Class winners announced in the 2007 Rolex Fastnet Race

With only thirteen yachts left to finish, by midday on Friday most of the class winners of the Rolex Fastnet Race had been determined.

And of those boats still racing, five were still tenaciously heading to the Fastnet Rock today. Skipper Tom Sperry on the Sigma 41 Nightlife called in to report that they were three miles from the Fastnet Rock at 1215 local time, with three boats ahead in sight and one behind.

Sperry said that it was not unpleasant sailing with 16 knots of apparent wind and relatively flat seas. But that was in stark contrast to the previous race days that had been pretty tough, including the beat across the Celtic Sea to the Fastnet Rock. After battling out of the Solent and along the South coast after the race start, Nightlife holed up in Plymouth Sound for a few hours to tidy up and regroup. They sailed down the coast some miles more and put in to the Helford Estuary overnight Wednesday to seek shelter from the continuing rough weather.

Sperry, who co-owns the boat with his wife, “who had the sense not to come”, is sailing in his eighth Rolex Fastnet and “it is the heaviest I’ve been in.” The crew estimates their arrival at the finish as Sunday afternoon.

Foggy Dew, skippered by Noel Racine from La Havre, France, came in 1st in IRC Class 2B. Drying their gear dockside, Racine said, “That was very, very hard, windy, and wet. We have no more gear on board that is dry.”

The boat, one of the first JPK 9.60 designed by Jacques Valer – who designed the Hobie Cat Tiger – performed well. The boat is certainly competitive and has been racing in the RORC season-long championship, currently lying in 2nd place for the 2007 season. Racine said, “When we had the strong wind, mainly three times, first night, the first low, we were beating in 40 knots but we were still going ahead. We were always making progress. We never stopped. The boat is fantastic for that. We have good sails, heavy ballast, we were never in survival condition.

After rounding the Pantaenius Buoy, Racine recalled, “We hit 20 knots (of boat speed). All night in the Celtic Sea we were between 12-14 knots boat speed… We have two rudders and we never lost control of the boat.”

2007 Rolex Fastnet Race Class Winners:

Zero Canting Keel: Chieftain (IRL), Ger O’Rourke
Super Zero: Rambler (USA), George David
Zero/A: Snow Lion (USA), Larry Huntington
Zero/B: Courrier du Coeur (FRA), Gery Trentesaux
IRC 1/A: TBD
IRC 1/B: Scarlet Oyster (GBR), Gordon Appleby
IRC 2/A: Antares (NED), F. Winterswijk
IRC 2/B: Foggy Dew (FRA), Noel Racine
IRC 3: TBD
Two-Handed: Voador (GBR), Simon Curwen

One of the fascinating aspects of the Rolex Fastnet race is the number of amazing stories of people, boats, and of course, weather. Dockside in Plymouth, Ken Newman recounted his 25th Rolex Fastnet Race as navigator onboard the fourteen-year old, Swan 51 Grandee.

The Cowes-based Newman, 78, sailed his first Fastnet in 1957 on Bluejacket – 50 years ago – and he has missed only one since then, racing on boats as small as 33 feet on up to the maxi yacht, Congere. Newman said, “I started at the front end and worked my way back…I started navigating in the mid-80’s when RORC first took the restrictions off linking information from the boat systems to position-fixing systems.”

For Newman the worst year was in 1957, when the 41-boat fleet had to beat down the Solent in a gale at the start. They sailed through six depressions to finally finish in 12th and last place, as the other 29 yachts retired.

In 1979 he raced onboard Quailo, as Newman describes, “a very well-found boat, but we ill-advisedly used a carbon fibre rudder. We were coming back from Rock doing about 10 knots in big seas and we had our strongest man on board and saving a broach, he turned the wheel and we just snapped the rudder off and it dropped out of the bottom of the boat. We were lying ahull for 24 hours and we put spinnakers poles over the stern and motored to Cork.”

As for what it takes to put together a good team, Newman said, “The important thing is to have a very well-found boat. You can have these lightweight flyers.. I admire the developments that have gone on, there are things I can not identify with. I can only identify with a good, strong boat. Secondly you’ve got to have crew that are competent, and are prepared to go. I had a very competent crew from senior, older people to youngsters. I had (UK Paralympian) Andy Castle onboard, he sailed the last race with me as well.”

He continued, “The two things that I regard as crucial are safety and searoom. We made sure that we sailed sensibly, conseratively. We went down the middle of the Channel. I was out 20 miles out, and I gather we galloped through the whole fleet. We went from 157th to 40th, that wasn’t tactics it was simply sensible seamanship really. Because we know if it did blow up we were out in the middle of the sea and we’d just pop the storm sails up and ride it out….We had about 40 knots across the Celtic Sea.”

For Newman it’s clear, that the ability to get along with others is key to a successful race. He said, “I often sleep at the nav station, but I had allowed myself the luxury of a bunk one night and I had woken up and what was music to my ears was the laughter going on between the crew, great guffaws of laughter and I thought well this is what it’s all about…that’s the sort of camaraderie that I’ve been priviledged to have. I’m a very, very lucky man…If you want to learn about someone, take them sailing.”

As of Friday at 1130 BST, 47 yachts had finished, 13 yachts are racing and 211 yachts have retired from the race.

Trophies will be awarded at the prizegiving tonight with Chieftain set to receive the Fastnet Challenge Cup and a Rolex Yacht-Master timepiece as overall winner.

The Rolex Fastnet Race prize giving will be held at 1700 at the Royal Citadel in Plymouth. Entry is strictly by ticket only and these are available at the Race Headquarters in Plymouth. Media wishing to attend must notify the Press Office. Crew wishing to attend must contact the Race Office.

Friends, family, press and supporters can visit fastnet.rorc.org and click the tracking page to follow the race and results. Boats automatically report every 30mins (on the hour and half hour), and results and tracking are updated shortly after the report is received. The results will be overall and based on corrected time.

Further information about the RORC and the Rolex Fastnet Race may be found at fastnet.rorc.org