Press Releases 2009

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.

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.

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.

This morning, the tally of arrivals on the Rolex Fastnet Race is up to 43 after a busy night with the leading boats in the Class 40 and Zero fleets arriving.

Making possibly the best entrance last night was Robert Lutener and Martin Elwood’s IRC-optimised TP52, Cutting Edge. She crossed the finish line off Plymouth breakwater at 2100, at the same time as the British Fireworks Championship lit up Plymouth Sound.

“We had 20 knots reaching into Plymouth, just about made it past the breakwater to be greeted by 10,000 people. We got cheered coming in. We felt like proper rock stars,” recounted crewman James Grant, for whom this was his first Rolex Fastnet Race and first race longer than about 10 hours.

A steady influx of boats has continued to stream into Sutton Harbour in Plymouth's historic Barbican quarter today, the first finishers in the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race. At the end of the afternoon, 17 boats have arrived including eight IMOCA 60s led by Sebastien Josse's BT IMOCA 60s, and including Volvo Ocean Race winner Mike Sanderson's Team Pindar, home in seventh place and fourth in the IMOCA 60 class.

"We have amazingly tight racing between quite different boats if you saw them lined up on the dock," commented Sanderson upon his arrival. "Seb Josse and Vincent Riou [former Vendee Globe winner, sailing on Akena Verandas] are incredibly experienced singlehanded sailors. I knew as soon as they were with us at Fastnet Rock that we were going to struggle."

According to Sanderson he lost distance on the leaders en route back to Bishop Rock from the Fastnet when he didn't direct Team Pindar far enough north. "North of the rhumb line was pretty advantageous. You saw Safran gain a lot there and Aviva lost a lot on the outside of us. So I need to learn my lessons and believe in the routing."

Property developer Mike Slade’s ICAP Leopard secured a second consecutive line honours victory in the Rolex Fastnet Race in the early hours of this morning. With the mixed conditions the 100ft super-maxi was considerably behind the course record she set two years ago. Arriving at the Plymouth breakwater finish line at 00:09:36 GMT, her elapsed time on this occasion was 2 days 11 hours 9 minutes and 36 seconds, compared to 1 day 20 hours 18 minutes and 53 seconds in 2007.

“It was a great race,” commented Slade. “It is always nice to have a race where there are no breakages or damage. We didn’t get into any difficult situations. We just wanted to get around fast and competently. All in all we are delighted to be here, second time running, back to back victories in this great race. A huge thanks to the RORC, our sponsors ICAP and Rolex for yet again taking an interest in yachting.”

The ‘when will they arrive?’ lottery has begun this afternoon in sunny Sutton Harbour, the new arrival point for the Rolex Fastnet Race in Plymouth.

While a line honours victory for Mike Slade’s 100ft super-maxi ICAP Leopard might seem obvious, the brand new Hong Kong 80-footer Beau Geste of Karl Kwok is closing on them. At 03:00 GMT this morning they were 35 miles behind and by 14:00GMT were only 24 miles astern. Over the course of the late morning and early afternoon the smaller boat was occasionally sailing three knots faster down the course.

At 00:26 GMT this morning Mike Slade's 100ft supermaxi ICAP Leopard was the first boat in the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race to round the Fastnet Rock off the coast of southwestern Ireland. In a 10-15 knot westerly breeze, Karl Kwok's Farr 80 Beau Geste passed at approximately 04:44 GMT, followed by the IRC Class SZ leader on handicap, Niklas Zennström's Judel-Vrolijk 72 Ran 2 at 05:08 GMT.

Behind them were a gaggle of boats led by the first two IMOCA 60s, Sam Davies and Sidney Gavignet on the fully-crewed Artemis Ocean Racing, ten minutes ahead of Seb Josse's BT IMOCA 60, the first doublehanded entry in the Rolex Fastnet Race.

Behind them at 08:00 GMT, en route to the Pantaenius buoy, the offset mark southwest of the Fastnet lighthouse, were two more IMOCA 60s, Volvo Ocean Race winner Mike Sanderson on Pindar, just ahead of Frenchman Marc Guillemot on Safran. The Italian America's Cup team on the STP65 Luna Rossa rounded later, at 07:54 GMT, having suffered slightly by approaching the Fastnet Rock from a more northerly angle.

Rolex Fastnet Race - Update 2

After a tricky first night at sea, the mid-fleet in the Rolex Fastnet Race have experienced a rainy grey day at sea as they slog upwind westward along the English south coast.

As expected the big boats have broken away with Mike Slade's 100-foot supermaxi ICAP Leopard, rounding Land's End at around 0930 GMT and by 1500 she was halfway to the Fastnet Rock turning mark.

"It is a nice sunny day outside here, it could be a lot worse," commented Slade, adding that the sea was flattening out after a bumpy ride up the Channel. Since rounding Lands End, with the wind from the west, ICAP Leopard, as well as the boats chasing her, have headed on a more northerly course, compared to the direct route to the Fastnet Rock.

As Volvo Ocean Race navigator Simon Fisher explained from on board Team Pindar, third placed in the Open 60 fleet and 41 miles from Slade's race leader: "Big picture, the wind is going to come around to the northwest eventually. So we are off to the right in the hope that we have a nice shift, while trying to get into the best position relative to the other boats around us, in order to make the most of that." The question for the boats presently mid-Celtic Sea is when the wind will veer from the west to the northwest and if they can lay the Rock in one tack when this shift comes.

At 1500 GMT, ICAP Leopard was just 25 miles ahead of Karl Kwok's Farr 80 Beau Geste and 34 miles ahead of Niklas Zennstrom's Judel-Vrolijk 72, Ran 2.

Overnight conditions in the Rolex Fastnet Race have ranged from tricky to impossible. While this morning at the 0600 update, Mike Slade's ICAP Leopard was approaching Lizard Point, the bulk of the 300 strong fleet is now past Portland Bill, the headland to seaward of the 2012 Olympic sailing venue, and were halfway across Lyme Bay bound for the next significant headland, Start Point.

For Slade's mighty 100ft long supermaxi, the night has been one of mixed fortunes, her speed ranging from relative standstill – 4 knots against the tide midway across Lyme Bay at 2300 – to considerable pace, 26.5 knots at 0500. She is way behind her record pace from 2007 when in the early hours of the first morning she was already around Land's End, halfway across the Celtic Sea to the Fastnet Rock.