Transat 6.50 Dominik Lenk 2013

2009 Rolex Fastnet Race Report

Posted Aug 16, 01:13 AM · 0 Comments

After Cowes Week, I joined Nick Gale and his Sigma 38 “Zanzara” for the 2009 Rolex Fastnet. This 608 mile long race leads from the Royal Yacht Squadron startline in Cowes around the Fastnet Rock in front of Ireland to Plymouth.

Trouble started early when the skippers car broke down on the morning of the start, so we cut out the pep talk and sailed straight through the security gate and over the start line.

After a photo worthy spinnaker start near the island shore, the wind quickly died and we were left drifting on the tide towards the Needles. Yet, unlike some other boats we managed to keep our bow pointed in the right direction and were flapping our way forward.

Towards the evening it quickly became evident that we would not make the tidal gate at Portland Bill, we started heading for shore to catch a tidal eddy around the headland. We must have been within a hundred meters of land at this point and it paid: Sometime during the night we were leading IRC3a, so spirits were up.

The previous watch had spent considerable time drifting, however, as soon as I started mine the wind filled in. One needs to have some luck!

When Nick came up on deck to check on our progress, I remarked that I was not able to steer as high to the wind as the lights in front of us. His response: “That’s one of the Open60s. Don’t try.” (Apparently, they had a bit of a fuckup with the tide and were now slowly climbing their way back up from the slower fleets.)

From there on the race turned into a game of Snakes and Ladders with Persephone of London and With Alacrity, two other Sigma 38s. This continued all the way to the the Fastnet Rock, which we rounded first by a margin of only two miles. With half the race still to go, things would be tight.

After having seen the bottom of Fastnet Rock (we heard the top) the entire crew set up for an inshore style bear away hoist of the spinnaker around the spreader mark. It was a shame that there was nobody around to see it. (The Irish Sea is a pretty desolate place anyway—hoping for spectators was maybe a bit much to ask.)

The wind proceeded to die. Resuscitation did not work. We were sitting on a massive mirror.

Once we punched our way through a front about 6 hours later we proceeded to sail upwind to the Isles of Scilly. Upwind under Spinnaker. It worked quite well, really.

After rounding the Scillies we bore away a little bit. Good boatspeed with the help of less wind for our competitors, slowly but surely produced a nice little gap between them and us.

Before long we were contemplating on the after-party in Plymouth and generally being quite happy about having out-sailed the other Sigma 38s.

For the last hour or three, we kept having to remind ourselves that the race was not yet over. However, once in Plymouth the party did end up being quite good. And I do hear that the skipper was quite smug for a while about having won his class in the Fastnet. So was I, as a matter of fact!

For more pictures head over to the media section and find the event “Rolex Fastnet 2009”. Unfortunately my camera died sometime on the first day, so the amount of pictures is severely limited.

A much more detailed skippers report can be found here.