Rolex Fastnet 2003 - Bull’s Jazz wins Class Zero
August 14, 2003

The Rolex Fastnet Race has seen a flurry of new finishers arriving in Plymouth all day. A total of 40 boats have now finished the course and the last boat round the Fastnet Rock. The victors of Class Super Zero and Zero have been determined and the overall Rolex Fastnet winner is almost certainly going to be Charles Dunstone’s Maxi Nokia who finished nearly two days ago.

The fleet still at sea is now enjoying the steadiest winds of the race so far with 10-18 knots Easterlies blowing right across the Celtic Sea and the Western Approaches.

Open 60 Class
All five boats have now finished, the final three crossing the Plymouth finish line in close formation with Dominique Wavre’s Chaman 3 beating Mike Golding’s Ecover and Nick Maloney’s Skandia Set Sail.

Class Super Zero
Although the two line honours contenders stole much of the limelight yesterday afternoon, the real glory for Class Super Zero has gone to Charles Dunstone’s Nokia that finished in Plymouth just over two hours later, under a shower of fireworks – Plymouth is also hosting the UK National Fireworks Championship this week. The slightly smaller 76-foot Reichel/Pugh designed Maxi skippered by David Bedford and navigated by Jules Salter, won class by more than six hours on corrected time. Dunstone’s grey hulled boat is also now a serious contender for overall honours in the IRC category. Several boats are still theoretically able to beat the British boat, but realistically will be unable to get near the finish line before their corrected time advantage runs out.

Class Zero
Winner of the 2001 Rolex Fastnet Race was Dutchman Piet Vroon sailing his boat Tonnerre of Breskens. This year Vroon was back to sail his 20th Fastnet and although he won line honours in class his boat didn’t perform as well in the light airs of this year’s race. Class Zero was left to smaller boats this year and Chris Bull’s J-145 Jazz crossed the finish line in Plymouth at 01:02 this morning to take Class Zero honours from sistership Roxy 9 owned by Robert Davies. Jazz had lead Roxy by more than three hours at the Fastnet Rock, but was held up just past the Bishop Rock Lighthouse in foul tide and no wind for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon. The white-hulled J Boat was forced to anchor twice in 75 metres of water just to the East of the Scilly Isles but with all crew grinding the anchor and chain up from the sea bed each time, Bull managed to stay in control all the way back to Plymouth.

Class One
The Dutch boat Holmatro lead the fleet at the Fastnet Rock by four and a half hours. By the time the Grand Soleil 44 had reached the finish line this had grown significantly. By the time the first boat was home the rest of the class One fleet were dealing with upwind conditions with winds from East.

Class Two
Jeronimo still appears to be leading the largest class, the 75-strong Class Two fleet. Jonathan and Lisa Gorings J-105 rounded the Bishop Rock Lighthouse at 05:40 this morning and had Easterly winds to help them sail the last 96 miles to the finish in Plymouth.

Class Three
The last boat in Class Three Garath Davis’ Contessa 32 Kalimari, rounded the Fastnet Rock at 13:10 today. The rest of Class Three appear to be all between the Fastnet and the Bishop Rock Ligthouses. The Easterly winds will be making progress steady but relatively slow as the fleet works to windward in the building seas.

Multihull Class
Tony Bullimore brought his 100-foot monster cat Team Pimsic into Plymouth at 22:46 last night, Ross Hobson’s much smaller Mollymawk crossed the line just four hours later.

The Easterly winds are forecast to freshen to between 15-20 knots over the next 18 hours which will mean that most of the fleet should have finished by this time tomorrow in time for the Rolex Fastnet Race prizegiving, to be held at the Royal Citadel in Plymouth at 17:00 Friday.

Rolex Fastnet Race – Day Five

Quotes:

“I’ve done six Fastnets before, but this is my best result. It was really enjoyable, comfortable. We were never wet or cold. It was an intellectual challenge with the light conditions. That is the sort of racing I like.”

“The chance of overall victory went at Portland Bill. Normally at least a third of the fleet makes it past Portland on the first tide. But with the light conditions across Poole Bay on Sunday only a few of the Maxis actually made it. From that point on it was obvious to me that the overall winner would come from that group.”

“I would never sail a tactical race with other boats in the Rolex Fastnet Race. Often we had a situation where there were competitors in our class that we could have covered but chose not to. Getting to the finish quickly was more important.” – Chris Bull, owner/skipper of J-145 Jazz, Class Zero winner, collects the West Mersea YC Trophy and sixth overall in IRC.

“The light airs requires huge amounts of concentration. We anchored for four hours at Anvil Point. By the time we got to Lands End we were in second place on the water. We chose to take a Southerly route along to the Rock and avoid the centre of the High. This worked well and we knew we were in good shape at the Rock. On the leg home we sailed 20 miles South of the rumb line. We had no weather fax on board so everything was based on strategy
developed before the start.” – Peter Tans, navigator on board Grand
Soleil 44, first Class One winner, collects the Trophy.

“If you were to pick a Rolex Fastnet Race you’d have picked this one. We were lucky, it was relatively easy, not cold and not wet.” – Ben Wood, crewmember on boar Chris Little’s Corel 45 Bounder, 6th in Class Zero.

“There was nothing difficult about this Rolex Fastnet Race. There wasn’t much in the way of tactics either. Our boat prefers a bit more wind, but we made the best of the circumstances and finished 15th out of 244, so that’s not too bad.” – Piet Vroon, owner/skipper of Tonnerre de Breskens, 9th in Class Zero.

... official site Rolex Fastnet Race