish interest, IRC 3 – in which there are 80 boats – includes our most serious contender, Denis Murphy and Anna Marie Fegan's Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo of the Royal Cork YC, this year's winner of the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race, and winner last year of the Fastnet 450.
Nieulargo seems to have thing nicely under control in the sometimes difficult countdown to the Fastnet, as Denis and Annamarie and their two daughters Molly and Mia left Crosshaven last Saturday for the delivery, and by mid-week were comfortably into the more ordered ambience of the Hamble, keeping well clear of Cowes where Cowes Week has been taking up all the space.
The successful Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo (Royal Cork YC) is one of Ireland's strongest entries in the Rolex Fastnet race 2021. Photo: Robert Bateman
The crew of Nieulago before departing Crosshaven last weekend were (left to right) Molly Murphy, Annamarie Fegan, Denis Murphy, and Mia Murphy
Time was you expected to get a pre-race berth in Cowes in the days before the race. But a serene shore base at a mainland yacht harbour is now the best option, and when Nieulargo joins the fray tomorrow, her full lineup will be the well-tested one of the Murphy-Fegan family foursome together with the notably talented lineup of Nicholas 'Nin' O'Leary, Killian Collins, Harry Durcan, Clive O'Shea, Cliona Connelly and Jamie Tingle.
IRC 4 is the next biggest class numerically with 74 boats, and it includes Keith Milllar's Yamaha 36 Andante from Kilmore Quay, and Irish Offshore Sailing's Sunfast 37 Desert Star from Dun Laoghaire with Ronan O'Siochru co-commanding with Conor Totterdell of the National YC.
Talking of co-commands, we find it in two divisions. There are 63 entries in the straight Fastnet Two-Handed fleet – which has provided an overall winner in times past – where there's special interest for us in the Sunfast 3200 Purple Mist, which has been something of a pace-setter this season in the growing Solent-based Two-Handed scene, and is being raced round the Fastnet by Kate Cope and Matthew Beecher, who hails from Kinsale.
Matt Beecher from Kinsale will be racing the Sunfast 3200 Purple Mist in the two-handed division.
The Figaro 3s have their own class, and in it we find Kenneth Rumball and Pamela Lee in RL Sailing, their opposition including Stormwave raced by Cat Hunt and Hugh Brayshaw. It's a very interesting situation, for of course last October, Cat Hunt sailed with Pam Lee to establish the new Round Ireland Two-handed Record aboard RL Sailing.
In a fleet of this size we're bound to find individual Irish sailors on several boats, and the National YC sees several of its U30 group involved, with Oisin Cullen and Saoirse Reynolds on Simon Harris's J/112e Ouvert in IRC 2, while in IRC 1 Conor Corson is bowman on the A13 Phorphorus.
Thus we have the Rolex Fastnet Race 2021. It's big, in some very important ways it's new, and it starts tomorrow (Sunday) with regular updates on Afloat.ie in our dedicated Fastnet Race section
Cat Hunt and Pam Lee in team action during their successful round Ireland record attempt last October. In the 2021 Fastnet Race, they'll be in competition with each other on different boats in the two-handed Figaro 3 Division.
