Since then Colette and I have moved to Cowes to reduce the amount of commuting I'm doing to go racing. Its been a good year on the water on both Brevity the Swan CS42 I'm pit on, and Philosophie IV the Beneteau 40.7 I do trim on. Recent results have been a class win during Cowes week on Philosophie IV, 1st in IRC 1 in the RORC offshore channel race on Brevity and becoming national champions in the 40.7 Nationals.
I digress this blog is about the Fastnet and last time I posted it was August 2007 after we'd failed to complete the course with a mainsail failure off the Eddystone in 40+ knot gusts in the 24 hr delayed event.
So in 2011 I was on the start line on Brevity with a great crew who have sailed a lot together this season and who know we can do well given the right weather. This last point is noteworthy, CS4242's do well in sub 20kn conditions particulary sub 10kn where we can be at hull speed whereas others in IRC 1 are struggling.
On 14th August conditions looked favourable with some light southwesterlies to begin with becoming northerly as a blustery trough blew across the fleet in the Celtic sea.
We started at 1230 in the IRC1 fleet and were ahead of Baraka GP another CS42 most of the way to the needles. At this point the fleet split with bigger boats favouring an offshore line, whilst the smaller boats chose to stay in the favorable tide (and rough overfalls) off St Albans head and Anvil point. Initilall we planned tob take an inside route through the race at Portland but the wind shifted putting us on a layline for start point out of the worst of the tide in the race. By this time Baraka had got quite a long way ahead, our last view of them being as the sunset approaching the light at Start.
We initially started to run a 3hr off, 3hr standby, 3hr on watch, but this changed to 2hr periods which worked well. As the sun rose on Monday we were passing the Lizard and with the forecast suggesting a Northerly as we approached the Fastnet rock, we chose a westerly route from the Rhum line and started pounding into an increasingly lumpy sea with 10ft peak to trough rollers with chop on top. As the day progressed the wind increased from 16kn to 35kn and by early evening we had 1 reeef in the main and the no4 jib up whilst we reached across the Celtic Sea. we were seeing 8.5kn upwind, and by midnight we'd had to pull in a 2nd reef in the main as we saw 31kn spikes in the breeze with tough confused seas.
As Tuesdays morning sun burned through the greyness, the winds started to fall and swung to the North, leaving us a final beat to the rock. We passed in company with Moana and then cracked the sheets to fetch the Pantaenius spreader mark before hoisting the Assymetric A4 to head back for the Bishops rock. Glorious sailing conditions through the rest of the day and night had us pealing to the A3 arriving at the Scillies and Bishop Rock lighthouse around midday on Wednesday. Our hope was for a reach to Plymouth, approx 70nm away, but the weather gods were against us as the breeze swung to the East meaning we had to start a 14 hour beat to the finish. To starboard we could see Baraka meaning we'd recovered a huge deficit on the leg from the rock, and within 2 hours they crossed our bow heading towards the Lizard whilst we stood on offshore on port tack which proved to be an excellent decision as those boats which went in shore ended up in light breezes and foul tide. By 4pm we'd dropped the watch system in order that everyone could concentrate on hiking the boat for the last few hours to the finish. The Easterly brought some cold wind, so those not driving rotated along the rail eventually raising the Eddystone light at midnight. As we approached plymouth sound the tall cliffs made the wind more fluky and bringing some drizzle, but finally it was all over as 'Ocean 1', RORC's finishing line blew its horn at 05:54 on Thursday 18th August, in an elapsed time of 3 days, 17 hours and 24 minutes. In IRC 1 we came 15/47, and overall were 38/247 finishers.
So that was it, 4 years after I'd planned to complete a fastnet I eventually got round with a great team of friends and closed an open chapter at last :-) Guy Shelbourne 22nd August 2011
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