Return of the Commodores
Behind the duel of the rival 52-footers, with ultimate victory by Max Klink’s Botin 52 Caro over Chris Sheehan’s Warrior Won, other contenders in IRC Zero have now completed the Fastnet race course.
Philippe Frantz’s NMD43 Albator came in third on corrected time ahead of Louis Balcaen’s Swan 50OD Balthasar, with the 2021 runner-up James Neville bringing his new Carkeek 45 Ino Noir home in fifth place. Neville, Commodore of RORC, arrived in Cherbourg in the early hours of the morning with a boat that was in pretty much exactly the same condition as when they set out four days earlier from that windy Cowes start line. A broken mainsail batten was about the worst of the damage, a remarkable feat for a thoroughbred which has only been afloat a few short months.
Louis Balcaen’s Swan 50OD Balthasar finished 4th in IRC Zero © Paul Wyeth/pwpictures.com
A veteran of nine editions of the race, Neville said the crew had practised sailing with the trysail as a precautionary measure.
“We had very few on the boat who had sailed a significant beat with a trysail, so we had been practising using it even in no wind. Which was not ideal, but at least we knew what to do. We didn’t know how to sheet it in strong winds until we got to the race but just guessed at it until we worked it out. We probably sailed with the trysail for a good five hours so it was time well spent getting used to it.”
Ino Noir’s performance up to the Fastnet Rock didn’t go unnoticed by Adrian Stead, part of the winning crew on Caro. “We knew Ino Noir would be about as quick as us downwind and we were a bit worried about them,” he said. Neville was certainly pleased with the boat’s performance on the way across the Celtic Sea. “We knew we just wanted to get north as fast as possible and we judged our point to tack really well. It was a very good race up to the Rock.”
Neville was pleased to have rounded the Fastnet Rock in good company, with Class 40s and even some of the IMOCAs. But the run back towards the Isles of Scilly just didn’t deliver what Ino Noir needed for a race-winning performance, and there wasn’t much they could do about it.
“We were second at the Rock, which shows the great potential of the boat, but it’s more of a reaching boat and not so much for VMG windward-leeward style sailing, and we didn’t get what we needed. But It’s a fantastic boat and we’ve got lots to learn, to take forward for future races.”
RORC’s Vice Commodore Eric De Turckheim it was also a game of two halves on board the NMD54 Teasing Machine © Paul Wyeth/pwpictures.com
For RORC’s Vice Commodore Eric De Turckheim it was also a game of two halves on board the NMD54 Teasing Machine.
“We ran out of breeze on the final day, we knew the light weather was coming in from behind. We were at the Fastnet with Warrior Won, very close to Caro as well, but already on the way down they had better winds than we did. We were on the same track but they were further ahead.
"That was the difference at Land’s End – they did a straight line and we did not. They made it through the gate…it happens, that’s racing for you. We’ve had plenty of very good races here where we were on the lucky end of it and this time we were not! But we are very happy with the performance overall, especially right up to the Fastnet, we were right there with them all the way.
“We had everything during this race. Today at some point we had 2 knots of wind. On the first night it was 30-35 knots, wind against current. It was not the most comfortable place to be. I’ve had it before, on this boat, and on the previous Teasing Machine we’ve had some serious storms, particularly the Rolex Sydney Hobart. It’s part of racing. You’re not looking for it, but it’s part of it.”
Arto Linnervuo skippered his Infiniti 52 Tulikettu to 10th in IRC Zero and he was delighted with how his still fairly new 52-footer performed in such testing conditions. “The only damage we had was a halyard lock for our J5 headsail, which was a pity because we were going well with that sail but had to switch to a different setup after that,” he said. The other disappointment was not getting much opportunity to deploy the DSS foil out of the side of the hull. On the way up to the Fastnet Rock the wind opened up a little bit to 80 or 90 degrees, but it was not quite proper reaching. "We had the foil out for five or six hours and, when we were able to use it, it lifted the speed from 13 or 14 knots to 23 knots. It was a great feeling as we saw the navigation lights of the other boats disappear behind us.”
While the Fastnet race course didn’t yield the best of conditions for Tulikettu on this occasion, Linnervuo is confident that the Infiniti 52 will have her day at some point.
“This is an ‘all or nothing’ kind of boat, and I’m an ‘all or nothing’ kind of guy with everything I do in sailing and and in life, so I’m looking forward to having our day with this boat.”
By Andy Rice
