Once again, the Rolex Fastnet Race has confirmed itself to be by far the world’s largest offshore yacht race. After the entry for the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s flagship event was opened at 1200 UTC, the 340 available places for boats in the IRC fleet were all taken within just four minutes and 37 seconds. This was just 13 seconds outside the record time recorded in 2017.
The first entry to sign up on the RORC’s Sailgate online entry system for the biennial 605-mile race from Cowes to Plymouth via the Fastnet Rock off southwest Ireland, was regular competitor Derek Saunders and his Farr 60 Venomous. He narrowly beat the German Hamburgischer Verein Seefahrt club’s Judel Vrolijk 52 Haspa Hamburg and Tom Kneen’s JPK 11.80 Sunrise who were next fastest.
After the first two minutes, 180 boats had already been entered successfully. After the first frenetic four minutes and 37 seconds when the maximum entry limit was reached, subsequent requests were filtered through to the reserve list. Ultimately, after the deluge subsided, 440 boats had entered in total.
Yachts from 25 countries are due to take part this year: The bulk of these are from the UK, from where 201 boats were registered, followed by the dominant French (winners of the last three editions of the Rolex Fastnet Race) with 81 and the Netherlands with 33.
The entry includes a strong contingent of 16 boats from the United States, many making the passage across to the UK in the Rolex Transatlantic Race 2019. This leaves Newport, Rhode island on June 25, bound for Cowes via the Lizard and is organized by the RORC in conjunction with the New York Yacht Club, Royal Yacht Squadron and Storm Trysail Club. Entries from further afield have been received from Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Turkey, Hong Kong and Korea among others.
This strong entry shows that the change of date has made little impression on the desire to do the Rolex Fastnet Race: The start date was moved to Saturday, 3 August and for the first time it will be setting off before Lendy Cowes Week (rather than on the traditional Sunday immediately after it).
For the RORC’s Australian Racing Manager Chris Stone this is his first Rolex Fastnet entry day experience since taking up his position in Cowes a year ago: “It has been unbelievably busy. Before 1200 we had about 500 people who were all on standby, logged into their accounts, which was a good indicator about how busy it was going to be. Then we went straight to 340 and on to 440, including the waiting list.”
Among the entries is at least one 100-foot maxi while Stone reckons that one of the top fights in the race will potentially be between the six Cookson 50s.
It should be noted that with the Rolex Fastnet Race the RORC has led the way among the organizers of the world’s classic 600 milers in inviting other grand prix racing yacht classes to compete outside of the main IRC fleet. This has led to the race featuring some of the very best offshore racing hardware from yachts competing in the Volvo Ocean Race to the giant 100-foot long French Ultime multihulls and the IMOCA 60s of the Vendée Globe. For 2019, an especially strong line-up of Class 40s is anticipated. “We are expecting around another 50 boats – thirty Class 40s and twenty IMOCA boats,” Stone forecasts.
Meanwhile for the fleet, there remains the qualification process that will take place over the course of the 2019 season, with teams required to gain adequate miles and experience in order to meet the Rolex Fastnet Race’s stringent entry requirements. Competing yachts must complete more than 300 race miles with at least 50 percent of their Rolex Fastnet Race crew onboard.
