It was a fast and furious start to the 50th Rolex Fastnet Race with four dismastings and one yacht sinking in the winds of 40 knots
One yacht sank, four yachts were dismasted and just under 90 yachts pulled out of the 50th Rolex Fastnet Race in the first 24-hours amid brutal weather conditions with 43-knot winds and four-metre waves, as lifeboats around the south coast of Britain manned multiple rescue callouts.
The famous 695-mile yacht race started at Cowes in the Solent on Saturday with a record 443 yachts across the line to race around the Fastnet Rock, off the southern coast of Ireland, before heading back across the Celtic Sea to finish at Cherbourg, France.
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The winning maxi trimaran SVR Lazartigue from France was the first yacht to round the Fastnet rock Photo: Rolex/Kurt Arrigo
Multihull line honours went to SVR Lazartigue under skipper François Gabart with a new record of 1 day, eight hours, 38 minutes, beating the existing multihull record by 30 minutes and reaching the finish line an hour before rival Banque Populaire XI under skipper Armel le Cléac’h.
The new IMOCA 60 Macif, skippered by Charlie Dalin, was the first monohull home, taking line honours in an incredibly close race between the giant IMOCAs.
Macif beat Paprec Arkea, skippered by Yoann Richomme by only four minutes and Sam Goodchild, the skipper of For The Planet was only 13 minutes behind them.
Macif set a new monohull course record of 2 days, 7 hours and 16 minutes, shaving over an hour from the time set by Skorpios, a ClubSwan 125, in 2021 when the race first sailed this new course.
Caro, a Botin 52 skippered and owned by Max Klink, has won the IRC Zero class and is looking to be the one to beat for the overall IRC prize, although with so many yachts not yet finished, it is hard to call. Caro completed the course in 2 days, 16 hours and 40 minutes, two hours ahead of nearest rival Team Jajo on corrected time.
HM Coastguard reported that they had responded to 28 incidents involving yachts participating in the Fastnet Race with RNLI crews from Yarmouth, Poole, Swanage and Weymouth responding to multiple incidents within the opening few hours of the race.
The most serious incident was the sinking of the Sunfast 3600 Vari in the western Solent after taking on water. Only 20 minutes elapsed between the crew of Vari raising the alarm that they were taking on water and the yacht sinking. The two French crew were recovered from their life raft by an RNLI lifeboat at Yarmouth and taken ashore to hospital. They are both safe and well and now back in France.
Golden Globe Race skipper Tapio Lehtinen was dismasted on his Swan 55 Galiana, which is due to compete in the Ocean Globe Race, a retro edition of the historic Whitbread race, in September. Sun Fast 3200 Mirabelle was also dismasted as was Royal Naval Sailing Association’s Sun Fast 3600 Yoyo and Sun Fast 2600 Diablo
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Strong wind against the tide led to heavy conditions early in the Fastnet Race Photo: Rolex/kurt Arrigo
Oida ran around off Beaulieu after the anchor dragged and CF520 Oystercatcher XXXV suffered deck failure. There was at least one MOB/EPIRB distress alert, although this proved to be a false alarm.
‘We talked about it (postponing the race),’ RORC Racing Manager Steve Cole told Yachting Monthly. ‘We have to look at the weather that is coming during the race as well as the start. And there is another low pressure developing out to the west of Ireland now and it was felt that in a race that long (seven days for some yachts) there is going to be some bad weather. The feeling was that, although it’s better not to have bad weather at all, if you have to have it, better along the English coast where there are places to shelter than, in the Celtic Sea.
‘Undoubtedly the forecast would have put some people off, but our rules are flexible enough to allow people to take shelter and then resume racing later. A lot of people did that and good for them for taking the right decision at the time,’ Cole added.
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The American yacht Warrior Won rounds the Fastnet Rock at dawn during the 50th Rolex Fastnet Race. Photo: Rolex/Kurt Arrigo
‘We run ocean races and the danger of us starting to limit wind strengths that we would race in is where does that end? Do you not start because the wind is forecast to be above a certain strength? We put the races on and hopefully people are well prepared and well informed and the ones that get through it are the ones that deserve to finish.’
Yarmouth RNLI Coxswain, Howard Lester said: ‘This weekend’s Fastnet race was the busiest one for Yarmouth lifeboat, responding to six incidents in some very challenging conditions in the western Solent and beyond.
‘We were very fortunate that all our call outs were to crews with means of calling for help and were equipped with either lifejackets or had life rafts accessible onboard.’
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