Can a maxi yacht achieve the Rolex Fastnet Race triple?
by James Boyd / RORC 26 Jun 06:41 AEST
26 July 2025
Seng Huang Lee's 100ft maxi SHK Scallywag © Kurt Arrigo / Rolex
The fight to claim the prestigious monohull line honours prize in the centenary edition of the Royal Ocean Racing Club's Rolex Fastnet Race is lining up to be a tough one between the world's fastest 100ft maxi yachts.
The winner of the Erivale Trophy for monohull line honours will follow a long line of the most significant offshore racing yachts of all time, such as Rambler 88, Comanche, ICAP Leopard 3, Alfa Romeo, Stealth, Steinlager 2, Congere, Nirvana, Condor, American Eagle, Gitana IV, Stormvogel, Latifa, among many others.
The principal fight this year will be between the two evenly matched former Rolex Sydney Hobart 100ft line honours rivals Black Jack 100 of Ramon Vos and Seng Huang Lee's SHK Scallywag. Black Jack 100 was originally launched in 2005 as Neville Crichton's Alfa Romeo II, but as Igor Simcic's Esimit Europa II won Rolex Fastnet Race line honours in 2013.
SHK Scallywag was formerly Ragamuffin 100, launched in 2015, the last offshore yacht to be campaigned by the late great Australian Syd Fischer, the overall Fastnet Race winner back in 1971. In fact, her foredeck and some frames have past form, salvaged from her predecessor Investec Loyal, which in her original guise as Maximus won Rolex Fastnet Race line honours in 2005. When the two lined up in last autumn's Rolex Middle Sea Race a close match race ensued with SHK Scallywag ultimately first home, 18 minutes ahead of her rival. SHK Scallywag recently continued her line honours conquests in the Loro Piana Giraglia.
Black Jack 100 comes from a full nut and bolt refit in Italy, explains skipper/project manager Tristan le Brun: "We've done a full overhaul of all systems - it was a bare boat, everything was in pieces: The keel ram went back to Australia, all the hydraulics and all electronics, all winches back to Harken, full paintjob, full NDT of the boat, full check of the rig. We've replaced all the moving parts." The refit has also seen the sail plan revised with the mainsail reduced and foretriangle enlarged and its geometry changed which has required a full new sail inventory.
For this season Black Jack 100 has many new crew on board, including much up and coming talent such as French Olympic 470 sailor Sofian Bouvet and with many former Ocean Race sailors, including navigator Max Dekkers. Her new crew is getting race fit competing in this weekend's Gotland Runt in Sweden.
Joost and Laura Schuijff's Leopard 3 knows the Rolex Fastnet Race very well being one of the few double line honours winners (alongside Rambler 88, Nirvana, Condor, American Eagle, Latifa and Jolie Brise) under original owner Mike Slade. This is her first time back since 2015. While a decade ago she was in cruising trim, since being acquired by her present Dutch owners she has been heavily refitted, surpassing even her original race configuration. Last year beat she stiff competition to win the Rolex IMA Maxi 1 World Championship in Porto Cervo.
"We had a new rig and a new sail package and we reduced the weight of the boat by 10 tonnes - we are now a shade over 40," says long term skipper Chris Sherlock of Leopard 3's last major refit. "For Joost and Laura Schuijff it is one of their bucket list events. They haven't done the Rolex Fastnet Race. We will do the St Malo race as a precursor." Among the crew this season is once again Aussie cat guru Mitch Booth and as strategist, double Olympic Laser gold medallist Matt Wearn.
As to lining up with the other 100s, Leopard 3 can hold her own upwind and reaching but downwind and in light air "they're gone," says Sherlock, "they are fully pressed in 18-19 knots. 19-25 knot is probably good for us, plus we know our boat and have got the rags for it."
If it is a breezy reaching race, the former Volvo Ocean Race boats, comprising five VO70s and the VO65 Sisi, may be in the line honours hunt, but will also be strongly looking to win IRC SZ for the Gesture Trophy. Favourite is Christian Zugel's Tschüss 2, one of the most successful offshore race boats of all time: Originally as Franck Cammas' Groupama 70, she won 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race. Subsequently renamed Wizard, in the hands of the American Askew brothers she cleaned up in 2019, winning the RORC Caribbean 600, the Transatlantic Race from Newport to Cowes and the Rolex Fastnet Race overall. Under Zugel she has enjoyed similarly unbridled success. This year Tschüss 2 has the same program as Wizard in 2019. She has already won the RORC Caribbean 600 outright and at the time of writing was leading the Transatlantic Race. Could Zugel's team repeat Wizard's record?
All the way from California is Roy P Disney's Pyewacket 70. Aside from being the Hollywood cartoon doyennes (he is grand-nephew of Walt), Roy P and his father Roy E were enthusiastic sailors whose name, and that of their Pyewacket yachts, is strongly associated with the Transpac, which Roy E entered 15 times, setting a new race record aboard his Santa Cruz 70 ULBD in 1999.
Pyewacket 70 was originally the 2011 vintage Telefonica. Subsequently as Black Jack she was heavily turboed with 3m added to her rig, her bowsprit lengthened, forestay moved forwards, keel deepened to 5m, her bulb lightened and water ballast added. Unsurprisingly her IRC TCC is substantial - 1.762, compared to Tschüss 2's 1.615. Pyewacket 70 won both RORC Caribbean 600 line honours and overall in 2023.
Also competing is the former Irish VO70 Green Dragon, back under skipper Johannes Schwarz, with a largely Chinese crew including London 2012 Laser Radial gold medallist Lijia Xu. Ocean Breeze, the former Telefonica Blue, is being campaigned by a mostly Swiss crew, led by Benedikt Clauberg. Kosatka from the 2008/09 race is now Cockatoo, skippered by Charlie Warhurst and racing as 'Dare to Race' with several crewmates from the 2023/24 Clipper Round the World Race yacht 'Dare to Lead'.
At present the monohull race record stands at 2 days 7 hours 16 minutes 26 seconds, set in the last race by Charlie Dalin's IMOCA MACIF. This represented an average speed of 12.57 knots for the 695 mile course into Cherbourg, slightly short of the 14 knot average Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing's VO70 set on the race's old course to Plymouth in the breezy 2011 edition.
Then there is the thrilling prospect of whether it is possible to achieve 'the double' (line and IRC overall honours) or even 'the triple' (line and IRC honours, plus race record). The last to achieve the former was Ludde Ingvall's maxi Nicorette, which, in 1995, won both the race's IMS and CHS overall prizes (at the time the race was triple-scored under IOR, IMS and CHS) and line honours. Effectively no one has ever achieved the triple, aside from Jolie Brise when in 1925, under the RORC's future first Commodore Lt Cdr EG Martin, she won the first Fastnet Race in a leisurely 6 days 2 hours 45 minutes.
For further information, please go to the race website: rolexfastnetrace.com
List of IRC Super Zero entries here