RORC
Club page A successful (club) Fastnet
Regular readers of the RORC page may recall during last year we gave the London Corinthian Sailing Club’s Commodore Ray Campion the opportunity to take us on the journey of their club’s great initiative to broaden their members’ exposure to offshore racing, culminating in the opportunity to take part in the 50th edition of the Fastnet Race. Over the two articles, which were published in the June and December editions, Ray described how they selected the boats they’d use, the training programme they put together and their progress through our Season’s Points Championship races. In the event things worked out rather well for this historic Thames-
riverside club… all three LCSC boats finished this year’s challenging race, and the programme they put together illustrates how other clubs who want to get more involved in offshore racing can achieve
The training The RORC race team were our first point of call when looking for guidance on how best to train our members. They put us in touch with Hugh Styles, ex-Olympian and current Olympic and big boat coach; Hugh in turn opened the door to an all-star team of other experts who would shape our members over the following two years. Helena Lucas ran the practical training. Using the common
playbook we had developed together, she drilled in the manoeuvres and sail trim, giving crews a strong foundation to build upon. When your coach has an Olympic gold medal in the bottom of her sock drawer you know you’re well led. In the classroom we had an amazing series of lectures: Miles
Sedon on navigation and race planning; Will Alloway from Doyle on sails, crossover diagrams and design polars; Simon Rowell on meteo - rology. Meanwhile, Hugh talked us through sailing for speed, and efficient decision making during a race. By the time the 2023 Fastnet came around we had left no stone unturned or subject unexamined.
The race Any member of our club, regardless of experience and sailing back- ground, was able to sign up for our Fastnet Programme, and the more experienced members were spread evenly across the three crews of nine. All were encouraged to sign up to as much of the offshore training as they could fit in, but some of the training sessions and qualifier races were mandatory. In the days before the Fastnet, looking at the weather, it was
clear that our crews would be pushed outside their comfort zone right from the start. We hadn’t practised in that weather, but the manoeuvres are the same. When the going gets tough you don’t rise to the occasion but rather sink to the level of your training. And in this we had confidence. Our three club boats and a further two member-organised boats
all finished the rough 2023 Fastnet Race, and all placed well. Each dealing with highs and lows, equipment issues, and in one case a complete electrical failure. Seeing the ear-to-ear smiles on the faces of the tired crews as
they came into Cherbourg is what the programme was all about. Groups of individuals who were thrown together have become solid friends and ultimately together achieved something quite special. Life provides very few opportunities to test one’s stamina and
There is never a shortage of Corinthian teams competing in the Fastnet every other summer – sometimes under the flag of a local club. But the historic London Corinthian Sailing Club is literally based in a city centre, on the muddy banks of the River Thames at Hammersmith. And this was nothing like a typical club entry: the LCSC delivered a well-disciplined training programme for its mostly dinghy sailing membership and in 2023 put three yachts on the Fastnet startline entirely crewed by members. All three not only finished one of the roughest races of recent years, all three were also well-placed at the finish. A very accomplished example
this. We look forward to welcoming the LCSC back for the Centenary Rolex Fastnet Race in 2025. Let Ray continue the story... We’ve all had conversations in our respective sailing club bars
that start with ‘you know what we should do…’ Most of these chats are forgotten as quickly as they began, or come to nothing, but one such discussion at the bar of the London Corinthian Sailing Club in the autumn of 2020 has led us down a path causing one of the biggest changes we’ve had in our 129-year history. The initial idea was simple, ‘let’s do the Fastnet!’ which took us
through the sourcing of a boat and building a crew of somewhat inexperienced racers. The focus in our first edition in 2021 was more on completing
the Fastnet than contending. Then shortly after our return from Cherbourg that August the conversation morphed into the much bigger question, ‘How do we make the Fastnet accessible to all our membership?’. For this we’d need a Race Training Programme.
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character in a way that a rough five-day Fastnet will do, and I’m very proud of our members for digging deep and going the distance. The memory of my own crew (some very new to spinnakers) peeling from one symmetric kite to another in lumpy seas and 25kt of wind as we approached Alderney will long outlast any silverware.
The future Now that the sleeping bags have been squeezed out and dried it’s time to look to the future. In two short years offshore racing has grown to become a strong element of our club, and members are helping share the workload. True to our Corinthian name and values, we have two principles
to guide our future planning. First, to create a path into offshore racing for any member who has an interest. Second, to provide enough scope in our programme so members don’t have to go further afield to pursue their offshore racing aspirations. With the continued support of our coaching team this will entail
Manoeuvres Training and a Watch Lead and Race Skipper Devel- opment Programme. While we use Bénéteau First 40s and 40.7s as our bedrock, we’ll broaden our range and start training on the Sunfasts and JPKs that do so well under IRC, and hopefully find a route to experience what it’s like on something much faster, with a Class40 already in prospect. We’ll continue to invite top professionals to lecture in the class-
room, and use 2024 to broaden the racing base in our club. Looking at the work that went into our last campaign, the time to start planning our Fastnet 2025 programme is now. Ray Campion, Commodore, London Corinthian Sailing Club
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