Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that prediction can be a dodgy business as it involves the future. And when that future is reckoned to include – as it does for today (Saturday’s) Fastnet Race start in the Solent – a volatile and windy weather system heading east and a record and very varied fleet of maybe 450 boats heading west through a crowded wind-over-tide sea passage, the temptation is to step back completely, and take stock instead of the almost equally volatile recent story of the Fastnet Race as it marks its 50th staging this year, and looks forward to its Centenary in 2025
Ireland’s totally unmistakable and magnificently emblematic Fastnet Rock is a maritime symbol with unrivalled international recognition and unique promotional value. Yet in our bumbling generosity, we allow it to be used for free as the key turning mark in one of world sailing’s super-star events, now on such a scale that it has - since 2001 - officially been known as the Rolex Fastnet Race, and is big business with it.
Thus the freely-donated use of our most famous Rock by the flaithulach-minded Irish is at variance with what happens around the start and finish. Much money has already been made ashore, and there’s even more to be made at the finish. So maybe a modest income can be derived from what happens in between?
“Help yourself to our Fastnet Rock, folks”. Jolie Brise made free use of Ireland’s icon as a turning mark to win the first Fastnet Race in 1925, and she’s still using it for free.
With the Royal Ocean Racing Club in an expansionist frame of mind, the traditional finishing port of Plymouth (where the Royal Ocean Racing Club was actually founded after the inaugural 1925 race) no longer had the capacity or local authority resources or mindset to offer the necessary package. But the Port of Cherbourg and its Cotentin region in France had all three, and they made an offer the Fastnet Race organisers couldn’t refuse, even if it meant extending the course by 90 miles back in 2021.
In contemplating this civic power-play, we are reminded yet again that the European Continental model of highly-organised cities and regions, with all-powerful and substantially-budgeted Mayors, can run rings around those countries with traditional speed-of-treacle over-democratic local authorities, with slow decision-making processes when it comes to bidding wars for increasingly attractive international events.
That said, a certain climatic realism is required. Only this week, there was a painful reminder of this harsh reality when the defending America’s Cup team Emirates New Zealand was seen blithely sailing up and down in one of their machines on the very blue Mediterranean off the mighty and generously-hospitable City-state of Barcelona in the buildup to the next AC there – the 37th - from 12th to 20th October 2024.
Not quite Rushbrook. America’s Cup defenders Emirates New Zealand in action beside a classic yacht regatta at Barcelona this week
It was impossible not to reflect that had the Quixotic notion of Cork Harbour hosting this particular AC series succeeded, the same scene would not have looked quite so appealing when transposed to our weather of recent weeks.
Meanwhile, back home in New Zealand, the ETNZ team’s notional home club of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Auckland was teetering in the edge of bankruptcy, and the limited-finance local authorities were faced with dealing with left-over detritus from previous close encounters with this fatally-attractive event.
OVERSEAS ENTRIES PREPARE FROM CHERBOURG
As for the Fastnet, the news that a number of overseas entries in today’s race had already established themselves with a comfortable base in Cherbourg and planned to sail the 80 miles from there straight to the start in the Solent is food for thought, as it reduces the stately Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes to the role of a glorified Starters’ Hut.
Fastnet Race entries being prepared for the race in Cherbourg this week
That’s surely a hugely-exaggerated conclusion, but the changed look of the modern Fastnet Race course – with many of its most interesting areas now forbidden zones under a profusion of Traffic Separation Schemes – is such that all sorts of crazy ideas seem possible, including the thought that they might as well have the start at Cherbourg, and just use the Isle of Wight as a mark of the course, to be left to port.
The latest Rolex Fastnet Race course in simplified form – it would be only a minor modification to have the start at Cherbourg, and leave the Isle of Wight to port as a mark of the course.
ELECTRONIC TOLLS?
If that happens, we could see an electronic M50 Westlink-style Toll Gate being installed at Hurst Narrows. Cork County Council should note that, technically, it’s increasingly feasible at the Fastnet Rock too. It’s also perhaps an insane thought. But we can only wonder what the great Harry Donegan of Cork and his six fellow skippers in the first Fastnet Race of 1925 would make of their innovative event in its 50th manifestation.
Yet either way, today’s Irish offshore sailors continue to carry the torch first held aloft by Donegan and the Gull in 1925, and there are 15 boats which are specifically Irish entries, while leading Irish and ex-Pat international sailors are to be found throughout the fleet.
IRELAND’S BIGGEST NAME RACING THE SMALLEST BOAT
Surely the most bizarre of these has to be five times Sydney-Hobart Race winner Gordon Maguire, originally of Howth but for 20 and years and more a pillar of Australian sailing at professional level. He has chosen to race this 50th Fastnet with Australian maverick sailing squillionaire Sean Langman on his restored 1932-built gaff-rigged Ranger 30 Maluka.
She only just scrapes through the 30ft minimal hull length overall requirement, and looks for all the world like a 1920s fishing-boat-style motor-launch, but sets notably high-quality sails and has notched some significant successes to match the trophies collected by Langman in his more orthodox state-of-the-art racers.
Gordon’s new mount - Maluka out on the ocean. The 2023 Fastnet Race start is unlikely to be as sunny
At a much more appropriate boat size heading for the Fastnet is Howth’s rising international star Johnny Mordaunt, who was commissioned by Swiss owner Christian Zugel (a Royal Cork YC member) to bring the Volvo 70 Wizard, winner of the 2019 Fastnet, back to life as the good-as-new Tschuss 2. This Johnny not only succeeded in doing, which was quite an achievement, but he then skippered her to a record win every which way in the recent RORC Cowes-Dinard-St Malo Race.
A third Howth sailor usually performing at this level is Laura Dillon helming Dutch owner Harry Heist’s still-competitive S&S41 Winsome. But although Winsome is going round the Rock, Laura is sitting it out this time as she’ll need the energy to defend her 2022-won title with Winsome as “Woman Sailor of the Week” at Cowes Week in August.
However, the Howth colours will be carried in more direct style by Nigel Biggs and Dave Cullen with the powerful First 50 Checkmate XX, which is on an impressive roll with recent victories in the offshore division in both the Sovereign’s at Kinsale and the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta in Dublin Bay.
Power and comfort – The First 50 Checkmate XX starts the Fastnet 2023 with an impressive record of offshore regatta success already logged this year. Photo: Afloat.ie.
ROYAL CORK LEADS THE WAY
The Royal Cork Yacht Club may be the world’s oldest with its 1720 foundation date, but these days it seems to be more at the forefront of welcome developments than ever, as its three boats from Cork Harbour - the Murphy-Fegan family’s Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo, Noel Coleman’s Oyster 37 Blue Oyster, and the Radley family’s Holland 39 classic Imp – are all very much family entries, with the first two in particular each including four women sailors in their personnel lineup.
RCYC Vice Admiral Annamarie Fegan spearheads an impressive inclusive Cork Harbour participation in the big race. Photo: Robert Bateman
When we remember that this rather special club representation in Europe’s greatest offshore race is taking place at the same time as the Royal Cork at Crosshaven is hosting the biggest-ever World Topper Championship, the only conclusion can be that today’s crisply contemporary Royal Cork has emerged from a quaint 18th Century adult-male-only organisation mainly because they didn’t wait for other clubs to show the way – they were often showing the way themselves.
REAL ORIGINS OF “THE OCEAN RACE”
We’re reminded of this as some of the chat about the Fastnet Race this week has been about it being known at first with supposed novelty as “The Ocean Race”, until it was realized that “The Fastnet Race” had brand power to die for. But in any case, way back in 1860 when the Royal Cork’s elderly but young-at-heart Admiral T G French was successfully promoting the idea of a completely new type of race from Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour, he called it “The Ocean Race”. And the name still occasionally re-emerges for an August Bank Holiday race from Cork Harbour to Kinsale for any boats which haven’t gone off down west for Calves Week.
TRALEE BOOSTS FAMILY INVOLVEMENT
The Cork pace in family campaigning is matched by the Cunnane family’s Swan 46 Mynx from Tralee Bay SC. Ken Cunnane’s clan are into all sorts of sailing, but for the Fastnet they’ve pooled energies for racing in water more crowded than those you’ll find off Northwest Kerry, with the crew in a different world in the 204-strong fleet in their qualifying Cowes-St Malo Race, keeping clear in any night-time hour of more ships than you’ll see in an entire night in the approaches to the Shannon Estuary.
The Team from Tralee – Swan 46 Mynx (TBSC) is a Fastnet Race newbie.
DUN LAOGHAIRE’S SEASONED CAMPAIGNER
When Ronan O Siochru acquired the 2002-vintage and well-used former Greek Isles charter Sunfast 36 which was to become Desert Star to set up his Irish Offshore Sailing School in Dun Laoghaire, she needed much TLC to come up to standard. But now she has done five Fastnet Races, and none was better than the most recent in 2021 – the first to finish in Cherbourg – when she was 13th overall and best of the Irish to win the Gull Salver.
As they raced the final long stage, Desert Star’s unexpectedly good position at 4th in Class IV was discussed by the official commentariat, and they said it was most unlikely that the old war horse would still be in that placing by the finish. They were quite right. Desert Star just went better and better, and finished a very close second in Class IV, making such an impression that’s she’s now up in the official lights as a boat to watch in 2023, which is probably the last sort of attention any sailing school operator wants in taking a tyro crew in their first Fastnet Race.
The sweet smell of success – Ronan O Siochru (right) and his crew aboard Desert Star in 2021 approaching the finish in Cherbourg, on a day when every move they made was tactically on target
SUCCESSES OVER THE YEARS
Such is the price of success, and success or prominence over the years has often gone the way of Irish boats. When the Centenary comes up in 2025, it will be interesting to see how many still extant Irish links can be found to the early races. Gull may have gone, but the line honours winner in the 1926 Fastnet, the 70ft Fife cutter Hallowe’en, is still very much alive under a Royal Irish YC syndicate.
1926 Line Honours winner Hallowe’en at the Royal Irish YC. Photo: W M Nixon
As for 1927, the winning gaff cutter Tally Ho is restoring at Port Townsend in the US’s Pacific northwest, and the dramatic participation of Conor O’Brien’s Saoirse under her sail-spreading brigantine rig – more vividly remembered now that Liam Hegarty of Oldcourt has re-created Saoirse for Fred Kinmonth - attracted much attention at the time.
O’Brien was accustomed to having his sisters crew for him, so he accepted a female crew-member. Yet you wouldn’t know it from the crew-list, as it included one Peter Gerard. The world of London sailing journalism knew this was the new wife of fellow nautical scribe Maurice Griffiths, but as “Peter Gerard’s” real name was the distinctly non-nautical Dulcie Kennard, she’d to find something more appropriate to sell sailing stories in the dog-eat-dog conditions of the 1920s London magazines industry.
Saoirse’s 1927 brigantine rig “was not meant to go to windward” – and it didn’t
FIRST WIN IN CLASS IN 1947
The first Irish class win came in 1947 when Billy Mooney’s 16-ton ketch Aideen from Dun Laoghaire took Class 3 – her restored sister-ship Maybird is under Darryl Hughes’ ownership at Crosshaven - and through the 1950s, the Hopkirk brothers’ up-dated 1894-built Glance (Royal Ulster YC) was in the frame. Then in 1960s with Denis Doyle of Cork starting his four decade career of serious annual campaigning on the RORC circuit, everything moved up a step or two.
The massive Irish campaigning of 1979 saw a win by one of the Admiral’s Cup team as increasingly likely, but after that year’s super-storm had seen the rudder stocks snap off on front runners Regardless (Ken Rohan) and Golden Apple (Hugh Coveney), that hope was gone.
Winner all right. The Dubois 40 Irish Independent at the Fastnet in 1987
Thus the first overall win came in 1987 with Tim Goodbody (RIYC) as lead helm on the Admirals Cup racer Irish Independent, a Dubois 40. This achievement was properly recognised when Michael Boyd as Commodore of RORC organised the presentation of a special trophy to the RIYC, and just this week that trophy has gone public as the award for any RIYC member turning in the best performance in an event more than 600 miles long.
Back in Fastnet history, meanwhile, fresh heights were scaled in 2007 when Ger O’Rourke of Kilrush with his Cookson 50 Chieftain won overall in style, apparently un-hampered by the fact that for much of the decidedly rough race, Chieftain was racing without electrics or electronics, relying on torches and GPS from mobile phones and very damp-to-the-point-of-disintegrating charts.
KEEPING GOING NO MATTER WHAT
It is this unquenchable determination to keep going at peak performance, no matter what, that brings out the Fastnet Race winners. In 1957 the great American skipper Dick Nye with his 53ft Rhodes-designed yawl Carina II came through the gale force wind-over-tide conditions in the Needles Channel at such speed that a virtually airborne Carina crashed into a head sea so violently that ribs up forward were cracked or fractured, and caulking was spewed.
When the reports from down below confirmed the inevitable leaking in significant quantities, Nye declared that he was going to keep racing flat out, and it was up to the crew to keep the boat afloat. In easier stages, it required something like 12 minutes of heavy manual pumping in any hour to keep the ingress under control, and in rougher conditions it would be much more.
But Nye continued to race out flat out without easing until they had crossed the finish line in Plymouth to take line honours against – in some cases – much bigger boats, and they won overall as well, with the skipper finally relaxing and lighting up one of his giant trademark cigars that he had somehow kept dry.
“Right boys”, says he, “now you can let the damned boat sink”.
“With nothing working and everything working” – Chieftain coming in to the finish to win the 2007 Fastnet Race overall at Plymouth
As Carina II had already convincingly won the 1955 Fastnet Race, she would have been a good bet for the 1957 Race in any case. But that was with a fleet of modest size. Today, with record numbers vying for just the IRC awards, it really is anybody’s bet, and following it all with regular updates here on Afloat.ie is going to be absorbing and then some.
But for now, the word is the runes have been read down in Glandore, and the word from the Street is that the smart money would be on Chris Sheehan’s notably successful Pac 52 Warrior Won from America, as Don Street’s grandson Dylan Vogel is on the crew, as he has been for every big Warrior win.
That said, with a name like that, shouldn’t he be getting his act together for Electric Picnic?
