Rolex Fastnet Race: Record-breaking offshore classics set to race in IRC Zero
by Andy Rice / RORC 2 Jul 16:21 BST
26 July 2025
Sidney Gavignet will skipper the famous Vendée Globe yawl Le Cigare Rouge © Thierry Martinez
IRC Zero has a rich seam of ocean-going history running through it. While French round the world race legend Jean-Luc Van Den Heede (aka VDH) isn't competing in the Rolex Fastnet Race, two of his former steeds will be on the IRC Zero start line.
Christophe Bachmann's crew will be bringing Adrien to the Fastnet. This is the boat that, back in 2004, VDH set the record for the fastest solo westabout circumnavigation of the world with a time of 122 days 14 hours 3 minutes 49 seconds. Adrien is a 26m long Gilles Vaton-designed monohull built in aluminium and her rugged construction should give Bachmann's crew reassurance if we see yet another stormy start to the Fastnet of the kind that hit the fleet in 2021 and 2023.
VDH notched up 12 roundings of Cape Horn in his illustrious offshore career, and another of his famous boats that propelled him to such feats was Le Cigare Rouge. Originally known as Sofap-Helvim, this Open 60 unusually was slender and yawl-rigged (at a time when her opponents were all beamy giant surfboard-shaped sloops), but nonetheless finished runner-up in the 1992 Vendée Globe. The boat came to be known as 'Le Cigare Rouge' - the red cigar - due to her slim shape and went on to compete in three further Vendée Globes.
For the Rolex Fastnet Race she will be skippered by Sidney Gavignet, who has enjoyed a strong offshore career including winning the 2005/06 Volvo Ocean Race aboard ABN AMRO One. "After a long offshore career, I am lucky today to become the skipper of Le Cigare Rouge," said Gavignet who also competed in the America's Cup. "She is a legendary boat and a great representative of the offshore heritage. Both of us have gone through an internal transformation and we join our journey to accompany those who are up to learn offshore, by experience.
"I want to help perpetuate maritime heritage and I don't treat racing as I used to treat it in my old career as a professional sailor when I was mad about the result, perhaps a little too mad... Now I have found more balance in my life: What we do is a game, it should be fun, and I am going to enjoy sailing this beautiful boat in the Rolex Fastnet Race, helping share the opportunity to experience this life at sea with a few other lucky people."
Like Gavignet, Jean-Pierre Dick has several big offshore titles to his name, including twice winning the Barcelona World Race and four victories in the Transat Jacques Vabre. The four-time Vendée Globe veteran is racing as co-skipper in the Fastnet with fellow French professional sailor and entrepreneur, Éric Defert, aboard La Loévie, a Swan 76. Defert brings a broad range of offshore experience and is well used to extreme sailing having most recently campaigned a MOD 70 trimaran.
Another skipper who's no stranger to extreme multihull sailing is Hans Bouscholte who, with teammate Gérard Navarin sailed a 19ft catamaran 2,700 miles across the Atlantic in 1999. By comparison with that, taking his VO60 Boudragon around the Fastnet Rock should be a piece of cake for the daring Dutchman.
"This will be my 12th Rolex Fastnet Race," says Bouscholte. "We are a youth sailing academy, and will be racing with 16 international trainees from Germany, Slovenia, Canada, France, Belgium and the Netherlands between 15 and 30 years of age. In 2023 and 2021 we finished 20th in IRC overall - Not bad for a distinguished lady with considerable age," he says, referring to his VO60, originally Lawrie Smith's Silk Cut. "We would favour a heavy air race, as Boudragon and her skipper/crew excel in tough conditions."
Various VO60s have proven their ocean-going pedigree in past Rolex Fastnet Races. These include Challenge Ocean, originally Knut Frostad's djuice dragons.
Today she is operated by a French sailing school and competes in all the top level offshore events, crewed by ambitious amateur sailors, supervised by four pro crew. "Our crew members are customers," says Challenge Ocean CEO Valdo Dhoyer, "but we approach this event with a competitive spirit and high expectations. We want to do our best in that fleet and most of all, give our sailors an exceptional experience they'll never forget." Her pros include round the world veteran Sébastien Audigane.
Biggest boat on the IRC Zero start line will be Osprey, an 80ft Farr-designed Grand Mistral/Maxi One Design built in 1997. She is step-up in size for skipper, Canada-based Brit Chris Stanmore-Major, whose lengthy CV includes two circumnavigations, the first as the skipper of Qingdao in the 2009-10 Clipper Round the World Race and then solo in the 2010-11 Velux 5 Oceans.
Enjoying a more comfortable ride in IRC Zero, is EnderPearl, a CNB 76 Comfort Cruiser built in 2013. A twice participant in the Roschier Baltic Sea Race, EnderPearl could benefit from long upwind legs in breezy conditions. Skipper Kenneth Bjoerklund heads a primarily Norwegian crew on this luxurious yacht.
There will be an interesting battle between a cluster of 52-footers in this division. The Judel/Vrolijk designed Haspa Hamburg returns with skipper Laurids Von Emden leading a German youth team representing the Hamburgischer Verein Seefahrt. Another German entry is Rafale skippered by Malte Päsler with a crew that includes Johannes Polgar, a former Olympic Tornado catamaran sailor.
Varuna 7, also from Germany, is considered a favourite for the IRC Zero win. Her experienced owner Jens Kellinghusen has assembled a hot crew on board his Ker 56 including the vastly experienced Volvo Ocean Race veteran, Spain's Roberto 'Chuny' Bermudez de Castro.
The most capped Rolex Fastnet Race entry (this will be his 26th), is Richard Matthews, who aged 76 will return for a third attempt with his Carkeek CF520 Oystercatcher XXXV, a highly competitive boat and a sistership to Niklas Zennström's Admiral's Cupper Rán.
Given the right conditions, Finland's Arto Linnervuo could enjoy some good speed thanks to the DSS foil on his Hugh Welbourn-designed Infiniti 52, Tulikettu.
Two Open 50s are entered (effectively smaller IMOCAs). Pegasus of Northumberland is a 2002 vintage Owen Clarke design, originally launched as Artforms, but perhaps made most impression as Philippe Kahn's Pegasus, which set a new doublehanded Transpac record in 2009. She is now owned and campaigned by Newcastle dentist Ross Hobson. She is joined by Patrick Isoard's Uship pour Enfants du Mekong, which finished second in class in the 1998-99 BOC Challenge as Mike Garside's Magellan Alpha, then winning every leg of the subsequent race as Brad van Liew's Tommy Hilfiger.
London-based Frenchman Antoine Magré knows the way, his previous boat having won the 2021 race in the Class40. Her replacement Palanad 4 is also Sam Manuard designed/JPS-built but an ultra lightweight, scow-bowed offshore 50 footer, which Magré states combines lessons learned from the 40 with those from the offshore TP52s. She is due for launch in early July.
Prize for furthest travelled must surely go to Whisper, a Judel/Vrolijk 60 which has almost completed a long and tortuous journey from Sydney to get to the Cowes start line.
Owner David Griffith has competed in numerous Rolex Sydney Hobart races, but this will be his first assault on the Fastnet and he has assembled a crack crew to do so. "I think between us we've probably got 130 Sydney Hobarts between us, and we're doing everything we can to give ourselves a good go at the Fastnet." Among the big names on board are Peter 'Billy' Merrington, an accomplished Etchells, offshore and round the world hand, and former America's Cup sailor and top mainsheet trimmer, Paul 'Flipper' Westlake.
Whisper started out life as Sir Peter Ogden's Jethou, built nearby at Green Marine in Lymington in 2009. So it's a bit of a journey home for the Australian boat to be racing in the Solent once more. Griffith has worked hard to put the pieces in place for a good result in what he considers to be the most famous and iconic of the world's 600-mile offshore races.
For further information, please go to the race website: rolexfastnetrace.com
IRC Zero entries HERE