2025 Fastnet forecast for ‘350-mile windward-leeward’ race: Conrad Humpheys walks the course

Fair conditions forecast for the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race, with a beat to the Rock followed by a run back to Cherbourg. Ocean racer and navigator Conrad Humphreys walks the course

In sharp contrast to the dramatic conditions which saw the 2023 and 2021 fleets decimated by retirements and damage, the 3,000-plus crews sailing 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race look set to enjoy fair, largely stable conditions.

With a large high pressure system over the Azores controlling the weather systems for the next five days, the 695-mile race course looks set to become a beat to the Rock, and a run back – potentially with a bit of reaching along the English south coast and Normandy shores at the beginning and end.

Adrian Stead, tactician on last year’s winner Caro, described it as a “350-mile windward-leeward race.”

Upwind Fastnet start

In other words a relatively ‘easy’ race – albeit a 350-mile beat to Ireland could certainly be mentally taxing. Wind speeds are expected to be mostly 8-16 knots, with max guests around 20 knots for most of the fleet, and wave heights no more than 1-1.5m in the Celtic Sea.

Brian Thompson, who is on the MOD70 Argo, added: “This year’s Fastnet could be a real classic. It’s going to be a real race, rather than a survival test.”

The high pressure system will generate a north-westerly offshore, which becomes a westerly in the Channel and Solent for the start. There’s a little bit of disagreement in the models on how strong that breeze will be, but from Tuesday the high becomes more powerful and conditions more stable. Any boats sailing back from the Rock by then could enjoy a fast, pleasant ride to Land’s End.

The Celtic Sea is expected to be benign for the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race. Photo Kurt Arrigo/Rolex

Fastnet 2025 forecast

Conrad Humphreys, who is navigating on Hound, a stunning Aage Nielsen/Abeking-Rasmussen sloop from the 1970s, talked us through the course.

“Twenty-four hours from the start, and the weather is looking pretty stable for the race. We’ve got this dominant high pressure ridge that’s sitting just off into the Atlantic, producing a really kind of steady north-westerly air stream. That’s going to be sort of the main focus of the race, certainly out to the Fastnet Rock.

“Moring of the start the breeze is more in the south-west, so it’s going to be a beat out of the Solent, and down through Hurst Castle, obviously with a little bit of current underneath us.

And, we’re expecting 15 knots of wind. We’re likely to be on the J3. We might still be on the Genoa. But then as we sail across St Alban’s, down towards Portland, we’re going to try and obviously be on the favored tack, maximise the tide and the flow to Portland.

“It’s a little bit questionable whether we’ll get there in time before the tide turns. But around about that time, as we come into Lyme Bay, we’ll start to see this wind come round to the northwest.

“And behind this little front we should see some quite reasonable pressure. I’m expecting up to 20 knots, which is going to be fantastic.

“We’ll just sail down the rhumbline towards Start Point, across past Plymouth – past home! – down to the Lizard.

“And then when we get to Runnel Stone, which is kind of the first day really, we’ll be there in the early hours of the morning.

“The next second stage is really setting up for the Isles of Scilly, the TSSs off the Land’s End, and making sure that we tackle those well. That we’re on the right side of those TSSs and play the shifts – it’s going to be it’s going to be a beat out to the Rock.”

Downwind from the Rock

“Then rounding the Fastnet Rock, the breeze remains in that sort of north-west air stream. So it’s going to be downwind back to Bishop Rock at the Scillies. And then obviously playing the tidal influences.

“There’s a little bit of sort of diurnal shifts between the winds. So we might see the wind during the day a little bit more in the west, and at night perhaps a little bit more in the north-west, and just getting those shifts right.

“And then, of course, the last leg – which is arguably the most tricky, and certainly will be tricky for us because the breeze looks to be lightening on that final leg. Very strong currents as we close in on the Channel Islands and Cherbourg. Some of the strongest tides, Spring tides, of the year.

“And that obviously is going to be a roll of the dice towards the end.

“So, overall, a pretty steady, stable race tactically. Not too challenging, but it’s a boat speed race. And, we’ve all got to be sailing as well as we possibly can.”

 

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