Rolex Fastnet Race/Admirals' Cup: Big questions face defending champion
by Richard Gladwell in Cowes 25 Jul 22:47 UTC
Caro (NZL) - AC1 (50fters) - Day 4 - Admirals' Cup - Inshore Racing - Cowes - July 24, 2025 © Richard Gladwell - Sail-World.com/nz
In contrast to previous years, the weather for the centennial 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race is expected to be relatively benign.
According to the experts, the 450 boats and 3,000 sailors in the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race, should look forward to an enjoyable 695nm windward/leeward sail, before the after match party kicks off in Cherbourg, France.
That's quite a difference to the 2023 edition of the race, as winning helmsman Adrian Stead, aboard the Botin 52 Caro, recalled at the pre-race Media Conference.
"The 2023 Race was pretty brutal for the first 12 to 18 hours. Certainly the preparation that the team did was was key to making sure that nothing broke and we're able to survive the first 18 hours, and then race the boat for the rest of the race.
"This race definitely looks a bit more moderate. It's like a 350 mile windward leeward race to Fastnet and back. It's going to be attritional. It's going to be hard work, and there's going to plenty of attacking and keeping the boat going."
In the 2023 edition, Stead said that the Caro team identified about 12 boats they believed were potential winners on rating, "and by the time we got to Lyme Bay (60nm from the start), six of them had disappeared through damage or retirements."
"Certainly as we went past Portland in 2023, despite losing the wind gear early on, we thought we had 40 to 45 knots of breeze and three knots of current under us. So it was a pretty intensive seaway.
"We had all the crew in the cockpit, rather than hiking out, to slow the boat down. One of the unlucky people had to drive, and every now and again, you'd launch the boat off a wave and wonder what was going to happen next."
"But we got through it. We sailed for three nights, three days without wind gear, and had a fantastic blast back from from Fastnet Rock all the way to Cherbourg."
Caro is back to defend her title in the 2025 Rolex Fastnet, which one the three classic offshore races in the sport of sailing.
This year Caro will also be competing as part of the Admirals Cup fleet, an event which has been revived as part of the Fastnet centennial - attracting an international fleet of 15 teams or 30 boats from 12 countries, and putting a new dimension on the event.
Last sailed in 2003, the Admirals's Cup - first conceived by three former Admirals of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, has been revived and tweaked by a very astute organising committee from the RORC. The revived Cup uses the same format as the original, with the Fastnet race being the final event and scoring triple points.
Stead, helming the Max Klink owned Caro, is one of the two boats in the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron team, contesting the 2025 Admirals' Cup. To date, they have not sailed as well as expected in the Channel race, which opened the Admirals' Cup, or the six inshore races that have been sailed in the central Solent on Tuesday to Thursday of this week.
"It's absolutely fantastic that we've got 15 teams here all vying for the Admirals' Cup again, after 22yrs," says Stead. "It's fantastic to see everyone's putting so much effort into winning, and we start the Fastnet knowing that the result counts for three times the points weighting in the Admirals' Cup."
Currently Caro is seventh in the individual results for AC1, or the 50ft division of the Admirals' Cup, while her team-mate Callisto (James Murray) shares the top spot on the AC2, or 40ft division. But Caro has a good reputation and some excellent results in the major offshore races of 600-700nm distance, and will be looking to turn in a good result in the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race.
"So far we've under performed as a boat in the Admirals' Cup. We're looking to put that right in the Fastnet race and get a really good score for our team."
However for all the aspirations of the major sailing nations, it is likely that the winner of the 2025 Admirals' Cup will come from outside that storied group.
"There's two teams that have done very well, the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club and and the Yacht Club de Monaco. The team of Yacht Club Costa Smeralda are close behind, then us (RNZYS), and then the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia.
"The Admirals' Cup is still open. It's going to take an extremely strong performance from us. We know we're capable of that. We showed it two years ago. And looking at the weather for the moment, the weather seems like it will suit a 52ft boat or a 40ft boat. It's not probably as favorable for a Volvo 70."
"Our goal is to win our division in the in the Admirals' Cup, and hopefully the competition within that fleet will be enough to push us up to a good score overall for the Fastnet Race, itself."
Over the past week, the racing has been intense around the cans off Cowes, as the top professional sailors contest the top offshore sailing event, free from any America's Cup type of nationality rules.
"There's been Admirals' Cup boats, sailing in Cowes since Easter," Stead says. "The sailing has been fantastic, and there's great momentum. And now the cumulation of that is the Rolex Fastnet Race to finish off the series."
"And it's tight!"
Scoring Explanation:
The pink shaded bits - refer to the discard scores. At the combined level of the points table display, some teams have a pink block in one of their race results, and others have none.
The explanation is that all boats have been allowed a discard score - which applies only on the three days of Inshore Racing. Some teams, like New Zealand, have elected to drop the same race - Race 6 - where Caro finished 11th overall and Callisto recorded their second 8th place. On the combined scores because both boats in the team have dropped the same race as their discard score is shaded pink for that race. Where there is no pink shading, the discard is accounted in the individual scores.
In the Class (AC1 & AC2) results each boat has dropped their worst (Inshore Race) score and that these have been accounted for in the Team Placings.
Tracking: Track the fleet via TracTrac
Live results here
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