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A busy fella… Estonian Taavet Hinrikus’s Mills-designed MAT 1220 Nola beats out of the Solent at the start of this year’s Myth of Malham Trophy. After several IRC events in the UK the boat headed to Sweden for the huge Gotland Runt, finishing 2nd in ORC, before winning the Moonsund Regatta back home in Estonia. After the Baltic Sea Race Nola returns to the UK for the Fastnet. Hinrikus favours offshore racing (sic) and Nola features water ballast plus a modified keel and upgraded rig with a focus on reliability. Seems fast enough, though
Fastnet traffic
We have now passed the longest day of the year, which means we’re into the midst of our summer racing season and seven races into our 17 race Season’s Points Championship, which remains comfortably the largest offshore racing series in the world. And we’ve had a very busy period... including the IRC Double
Handed Nationals and the third race in our new Cowes offshore series – the aim of which is to create a series that is attractive to owners, knowing that they don’t have to travel to our international races and don’t need a big budget to compete and win trophies. If you’re relatively new to offshore racing and feel there is little point in doing more of the RORC series as you can’t win anything versus the big budget campaigns, the Cowes Offshore Series is for you. You only need to complete five races to count and at the time of writing there are still four races left in the series. The IRC Double Handed National Championships was a close-
fought affair among 35 boats, Tim Goodhew and Kevin Matthews in their Sun Fast 3200 Cora being crowned national champions by the smallest of margins from Sam White and Sam North in their JPK 1080 Mzungu. Many congratulations to Tim and Kevin on regaining the title they won in 2023. What has really stood out this season is the entry levels in our
races. Yes, the numbers do go up in a Rolex Fastnet year, as crews need to do their qualifying miles, but this year has been unusually strong. For our first domestic race, the Cervantes, we had 91 entries, for the Myth of Malham 128. To put this into context this entry number is larger than any of the classic 600-milers with the exception of the Fastnet Race itself. The second half of the season is even busier. This year we’re
supporting the Royal Thames Yacht Club and their 250th anniversary regatta, including the IRC Nationals as part of the celebrations. Then we have the Morgan Cup and Cowes-Dinard St Malo, which already has 154 entries and is the last race to clock up your qualifying miles for the Rolex Fastnet. And if you hadn’t heard… it’s the club’s centenary this year where we celebrate 100 years since the first Fastnet Race. While on the centenary festivities, I hope you’ll join us in cele- brating a huge milestone in our history. We have a Centenary Party
80 SEAHORSE
at the Cowes Clubhouse on Saturday 19 July, followed by one of our Regional Centenary Dinners in Plymouth on 12 September, a city closely associated with the club’s history. The first (and second) Fastnet winner Jolie Brisewill be moored close by for the weekend. The following day we have a Centenary Dinner in Hamburg, then in October dinners at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club and at the Rolex Middle Sea Race in Malta. We finish off the year with two dinners in December, one at the Yacht Club de France in Paris and the other at the CYCA in Sydney before the Hobart Race. All dates and booking links can be found on the Centenary page on the RORC website. Another part of our centenary celebrations is of course the return
of the Admiral’s Cup, where we have 15 teams from around the world taking part with most teams by now in the Solent and training hard. It is immensely gratifying to observe how well the draw of a truly iconic regatta steeped in heritage appears to have survived an absence of no fewer than 21 seasons! Saturday 26 July sees the start of another record-breaking Fastnet
Race, for which we decided to amend the start times because of the sheer size of this year’s fleet (450 boats). The first start will now be at 11.20 – off the Royal Yacht Squadron line of course. September is a busy month too, as we have the Cherbourg Race,
run in conjunction with JOG. We also look forward to our special Centenary Race, different from usual as it is a pursuit race, the aim being to have all the boats finishing around the same time. Following the race we will hold our end of season prizegiving and a party at the Cowes Clubhouse. Finally, at the end of September we are jointly hosting World
Sailing’s Offshore Double Handed World Championships, which will be raced in the one-design Sun Fast 30s. Currently there are 21 entries from no fewer than six of the world’s seven continents aiming to compete for the world title. Other happenings… several events during Cowes Week at the
Cowes Clubhouse on the Parade, plus put 15 November in the diary for this year’s annual dinner and prizegiving at London’s Sheraton Grand in Piccadilly. See the club website for further details on all of our ‘fixtures’, afloat and ashore. Jeremy Wilton, CEO
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PAUL WYETH
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