All competitors in the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race have now safely arrived in Plymouth, with the final boats finishing overnight and early this morning. This classic race has now come to a successful close as the remaining crews are left to swap stories on the dockside at Sutton Harbour before heading back to their home ports. Whether they return clutching a piece of silverware or not, all competitors in the 608nm race will take with them a sense of pride and achievement at completing the course, which this year was tactically challenging and long.

The list of the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race Trophy Winners 26.68 Kb 24/08/2009, 14:31 is now available for download.

While the previous Rolex Fastnet Race is remembered for the course record time being demolished, the only record broken in this year's running of the Royal Ocean Racing Club's biennial 608 nautical-mile classic was one relating to competitor patience, as light winds at the start and end, combined with powerful spring tides, made for a 'tactically challenging' race, and one of the longest in recent years.

Running from Cowes to Plymouth via the Fastnet Rock off southwest Ireland, the race again proved it remains one of the world's most prestigious offshore yacht races. The 300-boat entry limit was reached quickly, attracting boats from a wide spread of nations. The bulk came from the UK and France, but there were potent entries from the USA, Hong Kong, Ireland, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and others coming from afar afield as Chile and Australia.

This year's event also attracted a hugely competitive line-up of professional sailors and grand prix race boats from around the world. This included the 2007 race record setter, Mike Slade's 100ft supermaxi ICAP Leopard; two recently launched state of the art Mini-Maxis taking a break from the Med circuit: Niklas Zennstrom's Judel-Vrolijk 72, Ran 2, and Patrizio Bertelli's STP 65 Luna Rossa, crewed by his Italian America's Cup team and featuring an all-star cast including five time Olympic medallist and recent Volvo Ocean Race winner, Torben Grael. The Rolex Fastnet Race was also the offshore debut for Karl Kwok's brand new Farr 80, Beau Geste, run by America's Cup helmsman Gavin Brady, while Roger Sturgeon's race-proven Rolex Sydney Hobart-winning STP65 Rosebud/Team DYT had come across from the USA.

Niklas and Catherine Zennström were rightly very proud to win the prestigious Fastnet Trophy. The oldest ‘Blue Ribbon' trophy has over 80 years of yacht racing history etched on its plinth. "Team RÁN put an enormous amount of effort into this race, we were lucky with the weather but we did not leave anything to chance, the team worked extremely hard especially ion preparation and we sailed almost perfectly, I would especially like to mention Steve (Hayles) who did a fantastic job navigating on RÁN. The Zennström's received a fantastic ovation from a packed marquee at the Royal Citadel overlooking Plymouth Sound and rightly so, the couple always race on the boat and treat their stellar crew as an extension of their family, they are a credit to the sport.

Friday afternoon and at the time of the Rolex Fastnet Race prizegiving at Plymouth's Royal Citadel, one third of the competitors still remain at sea. Of 299 starters, nine have retired and 194 have reached Plymouth, leaving 106 yet to finish.

While Niklas Zennstrom's Ran 2 has won the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race overall under IRC and in IRC SZ, so Amanda Hartley and Jamie Olazabel's Swan 56 La Floresta Del Mar, claimed IRC Z. Meanwhile the three smallest IRC classes looked set throughout this race to be a clean sweep for France, until the very last few miles of sailing for the Class 3 leaders late this morning. At 1200 GMT, when Fabrice Amedeo's promising X-332 Bateaux Mouches du Pont de l'Alma had just six miles left to go, she was rudely pipped at the post on handicap by David Lees' High Tension 36, Hephzibah, storming towards the finish line, 17 miles astern of her. The final results of IRC Class 3 are yet to be decided.

A win in IRC Class 2, conducted with equally clinical precision to that of the seasoned pros on Ran 2, was that of the team on Prime Time, owned by the trio of Jerome Huillard, and brothers Jerome and Marc Alperovitch. Having previously campaigned an X-302 they traded up to their present A-35 yacht one and a half years ago with the specific aim of racing it offshore, the highlight of their program being the Rolex Fastnet Race.

"The perception is that it is a very well-known race," confided Marc Alperovitch of how the Royal Ocean Racing Club's biennial classic is viewed across ‘la Manche'. "This impression comes from the 1979 race and people are aware that there were casualties. I think it is a race with a significant impact, particularly within the sailing community – they all know it is a difficult and competitive event."

Typically the Rolex Fastnet Race is all but concluded by the Friday morning, five days after the start. But by this morning, only around one third of the fleet have reached the finish off Plymouth, for the Royal Ocean Racing Club's 608 mile long biennial offshore classic.

Even in Class Zero, around one third of the boats have still to finish. Here, the winner is almost certainly the Swan 56, La Floresta Del Mar of Amanda Hartley and Jamie Olazabel. At present, they are almost 1.5 hours ahead of second-placed Tonnerre de Breskens of former Rolex Fastnet Race winner Piet Vroon.

La Floresta Del Mar was previously Filip Balcaen's Aqua Equinox, winner of the Rolex Swan Cup in 2006, but the Madrid-based Anglo-Spanish couple "fell in love with her" and bought her two years ago to replace their Grand Soleil 46.

In addition to the boat's past race credentials and an extensive refit, to make her suitable for offshore rather than inshore racing, notable about Hartley and Olazabel's Rolex Fastnet Race campaign was that they put together a crack crew including many of the very best Spanish sailors. Their team included Jordi Calafat, the 470 Gold medallist from the 1992 Olympics, most recently with the America's Cup defenders Alinghi and on Telefonica Blue for the recent Volvo Ocean Race, America's Cup bowman Jaime Arbones, multiple round the world racer Guillermo Altadill and race veteran Pachi Rivero.

Amanda Hartley's Swan 56, La Foresta del mar was the surprise winner in IRC Zero beating the highly fancied Ker 46, Tonnerre de Breskens owned by 26 time Fastnet veteran Piet Vroon. La Foresta del mar was crewed by some of the worlds finest Spanish sailors including Jordi Cafalat and Guillermo Atadil. Sir Geoffrey Mulcay's Swan 56, Noonmark VI is third.

Loday & Nicoleau, Grand Soleil 43, Codiam, look to have clinched IRC 1 with Cyrille Legloahec's A 40, Batistyl and Andrew McIrvine's Corby 36, Quokka VII, currently second and third respectfully. All three yachts are now in.

Alperovitch & Huillard's A 35, Prime Time, are still holding court in Class IRC 2 with David Walters' J 39, Jackdaw in second and Yannick Richomme's Grand Soleil 40, Captain Blind in third, all three of these yachts are safely tucked up in Sutton Harbour but most of the class are still at sea. These three yachts look set to take the podium positions in class.

Niklas Zennstrom's JV 72, RÁN are the winners of the Fastnet Trophy for best corrected time in IRC overall for the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race.

This afternoon the Royal Ocean Racing Club, organisers of the biennial British 608-mile classic offshore race, confirmed that Niklas Zennström's Ran 2 is the overall handicap winner of the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race.

Zennström's Judel-Vrolijk designed 72-footer finished the race in an elapsed time of 63 hours, 1 minute and 33 seconds, which corrected out to 2 hours, 19 minutes ahead of the second-placed Italian America's Cup team Luna Rossa on board their STP65."It is fantastic, we are very excited about it," commented Zennström. "But it was also a gradual thing, because as we crossed the finish line we knew we had a good result. We had monitored some of the boats behind us, most notably Luna Rossa and Rosebud, which we thought were always going to be the closest competitors to us. And after we came in we spent the morning and actually the whole day yesterday monitoring the updates on the RORC's OC Tracker and made our own calculations about the likelihoods for the other boats to catch up with us."

Having failed to complete the last Rolex Fastnet Race, in 2007, the victory for Ran 2 was unfinished business. That race, sailed on board Zennström's Marten 49, had been the first occasion that the present Ran crew had sailed together. Led by Volvo Ocean Race veteran Tim Powell, the all-star line-up includes seasoned race boat navigator Steve Hayles and America's Cup sailors such as Adrian Stead and Emirates Team New Zealand's Andy Hemmings, Richard Bouzaid and Richard Meacham.

The gaffed rig pilot cutter, Jolie Brise, won the first Fastnet race in 1925 and this year, 64 years later, there is another pilot cutter making the trip around the rock in the Rolex Fastnet Race.

Skippered by Alex Day, Morwenna is a 45ft Bristol Channel pilot cutter and has the looks and lines of a traditional wooden boat, crafted using traditional boatbuilding techniques and materials but the boat is a reproduction, a modern classic. The larch hull and deck sit on English oak frames, from sustainable and renewable resources. She displaces 28 tonnes, solid as a rock but by modern standards very slow. The Jolie Brise took over six days to complete the race in 1925, Morwenna, which is ten feet smaller, looks like she might take considerably longer.