The Rolex Fastnet Race First – Finishers in Centenary Edition and Winner Announced
The 100th anniversary edition of the Rolex Fastnet Race has been graced by a mix of offshore racing’s mightiest Multihulls and Monohulls. In the absence of record-breaking conditions, the leading lights in these diverse groups have put on a display of tightly fought, engaging competition.
With no yacht left on the course capable of bettering the corrected time posted by Leon, the French yacht has been declared overall winner of the centenary edition of the Rolex Fastnet Race. Sailed double-handed, co-skippers Alexis Loison and Jean Pierre Kelbert raced the 10.45 metre / 34 foot JPK 10.50 to victory against a record-breaking fleet of outstanding pedigree and talent. Winning this legendary race once is an exceptional achievement, doing so twice is beyond the wildest dreams and expectations of even the most skilled and gifted of sailors. Alexis Loison has done just that, previously winning in 2013 sailing with his father Pascal. Joining a band of six other skippers to have won on more than one occasion, Loison’s accomplishment is all the more remarkable given that on both occasions he has done so double-handed. It was by no means a simple task. Not only did the pair outwit the opposition, the majority of whom were fully crewed, their strategy, decision-making and execution had to be pin-point to overcome the myriad of complexities that make up the 695nm course.
The best of these battles was delivered by selection of 30.5 metre (100 foot) Maxis which in recent years have traded blows over many of the world’s renowned 600 mile classic races. During the first half of the 695 nautical mile course SHK Scallywag, line honurs winner at the 2024 Rolex Middle Sea Race, held off the advances of Black Jack 100 and Leopard 3, on what was essentially a 350nm upwind leg. Rounding the Fastnet Rock, the race to the Isles of Scilly became a contest of downwind speed and gybing. Black Jack managed to squeeze into a lead, and on the final stretch to the finish successfully unpicked the puzzles of both wind and tide to cross the line first in an elapsed time of two days, 12 hours, 31 minutes and 21 seconds.
Rolex Fastnet Race, 2025
The four 32m (105ft) Ultim competing presented a stirring sight at the start, but it was SVR Lazartigue, the race record holder (set in 2023), that hit the line on the gun and at speed. The crew quickly carved out a slim advantage that was only really threatened on a difficult first night in the varied breeze of the English Channel. First to the Fastnet Rock, the French trimaran then built an unassailable lead downwind to the finish, arriving in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin in an elapsed time of one day, 17 hours, 18 minutes and four seconds.
First held in 1925, the biennial Rolex Fastnet Race is organized by the Royal Ocean Racing Club. Rolex has partnered the event and club since 2001. The historic contest marked by tales of human achievement, is one of the foundations of the Swiss Watchmaker’s near 70-year association with the sport of yachting.
