Rolex Fastnet Race: IRC One - Preview
by Andy Rice / RORC 4 Jul 11:43 PDT
26 July 2025
With 17 editions of the Rolex Fastnet Race to his name, including five class victories along the way and an outright victory in 2015, could anyone bet against Géry Trentesaux doing it again? There's no doubt his Long Courrier is one of the leading contenders for winning from the 81 yachts currently entered in IRC One.
Now in his late 60s, the formidable Frenchman was just 20 years old when he first took part in the Fastnet back in 1977 and he has been addicted ever since. All his boats have carried the name 'Courrier' somewhere in their title, in homage to Courrier Sud, a 1929 classic novel written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Trentesaux admits he obsesses about the Rolex Fastnet Race all year long and likes to shut himself away in Brittany the week before the start, just to think and contemplate the challenge ahead. It's a decade since Trentesaux skippered his JPK 10.80 Courrier du Leon to overall victory in the race. This year he is back with his Ker-designed Sydney GTS 43 after she sustained mast damage in the last race. Very much repaired, she's now topping the leaderboard both in IRC One and leading the RORC's Season's Points Championship. One of the high points of 2025 thus far came in the Myth of Malham Race when Long Courrier took IRC One and overall victory in a heinously rough passage from Cowes to the Eddystone Lighthouse and back.
One of Long Courrier's chief rivals will be another strong French boat with a great Fastnet pedigree: Jacques Pelletier's Milon 41 L'Ange De Milon, which won IRC One in 2019. Pelletier's Fastnet experience goes back even further than Trentesaux, having first taken part in 1973: "It was a small boat, and we completed the course in six days and six hours, something like that," he recalls, although he can't quite remember how many Fastnets he has raced in since then. It is certainly well into double figures.
Also to be watched is Eric Fries on the JPK 11.80 Fastwave 6, which was the UNCL's Atlantic championship winner in 2020 and 2022, and Xavier Bellouard's brand new Lombard-designed Lift 45 Maxitude built in Lymington, based on the Lombard Lift Class40 design.
Beyond the French legends there is plenty of international talent with podium potential. A JPK 11.80 with strong potential, but a chequered Fastnet history, is Dawn Treader. Could this be the year for Ed Bell and Mark Spearman to come good? This crew has long been the close friends and sparring partners of Tom Kneen's JPK 11.80 Sunrise, yet the 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race was the one that Sunrise won overall, while Dawn Treader suffered a dismasting following a collision soon after the start of that windy and wavy departure from Cowes. Subsequent consistent performances, including finishing 12th overall and third in class in 2023 still put this British entry as an IRC One favourite.
Over the years, Darkwood has not enjoyed the luck of the Irish, with a retirement in 2019 following rudder damage, and then a collision shortly after the start in 2021. But Michael O'Donnell is nothing if not persistent and 2025 is shaping up to be a good year for the J/121 from Ireland. Currently Darkwood lies third overall in IRC One in RORC's Season's Points Championship.
Under the father and son command of Andrew and Sam Hall, the Lombard 46 Pata Negra continues to turn in some excellent offshore performances. Twice competitors in the RORC Transatlantic Race, including a win in IRC One in 2023, the Halls are also lying second overall in IRC One at present.
Olympix is a Landmark 43 sailing under the Dutch flag with a strong racing pedigree and renewed ambition for 2025. Built in 2011 and acquired by current owner Hugo Gommers in 2024, this boat picks up where previous Olympix campaigns left off - continuing a Fastnet legacy that included entries in 2017 and 2019 aboard an X-Yachts X4.3. For 2025, the team is aiming for the top: "We're targeting a podium spot in IRC One," says crew member Alexander van der Torren. "And hopefully with a little less breeze than the previous two editions."
Also hoping for more benign conditions than recent years is the crew of Vasco, a Pogo 36 skippered by Bernard Fondrillon from La Trinité-sur-Mer. After a hard-to-swallow retirement in the 2023 race, the French crew is back with one clear mission: "First expectation is to complete the race," Fondrillon says. "In 2023 we abandoned after four days due to water ingress - it took months to digest. So, this time we want to round the Rock and finish. Then have fun and hopefully beat the other Pogos in the race."
Three other of the Finot-Conq designed Pogo 36s are competing: from France Guillaume Ferey's Izipizi, from Germany Henning Scheider and Nils Utesch's Fun4Nine, plus the UK's Greylag, skippered by Richard Hargreaves. Others in IRC One from the Pogo Structures yard, best known for its Class40 and Mini ocean racers are the 12.50s - the Lenoël family on Cléobulle and from Norway, Knut Berg-Jacobsen and round the world race sailor Espen Gottormsen on Wild One - plus the Pogo 44 cruiser Tostaky, with an Austrian crew skippered by Marc Schinerl.
Another Austrian crew has chartered the RM1270 Takari, describing themselves as a bunch of "mostly nerdy IT guys". Skipper Thomas Murlasits says they are taking an unorthodox approach to sailing the boat, with the focus more on having fun than all-out performance. "We don't have fixed positions on board - everyone is making everything, and we are changing positions every hour. Daniel [Ziehmayer] as co-skipper and me as skipper, we have the additional task to make decisions when nobody else wants to make them," he says with a wry smile.
Bedouin is a 2012 Frers-designed Swan 53, skippered by Australian sailor Linda Goddard. For the Rolex Fastnet Race, Goddard's four children, aged 15 to 23, will be part of the crew along with an international mix of close friends and experienced racers. She's especially looking forward to watching her children grow through the experience. "There's something very meaningful about sailing with them not just across the ocean, but through moments that test their endurance, build their resilience, and bring us out stronger together."
Coming in hot from the west to east Transatlantic Race will be the Marten 49 Moana, campaigned by Hanno Ziehm, as will the 59ft Nielsen-designed Hound, built in 1970. Owned by Dan Litchfield, and captained by Tom Stark since 2020, Hound has recently undergone an extensive refit, including a taller carbon mast providing her with a new lease of life. The current team has raced together since 2022, clocking up thousands of ocean miles, including the Transatlantic Race, with the Rolex Fastnet Race another top race on their bucket lists. But Hound's Fastnet roster blends these passionate first-timers with seasoned veterans such as their navigator, British Vendée Globe veteran Conrad Humphreys.
Built in 2006 and purchased in spring 2022, Katiu is a Grand Soleil 50 Performance now skippered by Frédéric Gougeon, who bought the boat with two dreams in mind: racing the Rolex Fastnet for his 50th birthday, and one day sailing across the Atlantic with his family. Gougeon has raced the Fastnet once before - in 2015 aboard the Class 40 Changabang - but this year marks his first time as skipper of his own campaign.
Several older boats with strong racing pedigree are entered. Back once again is Jim Kilroy's famous maxi Kialoa II, now campaigned by Paddy Broughton, while the 1961 line honours winner Stormvogel returns for a third consecutive race. Incredibly, despite her vintage, her Italian owner Ermanno Traverso and his team in 2021 drove her to seventh overall from 269 yachts and, proving this was no fluke, was 11th from an IRC field of 358 two years later.
Also racing is Outlaw, skippered by Australians Campbell Mackie and Rinze Vallinga, which was originally the Dutch 1984/85 Whitbread Round the World Race entry Equity & Law. There are several older generation Class40s, now competing under IRC, including the Owen Clarke-designed Rock'n'roll and Hans Brouwer's Red66, plus even earlier models such as David O'Shea's Cariberia, Nicolas Manthos' Rogers-designed Cheekytatoo and Marc Lepesqueux's Sensation Class40, a Jumbo (one of the designs upon which the Class40 was originally based).
For further information, please go to the race website: rolexfastnetrace.com
IRC One entries HERE