Are you ready for the Fastnet? Your guide to Fastnet Race prep

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Fastnet Race. Yet every edition still throws up some surprises. To avoid being caught out, what can every crew do to prepare?

Summer came early this year, with much of northern Europe basking under stable, warm conditions throughout April and May that brought predictably light winds and sunny, dry days. The balmy period finally broke, in typical British fashion, just before the second May Bank Holiday.

Significantly, this makes 2025 the third season in a row ahead of the biennial Rolex Fastnet Race when many competitors likely completed early training miles or qualifying races in predominantly light conditions. And while we can’t yet guess what the wind gods will serve up for the Fastnet Race start on July 26, the last two races have seen 30+ knot winds in the first 24 hours.

The 2023 Rolex Fastnet Race was particularly testing, with one yacht sunk, a man overboard (all crew safely recovered), multiple dismastings and dozens of retirements all before the fleet had even left the Solent.

Over the first night in the last race, conditions deteriorated further, with winds gusting to over 40 knots and a sharp sea of over 4m and waves peaking at 7m. Most of the fleet experienced at least one additional battering later on, with multiple fronts sweeping the racecourse.

Following the race, organisers RORC conducted an internal review. Steve Cole, RORC’s racing manager, explains: “Surveys were taken from boats that took part and then retired or suffered damage. RORC also met with HM Coastguard and other agencies to determine any particular issues that arose from the race.”

Additionally, RORC held two very informative panel evenings with skippers and navigators from competing yachts across the fleets, sharing their learnings from the 2023 race (we highly recommend watching them at youtube.com/@RORCRacing). We’ve distilled some takeaways from the review and skippers’ discussions that any boat preparing for a Rolex Fastnet Race – or any longer offshore – should consider:

Train for the worst

The key point that came out of 2023 was to make sure you have trained in all conditions.

Cole says: “Although the training and mileage qualifications did not change [for 2025], we encourage boats to sail in race conditions for at least 6-8 hours between sunset and sunrise. By race conditions, we mean a watch system operating, and at night.

“In the eventuality of the qualifying races being light wind events, take the boat out in windy conditions and practice reefing, man overboard and emergency drills. Make sure that if the skipper is incapacitated in any way, that everyone else knows where safety gear is kept, and the process for asking for assistance.”

His advice was echoed by competitors during the panel discussions. Henry Foster, who skippered the Sun Fast 3600 Fujitsu British Soldier, commented: “The build up to the Fastnet often lulls us into a false sense of security – we do too many light races and the Fastnet seems to serve up a kicking in the first 24 hours and we learn the same lessons over and again.”

If you feel you’re lacking time in some conditions or on particular angles of sail, it can be worthwhile deliberately seeking them out. The 2023 IRC overall Fastnet winners Caro (a Botin 52) practised the opening section all the way out to the Fairway Buoy on the Wednesday before the race start, with similar current and in 25 knots, in order to ensure that they were acclimatised to the expected forecast.

Plan your decisions

The Fastnet is a race determined by tidal gates and tactical choices. Delving into each one of the 695-mile race would be a full feature in itself (do check out winning navigator Tom Cheney’s excellent Fastnet Race guide), but the critical thing is to understand when each decision is coming up, to have a plan for them going into the race, and to understand how changing conditions will affect that plan.

“It’s the sea state that gets you rather than the wind, so it’s about how we positioned for the various tidal races along that coastline [Isle of Wight to Lands’s End] , which are significant, and the impact they can have on the sea state,” explained Jack Trigger, navigator on the Carkeek 45 Ino Noir in the big boat panel discussion. “You don’t always know what the sea state’s going to do tack to tack: you don’t know until you get out there if one tack is going to be significantly better than the other.”

One of the first decisions was whether to go inshore or offshore at Hurst Castle. In 2023 there was stronger tide offshore, offering some gains, but at the cost of a bigger chop that was difficult to helm and harder on the crew.

The next big decision was whether to go in or out at Portland Bill. Some boats, such as the double-handed team of Chris and Justin Wolfe on the Sun Fast 3300 Red Ruby made significant gains by going far inshore.

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“Knowing these gates were going to be out there, every minute counted from the start,” recalled Justin. Though Chris added: “It was a huge relief to get around Portland Bill – everything leading into it was just a washing machine.”

For other boats the inshore gains weren’t worth the risk. Ben Palmer, who took part in his first Fastnet in 2023 on the double-handed Sun Fast 3200 Surf, was initially planning to take the inshore route, but didn’t feel confident in the dark and swelly conditions. “I’d like to do it at 15 knots in the middle of the day before doing it in 35 knots at night!” he explained.

Besides knowing when the tide turns at each headland – and whether it’s safe to cheat the tide, where shallows/rocks are etc – it’s worth calculating the risk of taking the north or south route at the TSS splits. If there’s a significant shift, what are the likely benefits or costs? A good way to analyse this is to re-run the YB tracker data from the previous races (see rorc.org) for each fleet.

Know your heavy-weather sails

Though shaking out or putting in a reef is a core skill any crew needs, Solent traffic and pre-race nerves mean the pre-start often isn’t the easiest point to be making final sail selections. RORC commodore and double-handed racer Deb Fish noted during the panel discussion: “If you’ve got a rough, windy start you know you can prepare the sails in the harbour, you can put the reefs in before you leave the dock, and that makes life so much easier.”

Exactly what combination of sails and reefs to opt for will depend on your boat, sail wardrobe, and crew – but any boat needs to be prepared to handle gales. That might involve adding a third reef, or having a dedicated headsail.

Following the RORC review, the Offshore Special Regulations (which apply to the Fastnet Race as a Cat 2 race) were amended in 2024 to improve the safety of storm sails, particularly on modern designs which carry staysails.

The new regulations ensure any storm or orange sails can handle a Force 8 storm, and are made from suitably robust and brightly coloured materials.

Whether you consider your orange sails part of your racing wardrobe is up to you. Tim Goodhew, who sails the Sun Fast 3200 Cora double-handed, commented: “If we’re using a tri-sail it’s to go somewhere safe, and we’ve probably given up racing by that point!”

The key is to know your worst case scenario set up as well as your preferred fastest sail combinations. Ben Palmer said: “My main lesson is going out in 20 knots and practising your heavy weather set up. What sail plan are you going to use in 30 knots? Go and feel the balance of that.”

Foster, who sails British Soldier fully crewed, recalls: “When we decided we were going with one reef and J3 we knew the set up was bulletproof because we’d put a lot of time into getting to know what mode we needed to sail.”

Prepare for damage

No boat or sail will ever be truly bulletproof, but knowing likely points of failure can help prevent them becoming race-ending. Cora suffered two snapped reefing lines, though Palmer was able to rethread them. Then he realised Cora’s radial panel mainsail wasn’t holding load at the second reef point and was splitting.

“Luckily we’d brought a lot of 1x3m heavy duty Dacron tape,” he recalls. Having patched the sail with tape, it held for the rest of the race.

Henry Foster learnt the hard way that slamming in waves can pull a smaller jib out of its headstay slot.

“On British Solider we find the angle of our jib halyard against our Tuffluff and forestay is pulling the head out of the top, and when we slammed twice coming out of the Needles Channel last [Fastnet] the whole sail blew out.

“By putting a soft shackle around the top it stops the shock loading. It means we have to change sails bare-headed, but we figure if we’re on the J3 and we know it’s going to be heavy seas then the loss of the jib blowing out is potentially race ending, whereas the loss of bare headed through a peel is not much.”

Steve Cole says other things to prepare for worst-case conditions include making sure crew on deck can hear the VHF radio (and to have Ch16 turned up loud in windy conditions). “We’d encourage owners to consider installing a cockpit speaker, especially if double-handed,” he suggests.

He advises carrying spare gas canisters for re-arming lifejackets that may have auto-inflated on board, and to: “Make sure lifejackets that have personal AIS attached are not put in a place that will get wet and activate the AIS. There were a lot of false alarms in 2023.”

Additionally: “Make sure the boat VHF/AIS system is functioning properly, especially when it is the same cable, and make sure the contact details entered into your system are correct and that phones are switched on and charged.”

Another recommendation RORC made to the OSR guidelines included a review of the 200 lt/min rule on emergency pumps to make the rule more relative to boat length, so skippers may want to consider what onboard pump capacity they have.

Avoid untested kit

Just like running a marathon, don’t rely on untried new gear. On board British Soldier a new laptop proved not to be water-resistant enough. “When it got absolutely soaking we lost the ability to charge it, and with it our ability to download GRIBs and replan packed up by Lands End,” explained Foster. “The first section of our race was planned and executed but as our understanding of the weather degraded we made worse choices and resorted to sailing short distances.”

Many boats had water come in through the companionway, or leaking hatches, and suffered electronics issues as a result. It’s worth checking washboards and seals, adding waterproofing if needed.

Heads up in the calms

Though most of the 2023 fleet saw at least two periods of strong weather conditions, there were also periods of calm. Maintaining crew morale – particularly after a punishing start – can be tricky, but crews should never give up.

“The compressions were soul-destroying,” said Foster. “It’s hard to keep the guys’ heads up and know it’s a 600-mile race, there’s opportunities the whole way through. With three fronts rolling through, the race wasn’t over until Cherbourg.”

Size down

Sometimes a conservative choice can pay. Red Ruby’s Justin Wolfe recalls they had a fast reaching leg on the return from Fastnet Rock.

“We’d made the decision early that we weren’t going to carry the A4 kite when it got dark. That gave us the freedom that we didn’t have to sail high with the spinnaker, because we knew we were going to take the kite down anyway and jib reach. It took the pressure off, so we could sail a bit lower and faster, and probably didn’t wipe out as much!

“When we took the kite down and put up the jib, it was pitch black, raining sideways, you couldn’t see the bow of the boat – the people that hand-steered, hats off that you even made it to France!

“You couldn’t see anything, couldn’t see the waves. So we turned on our autopilot, set it on a compass setting, and sat there and just watched.”

Sailing the direct line course under autopilot and jib paid off and Red Ruby gained 4-5 miles overnight.

“When we took the kite down we thought we were being conservative but we were not racing to win anymore, we were just trying to get through the night. But we might have actually been accidentally smart in having the right sail plan for the conditions.”

Preserve the crew

The Rolex Fastnet Race is the longest endurance test many crews will take part in. In 2023 conditions meant you needed a crew that was still fresh enough to be able to fly a spinnaker in 25 knots for the last 100 miles of the 700-mile race (see panel, right, for more).

Though many a Fastnet has been lost in the first 24 hours, the race can often be won in the final miles.

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