RORC centenary Rolex Fastnet Race - another record-sized fleet due?
by James Boyd / RORC 2 Jun 22:06 NZST
26 July 2025
Celebrating its centenary, the Royal Ocean Racing Club is set for another record-breaking Rolex Fastnet Race © Carlo Borlenghi / ROLEX
Less than two months now remain until the start of the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race, this year coinciding with the Royal Ocean Racing Club's centenary.
Another huge fleet has entered. While 2023's 50th edition of the event, that back in 1925 caused the RORC to be founded, saw a record 430 boats set sail, the 2025 entry list indicates that even this figure may be exceeded when the race starts from Cowes on 26 July, bound for Cherbourg-en-Cotentin via the famous Fastnet Rock off southwest Ireland.
Although some have yet to qualify and there will be inevitable attrition, at present 464 yachts are entered of which a record 407 are in the IRC fleet, compared with 358 IRC yachts from 430 starters in 2023. Currently, boats are registered from 33 countries, including Brazil, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Australia, New Zealand and Turkey, but with the majority from the UK (160) and France (130). Their crews are even more international, from 41 countries, including French Polynesia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe, with competitors ranging in age from 14 to 81.
The RORC's centenary year will see the return of the Admiral's Cup taking place for the first time since 2003. This series will begin with the Channel Race on 19 July, with the Rolex Fastnet Race as its conclusion. The RORC's revitalised grand prix yacht racing series looks set to be a considerable success: 15 yacht clubs from as far away as New Zealand and Australia are fielding two boat teams, with crews including world and Olympic champions, round the world racers and America's Cup winners. They are approaching the event with the same professionalism, commitment, resource and attention to detail that teams employed during the event's previous peak in the 1980s and 90s, with new boats having been built and optimised especially for the event.
The top prize for the Rolex Fastnet Race is the Fastnet Challenge Cup, awarded to the top boat in the IRC fleet. This may well go to one of the hotshot Admiral's Cuppers, but could go to any of the best sailed boats from across the fleet, for aside from being by far the world's largest offshore yacht race, the Rolex Fastnet Race is also by far the largest IRC event. Scratch boats are the 100 footers; Seng Huang Lee's SHK Scallywag (with an IRC TCC of 1.950) and Remon Vos' Black Jack 100 (1.947), but they will also be challenged by past line honours winner Joost Schuijff's Leopard 3 (1.793) and several former VO70s including Roy Disney's heavily turboed Pyewacket 70 (1.762) and Christian Zugel's Tschüss 2 (1.612).
The slowest yachts racing in IRC Four, where currently the lowest-rated is Gavin Lockhart-Miram's Contessa 32 Musketeer II (0.860), plus the yellow Westerly Fulmar 32 Fulmar Fever (0.873) campaigned by a team from the Dunmore East Sea School in Ireland (and a past competitor in 2017 and 2023) led by Robert Marchant. They are followed by two Sigma 33s, father and son duo Andy and Pelham Etherington's Magic Moments (0.897) and Andrew Laming's Falmouth-based Afrita (0.905).
One of the toughest competitions, carrying almost as much prestige as winning the Rolex Fastnet Race overall, is to top any of the race's seven principal IRC classes, ranging from the line honours contenders in IRC Super Zero to the slowest in IRC Four. Thanks to the IRC rating system, winners can be of any sizes. Over the last 25 years they have ranged in rating from at 0.913 - Iromiguy, Jean-Yves Chateau's Nicholson 33 winner in 2005 - to 1.627 - the Askew brothers' turboed VO70 Wizard in 2019. Over this period four 70-something footers have won the Fastnet Challenge Cup and five 30-something footers.
Equally important are the many 'races-with-a-race' that go on between the one designs and other genres taking part in IRC Two, Three and Four. The largest of these is the JPK 1010 fleet of which there are currently 18 entered - father and son doublehanded Pascal and Alexis Loison famously having won the 2013 Rolex Fastnet Race overall aboard theirs, Night and Day. Also entered are 17 examples of the newer JPK 1030, including Foggy Dew of Noel Racine, whose previous JPK 1010 and 960 have won class four times. There are also 17 First 40s, 16 Sun Fast 3600s and 3200s, 15 Sun Fast 3300 and 10 J/109s, all enjoying some of the most competitive racing across the fleet.
Beyond the IRC fleet are the high profile French 'pro' classes including the fastest multihulls in the world - the Ultim 32/23 trimarans, which this year will feature Banque Populaire, skippered by Armel le Cléac'h and Thomas Coville's Sodebo.
The IMOCA flying monohulls of the Vendée Globe and Ocean Race are well represented with a line-up including Jeremie Beyou's Charal, which finished fourth in last year's Vendée Globe and Teamwork-Team SNEF of Switzerland's Justine Mettraux, who was the top female finisher, having come home eighth. While the two MOD70s Argo and Zoulou are racing in the broader MOCRA multihull class, the Ocean 50 trimarans have their own class with five presently entered, while there is a strong turn-out of 21 boats in the ever-popular Class40.
List of Entries
For further information, please go to the race website: rolexfastnetrace.com