Rolex Fastnet Race at 100 – 469 yachts have entered this special edition

The 100th anniversary of the Rolex Fastnet Race starts on 26 July 2025

The 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race will celebrate both its centenary as well as that of the club it spawned: the Royal Ocean Racing Club.

The race upon which the Royal Ocean Racing Club was founded in 1925 has grown to become the world’s largest offshore race. The 100th anniversary edition will set sail from Cowes on 26 July 2025 and finish, for a third time, in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, France; a course of 695 miles.

At present 469 yachts have entered this special edition, making the Rolex Fastnet Race decidedly the world’s largest offshore race – a far cry from its humble origins in 1925.

The idea for the Fastnet race was imported by adventurer/author Weston Martyr. After competing in the Bermuda Race, he asked the question in the press ‘why had ocean racing yet to reach British shores?’

The British cruising community were vehemently shunning this apparently unseamanlike pastime, and it was this that caused the organisers and competitors from the first Fastnet Race to establish the Royal Ocean Racing Club.

Seven yachts had set sail from off the Royal Victoria YC’s Ryde start line in 1925, heading east out of the Solent bound for the Fastnet Rock and then to Plymouth.

Starting from the RYS line, exiting the Solent to the west, the introduction of Bishop Rock as a mark of the course, the Pantaenius spreader mark, TSSes as obstructions and then moving the finish to Cherbourg were all subsequent evolutions of the course. In 1931 the race became biennial (in odd-numbered years, leaving the Bermuda Race to even-numbered ones) and, for one time only, in 1933 the race fully doubled back to finish in Cowes.

Pre-WWII the Fastnet Race never mustered more than 29 entries, but from the late 1950s through until the Fastnet disaster of 1979 participation increased exponentially, breaking 100 in 1963, 200 in 1967 and 300 in 1979.

In 1957 the Admiral’s Cup was introduced initially to entice US entries but subsequently opened to all nations.

This resonated strongly and at its peak in the late 1970s 19 international three-boat teams competed, most with purpose-built yachts and intense selection trials.While the Admiral’s Cup was last held in 2003, its return in 2025 marks a new era in what is already a giant event.

While British teams won it a record nine times (the last in 1989) other winners were Germany (1973/83/85/93), USA (1961/69/97), Australia (1967/79, 2003) plus New Zealand (1987), France (1991), Italy (1995) and Netherlands (1999).

The Admiral’s Cup is back for 2025, from 17 July to 1 August, and will be held biennially thereafter by the Royal Ocean Racing Club. The Admiral’s Cup is honoured throughout the world of sailing as the unofficial world cup for offshore racing.