2025 Rolex Fastnet Race - winners return
by James Boyd / RORC 12 Feb 15:41 GMT
26 July 2025
Returning for a third attempt at the overall prize - Niklas Zennström's Rán after rounding the Fastnet Rock in 2009 © Kurt Arrigo / Rolex
For 2025, the Royal Ocean Racing Club celebrates both its own centenary and that of the Rolex Fastnet Race, the race upon which it was founded.
For this special edition, the RORC has reintroduced its once premier event, the Admiral's Cup. This has resonated strongly with many of the world's top yacht racing teams with the result that on the 26 July start day, the overall winners from seven of the last eight races will be on the line.
The Admiral's Cup has attracted two. Niklas Zennström won back-to-back Rolex Fastnet Races in 2009 and 2011 with his 72ft Mini Maxi Rán 2 and returns with his CF520 as part of the Baltic Team. Similarly Max Klink's 52ft Caro, the race's defending champion, will be representing the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. As Klink explains: "The Rolex Fastnet Race is the iconic offshore race in the world. The last edition proved its reputation. It might have been easier to close our story with the race on a high note, with an overall win, but the temptation of the new format Admiral's Cup made the decision inevitable to come back..."
With the race finishing again in Cherbourg, France as usual, will be well represented. Having broken with tradition and raced on a fully crewed boat in 2023, Cherbourg's own son, successful Figaro sailor Alexis Loison is returning to IRC Two Handed. He has previously won this class four times, on each occasion also coming out on top in IRC Three/Four, including 2013 when, with his father Pascal on the JPK 10.10 Night and Day, they won the race outright - to date the only doublehanders to achieve this. "The Rolex Fastnet Race is one of the most beautiful offshore races, because there are so many different boats and a lot of professional and Corinthian sailors," says Alexis. "When I was a child my father talked about this race all the time. It is the best offshore race..."
In 2019 Alexis won the class with Jean-Pierre Kelbert (JPK) on the then new 10.30 model Léon. This time they return on the latest JPK 10.50 model. Like other JPKs, this is a Jacques Valer design which Loison says is similar conceptually to Lann Ael 3. "It is a fast boat reaching and downwind - lighter than the last design." The boat will launch in March and Loison, who works for Incidences Voiles, says he is looking forward to developing her sail wardrobe.
The 2017 Rolex Fastnet Race was won by Didier Gaudoux's JND 39 Lann Ael 2. While on that occasion he raced fully crewed, Gaudoux has since started racing doublehanded and paired French designers Bernard Nivelt and Sam Manuard to create a special 35 footer for this purpose: Lann Ael 3. "It has renewed the pleasure in sailing for me," he explains. With Figaro sailor Erwan Tabarly (nephew of Eric), they have achieved great success, winning the 2023 IRC Two Handed Europeans and the Loro Piana Giraglia offshore race in 2024.
Gaudoux will be sailing his eighth Rolex Fastnet Race this year: "It is a really iconic race. Firstly there are so many boats and it is the most competitive fleet in the world, especially with the Admiral's Cup this year. The route is quite complex going to the Rock and back. You can have quite challenging conditions - two years ago the first night was tough. And you have the magic start in the Solent when you see all these boats."
No Rolex Fastnet Race would be complete without Géry Trentesaux, who won the 2015 race aboard his JPK 10.80 Courrier Du Leon. Trentesaux competed in his first Fastnet Race in 1977 and, incredibly, this will be his 18th and second aboard his Sydney GTS 43 Long Courrier, after she retired with mast problems in 2023. "We've repaired the mast which is more solid now. Last year we were quite fast," says Trentesaux.
Sailing with his Courrier regulars plus some youngsters, Trentesaux is focussing upon the RORC Season's Points Championship, culminating, for him, in the Rolex Fastnet Race. "It is the most beautiful race," explains Trentesaux. "There are around 400 boats and some of the best in the world. If you race the other classic offshore races, there have a maximum of 100. In the Fastnet you can have 60 boats in each class - that's what makes it the best race in the world."
While they have different crews, a few Fastnet Race-winning boats are returning in 2025. Wizard, the Askew brothers' turboed VO70 which won in 2019, is back as Christian Zugel's Tschüss 2. She is enjoying equal success having won last year's Gotland Runt and Roschier Baltic Sea Race and most recently the RORC Transatlantic Race.
A slightly more obscure story is that of Crusade, the boat which in 1969 officially finished second in the hands of Max Aitken, but which due to timing discrepancies some believed to be that year's rightful winner. She returns, chartered to a team from Lake Constance and the Gstaad Yacht Club led by its Sailing Officer, Dr. Daniel Heine. "It is one of the races I've never sailed and it is its Jubilee year," explains Heine, who usually races a classic 8mR but has also been ticking off the world's major offshore events including the W-E Transatlantic Race, Rolex Sydney Hobart, Middle Sea, etc. "Besides the W-E Transatlantic Race, it is the most iconic race - a total classic. I love England and we have good friends from the Royal Yacht Squadron so I think it is something you have to do."
Clearly more than 400 other teams think so too.
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