Black Jack hits the jackpot in centenary Fastnet thriller

Straits Times

29-07-2025

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Monaco's Black Jack 100 played its hand perfectly on Tuesday to take monohull line honours in the centenary Rolex Fastnet Race, rounding off a fiercely contested few days that saw record fleets, tight margins, and underdogs pushing giants all the way across 695 nautical miles of testing waters.
Remon Vos's Black Jack, skippered by Tristan Le Brun, crossed the finish line in Cherbourg after two days, 12 hours, 31 minutes and 21 seconds of racing, leading home a competitive monohull fleet that showcased the global appeal of offshore sailing's most prestigious contest.
Hong Kong's SHK Scallywag finished second in the monohull division, followed by Monaco's Leopard 3 in third.
U.S. entries Pyewacket 70 and Tschuss 2 rounded out the top five in Tuesday's finish, underlining the international flavour of a race that has grown from seven boats in 1925 to a record-breaking 444-strong fleet.
The monohull honours came a day after France's SVR Lazartigue had already claimed overall line honours, the sleek blue 32-metre Ultim trimaran slicing through the darkness to become first to reach Cherbourg on Monday - a reminder that in offshore racing, line honours go to the first boat home, typically the fastest and most technologically advanced yacht in the fleet.
But it was the Ocean Fifty class that has delivered perhaps the most compelling racing drama of the centenary edition.
France's Inter Invest claimed victory in that category, finishing in two days, eight hours, 38 minutes and 13 seconds as dusk settled on Monday, with Koesio following just 31 minutes and 16 seconds later and Viabilis Oceans another 20 minutes behind.
The tight competition proved remarkable across the entire Ocean Fifty fleet - the top seven trimarans arrived within two hours of each other despite the race's epic distance.
These double-handed boats even gave the bigger classes a serious challenge, with Inter Invest reaching Fastnet Rock on the stern of the MOD70 Argo, while even the mighty Ultims struggled to shake off the Ocean Fiftys before rounding Plymouth.
While still relatively unknown outside France, the Ocean Fifty class (formerly Multi50) is gaining momentum, with nine boats taking part in this centenary edition as part of their annual racing calendar.
The biennial contest traces a challenging course from Cowes on England's Isle of Wight around Ireland's famous Fastnet Rock before finishing in Cherbourg — a test that has challenged sailors' skill and endurance for a century.
While line honours go to the first boat home, the overall Fastnet Race winner receives the Fastnet Challenge Cup based on corrected time under the International Rating Certificate (IRC) handicap system, meaning a well-sailed 12-metre yacht can still beat a 30-metre racing machine once handicaps are applied.
Administered jointly by the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) in Britain, and the Union Nationale pour la Course au Large (UNCL) in France, IRC assigns a rating based on a boat's measurements and predicted performance, producing a time correction factor used to calculate results after a race. REUTERS