Well I got a second ride on the Fastnet, and picked quite a year for it. The boat was JEBA, the Benetau First 40.7 skippered by British-based Aussie John Nicholas. I sailed with them earlier in the year on the St. Helier race, but the Fastnet is a bigger fish - 608 miles long and with a bit of a reputation to live up to. There was a gale forecast and mutterings of the storm of '79, so the RORC delayed the start (from Cowes) by 25 hours just to be on the safe side.
We got away pretty well but had a bit of argy bargy crossing the line, and then nearly sailed the wrong side of Gurnard buoy - the first mark of the race, see picture.
After Portland Bill the first of the gales hit, probably up to Force 9 although our wind instruments were slightly suspect, and as we bashed across Lyme Bay, round Start point and along the south Devon & Cornwall coast, the majority of the fleet decided that enough was enough, and headed for the safety of Plymouth, Falmouth, or any other south coast port they could get into. We heard a few chatting with the coast guards on the VHF but had no idea of the scale of the exodus. There is a superb tracker programme on the official RORC site: http://fastnet.rorc.org/, which graphically shows the progress of all or any boat in the fleet, at any point in the race. The tracker is on URL: http://www.eventserver.co.uk/raceplayer/player.aspx?app=oce&event=50&typ=E You can select all the boats in the IRC1 class for example, and then watch 75% of the fleet into Plymouth the first time past!
Anyway we knew nothing of this carried on through sickness, hypothermia, waves over the bow, soggy underpants, etc. and made pretty reasonable progress to the Rock. We did better on the way back, timing our jibes well and sailing deeper then most, to pass one of our competitors and close on another.
Skipper John Nicholas
at "The Rock"
at "The Rock"Other points of interest included a whale collision at night, on the way back toward Bishop Rock, a dolphin escort for many hours, particularly once we turned down-wind. JEBA hit her all time record of 22 knots while surfing down some of those big Atlantic rollers, and of course the biggest high point of all - the rig didn't come down!
We finally made it into Plymouth at 1.30am on the Friday, an elapsed time of 85 hours 32:52, 24th overall on corrected time and 4th in IRC1. Of the original 300 starters only 51 finished. I have to thank my Sis Mary for coming out at 2am to pick me up after the race, so I could go back and sleep in a real bed, which was so very much appreciated!
JEBA rounding the Fastnet Rock.
