Sunday 18th June: The Fastnet Race

This is a big race in the calendar, although you wouldn’t guess so from the makeshift banner on the quay strung between two rubbish skips,

It’s an ocean race around the Fastnet lighthouse at the tip of Southern Ireland. I thought originally that the  description “Mini” meant that the  race would be around a tiny Fastnet lighthouse, as opposed to the full size one. However, it refers to the restriction on the length of the competitors sailboats: no more than 6.5 metres; that’s apparently small by ocean racing standards. There are 56 craft with two crew to each.

This is the forest of masts the day before the race.

This is what 6.5 metre yachts look like close up.There’s a crew member on board the middle one for scale. No restriction on width, though, so my competition yacht would need to be 6.5 metres long by 15 metres wide. 

There is frantic activity. Items being stowed, sails being checked and running repairs. This guy’s in a frogman suit fixing the rudder. Can’t have the boat going round in circles.

Another boat is on it’s side for repair- but still in the water! The craft look like small lifeboats, so I guess there’s no danger of them sinking.

We’re down at the pleasure port, Treboul, the next day, to see the start of the race. There’s hardly any wind in the port so each boat is towed out to the starting point a mile or so off shore. Here they go past the harbour entrance.

Meantime, we’ve found a little bay round the corner from the breakwater where we can eat our picnic and watch the competitors emerging under tow into the open sea.

 It takes a couple of hours to tow out all 56 boats, so we have plenty of time to eat and get up to our viewpoint on the top of the cliff to watch the 3:00 pm start. They stream out steadily and mill around over a wide area in the bay. Some other yachts sail out too, for instance this handsome older vessel with the brown sails. You can see the race competitors in the background.

A schooner on the far side carries the race officials and the starter. It’s getting towards 3:00 pm and you wonder how they’ll manage to assemble the participants into some sort of starting line; they are all over the place. Miraculously, as it approaches 3:00, they all seem to bunch together, as this long distance shot shows. That’s seamanship!

In most races, when the gun goes off, the competitors zoom away from the start line and jostle for position. In sailing, the gun (hooter, actually) goes off- and nothing happens. Then, ever so gradually and gracefully, the yachts form a line and head for the open sea in a most orderly fashion.

I’m sure it can’t be this gentlemanly all the way, and there has to be a drive to win as in all top level sports. Presumably, they’re monitored by satellite so that one doesn’t cut a corner by not rounding the lighthouse, or another rendezvous with a pal who gives a tow in his high powered speedboat.

But seriously, these are highly professional sailors, and whereas today the sea is a millpond, it can quickly change into a raging storm which they will need to sail through. I’ll stick to a punt on the river Cam, thanks.