What does it take to compete on Fastnet?

For the past two hours I have been forward on duty on the foredeck, adjusting the jib after every tack; then dangling from the rail as ballast as the 2m gun billows forward, sending spray straight at me.

It’s March, with gusts of Force 7, and the finish line of the Nab Tower Race in front of Cowes can’t come soon enough. Just as we’re above it, I find myself standing on the wrong side of the yacht as we turn into the wind. The ship listed, listing abruptly to one side. Suddenly, a wall of seawater rushes up to my knees and, for a moment, I am convinced that I am going with it. My frozen fingers grip the vertical metal deck with a strength I didn’t know they had. As the water recedes and the boat levels out, I am relieved to find that I am still on deck. This is what you signed up for, I tell myself. Later, I wonder what I really signed up for.

Learning to sail was the original goal. It was a dream for many years and I finally got the chance after moving to the south coast during lockdown. I bought a boat and joined a club. But it was only after some idle conversation with a neighbor, Charles Bull, a keen marine pilot and sailor, that I was invited to crew on his X37 11m monohull, Unruly. When Fastnet was mentioned, an idea took root.

The Rolex Fastnet Race it is to sailing what the north face of the Eiger is to mountaineering, renowned for its history, its wild reputation and the ’79 storm that claimed 19 lives. “It’s a tick in a box in life, as it is for people who climb Everest,” Bull told me. “It’s not something that can be done easily.”

I had one thing going for me: an iron stomach.

The route is a 695 nautical mile (800 mi) offshore run from Cowes on the Isle of Wight to Fastnet Rock on the coast of Ireland and back, ending at Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. It is located next to some of the great classics of ocean regattas, such as the Rolex Sydney Hobart, and attracts participants from all over the world. This year marks the 50th edition of the regatta, which takes place every two years, and will see a record fleet of over 450 boats take the starting line. While multi-million pound multihulls could be finished in 24 hours, for hobbyists like Bull, it could take up to a week.

There was only one minor problem: my lack of experience. She had surfed a bit as a child; I’ve done a few cruises; and in 2007 I was second in the Three Peaks Yacht Racesailing up the west coast of the UK and climbing Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis along the way (although as “the mountaineer” on the team I stayed mostly below deck).

But racing is very different from cruising: crews must work in harmony, be able to change sails in bad weather and react instantly to the skipper’s commands. It’s a steep learning curve, which started with the impenetrable language of navigation. Not since I moved to a remote mountain village in Austria 10 years ago and tried to communicate with my elderly landlord, Adolf, have I felt so lost at sea. Cleas and clews, inhauls and outhauls, luffs and leeches, jackstays and lazy jacks, jammers and jibs: it was all a mystery. I would stand on deck, with the rabbit under the headlights, and they would yell at me until someone finally translated: “The target on the mast. Pull it down!” I emailed a friend who made the transition from mountain guide to skipper. “Don’t worry,” he replied. “He’ll come.”

He didn’t. But I had one thing going for me: an iron stomach, which was revealed during our first big race, one night on Alderney. It was rough as we rounded The Needles, the infamous Isle of Wight gatehouse between the Solent and the open sea, and it wasn’t long before one of the crew began to vomit. He spent the next 10 hours clinging to the kitchen sink, green as a pickle. Another went below deck and never reappeared. Even the skipper had a discreet oral expulsion from the side. My lunch was left downstairs. Years of doing silly things in the mountains have also equipped me with the ability to stay cheerful. “That’s worth more than a professional team that will have opinions on everything,” Bull said.

But still, I had my work cut out. “The Rolex Fastnet is not a race for rookies,” Janet Grosvenor, former race manager for the Royal Ocean Racing Club, warned me. She was in charge of the 2007 race when the decision to delay the start was made after the Met Office issued a severe weather warning. I know stories from the race: the terrible storm of 1979; the occasion six years later when Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon got stuck on the hull of his maxi yacht Drum with five other crew members when their keel was cut off. “In 1979, you could probably walk across a pontoon if you were looking to enter the race and say, ‘Anyone want a crew?’ and jump aboard,” says Grosvenor. “That kind of thing has stopped.”

Today, the rules dictate that at least 50 percent of the crew (and no less than two) must have completed a minimum of 300 miles of offshore racing together in the past 12 months; at least 30 percent must have completed a two-day sea survival course; and someone must have a first aid certificate. I have now completed courses in First Aid, Sea Survival and VHF Radio Etiquette (paying close attention to the Mayday part). Sea survival training also means getting into a life raft in a municipal swimming pool: it was like getting into a closed and suffocating kid’s raft, only with adults and less fun. I’ve also been reading avidly, perusing my late father-in-law’s maritime library, devouring light-hearted disaster classics like Fastnet, Force 10: The deadliest storm in the history of modern shipping and Survive the Wild Sea. My wife has gotten used to me tying loose pieces of string around the house to practice my knots. (My popularity increased after I patched up a necklace with a double fisherman curve.)

For Bull, 65, it’s been an 18-month campaign to get to the starting line and it hasn’t come cheap. He has spent thousands to get Unruly race ready and countless hours building the team. “It’s a bottomless pit,” he says. Fastnet ships show great variety. Joining us at the starting line will be classics like Paul Moxon’s. Amokura, a 50-foot Bermudan yola built in 1939 for Lord Mountbatten’s aide-de-camp, Ernest Harston. The oldest entry is the beautiful one. Moonlighta 1903 gaff Fife yola, the third of four moonbeams for British lawyer Charles Plumtree Johnson. He will be skippered by Jacques Caraës, who finished the 1979 race in a life raft. Some serious modern hardware will also line up, including Neville’s new 45-footer. ino noir and Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström’s CF-520 Ran. And there will be around 30 IMOCA yachts, each costing more than £6 million. Loading up front will be professionally crewed 105ft Ultim trimarans, worth around €15m new.

After the cold and wet Nab Tower Race my enthusiasm came true. But the next output, the RORC The Cervantes Trophy race to Le Havre in April, in a vast armada of yachts powered only by wind and sail, felt glorious. In the end, I was mastering the spinnaker pole like a pro, I was plotting our position on the chart, and for a couple of hours I took the helm, wanting to get the most out of it. Unruly with the determination of an experienced runner. The starting gun for this year’s race is fired on July 22. I can’t wait to start.

rolexfastnetrace.com