With a few days to go to the start of the 2015 edition of the Rolex Fastnet Race the crew of Challenger 3, a yacht belonging to the Tall Ships Youth Trust, (TSYT) are all ready and looking forward to the race. This experience of sailing the 600+miles from Cowes Isle of Wight to the Fastnet Rock, off southern Ireland, then on to Plymouth for the finish of the race will certainly be a challenge for the crew, nine of which are leaders of Girlguiding.
Calling themselves the ‘Fastnet Divas’, the Girlguiding members have undertaken a lot of training and learned new skills to get to this point. Training weekends, team building and boat skills have come together over the past few months, as well as the fundraising to enable the ‘Divas’ to take part in one of the World’s Great Ocean Races.
Challenger 3 is skippered by Beth Terrell who is one of a team of professional skippers who work for the TSYT which is based in Portsmouth and offers sailing opportunities for anyone wanting to sail.
Recently the Girlguiding members of the crew have announced that Olympic Gold Medallist Shirley Robertson OBE has kindly agreed to become their Patron. Shirley, a Guide herself when she lived in Scotland, already supports Girlguiding by being an Ambassador for Girlguiding Isle of Wight, where her home is now.
Also supporting the ‘Divas’ is round the World sailor Dee Caffari MBE, who said:
“I commend your efforts and think that your project sounds very exciting. Congratulations to you for pulling it all together and helping the Girlguiding movement gain momentum in the sailing world. The Fastnet Race is a challenge.”
Of course we must not forget the rest of the fleet. As ever, the corrected time prize is raced under IRC, which this year aims to equalise a fleet as diverse as Jim Clark and Kristy Hinze Clark’s VPLP-Verdier 100 Comanche to the modest Contessa 32 Hurrying Angel 4 of Lucinda Allaway; from state of the art carbon fibre racers, such as the new IRC 72 Mini Maxi Momo, to Matt Brooks’ classic Dorade, the 52 footer which won the Fastnet Race outright in 1931 and 1933 under young skipper Olin Stephens. In between are every imaginable flavour of cruising yachts, cruiser-racers to out and out performance machines.
As usual, the Rolex Fastnet Race features many of the world’s best sailing teams with the race being contested by two similar Judel Vrolijk designs, MOMO, the new Maxi 72 of German Dieter Schön and the more travelled Bella Mente of American Hap Fauth winner of this spring’s RORC Caribbean 600.
With a record-sized fleet of almost 350 in the running, the question ‘Which boat will win the 2015 Rolex Fastnet Race on handicap?’ is a tough one.
