The Royal Ocean Racing Club held a press conference today at the Sir Max Aitken Museum in Cowes with the start of the 2009 Rolex Fastnet race just a few days away.

Chris Sherlock, Boat Captain of ICAP Leopard commented; "The forecast at the moment looks like it could be a light airs race but this is a British summer and anything could happen. Our current models are predicting an elapsed time of anything between 45-55 hours for ICAP Leopard, so who knows? She has undergone some modifications since last time, we have taken some weight out and she is half a metre longer."

Tanguy de Lamotte, skipper of Class 40, Initiatives Saveurs – Novedia was excited to be competing in his first Rolex Fastnet race; "I wanted to race two years ago but the boat was untested. Now I am really keen and it is a competitive class. There are 20 Class 40s racing but I have been told that the virtual game is also in 40ft boats, so the class is really thousands!"

At the press conference, RORC Racing manager, Ian Loffhagen, confirmed that the expected light airs start is not expected to alter the start and currently will go ahead as scheduled in the Notice of Race.