Concise 10 leads at the Rock
Rolex Fastnet Start. Photo by Carlo Borlenghi
At 15:49:37 BST Tony Lawson’s MOD70 trimaran Concise 10 became the first boat to round the Fastnet rock off southwest Ireland.
At the time the next boat in the race, George David’s Rambler 88 was 111 miles astern. However thanks to their upwind passage their time of 28 hours 49 minutes was well outside of record to the Rock of 22 hours and 21 minutes, set in 2011 by the Loick Peyron-skippered 40m Banque Populaire Maxi trimaran.
The monohull leaders have been making their way up the east side of the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) exclusion zone to the west of Land’s End and north into the Celtic Sea.
In this battle Rambler 88 has pulled out a 33 miles lead on the water over Ludde Ingvall’s 100ft CQS. Behind them, a three-way battle is going on for the lead between the VO65s competing on the Volvo Ocean Race’s Leg Zero.
At 1600, Team Akzonobel was a mile ahead of Dongfeng Race Team, and Sung Hung Kai Scallyway. However they were still astern of the double handed IMOCA 60 – Paul Meilhat and Gwenole Gahinet on SMA, which was followed by two of the older IMOCA 60s, Vivo A Beira, sailed by former Solitaire du Figaro winner Yoann Richomme and Pierre Lacaze and Generali, sailed by Isabelle Joschke and Pierre Brasseur, both ahead of the latest generation foil-assisted IMOCA 60s which have not been enjoying the upwind conditions.
To date only two boats, both IMOCA 60s, have opted to go to the west of the Land’s End TSS – Jean-Pierre Dick and Yann Eliès on StMichel-Virbac and Boris Herrmann and Pierre Casiraghi on Malizia.
Throughout the day the lead in IRC Zero has been changing to smaller boats as those ahead were trapped by the front. At 1600 it was the turn of the Ker 46 Lady Mariposa to take the lead from Bretagne Telecom and before that the Cookson 50 Privateer.
While Rambler 88 was a country mile ahead on the water in IRC Z, Vittorio Miscarini’s Mylius 15e25 Ars Una had also pulled out a significant eight mile lead on the water in IRC One ahead of James Neville’s Ino XXX, the Italian boat just off Land’s End.
However it was the lowest rated boat in IRC One, Jean Claude Nicoleau and Nicolas Loday’s Grand Soleil 43 Codiam, lying to the west of the Lizard, that had pulled out a significant lead of almost four hours on corrected time.
The biggest competition though is in the Class40 where this afternoon Anglo-French couple Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron aboard Campagne de France have taken over first place from Phil Sharp on Imerys, with Maxime Sorel’s V&B also strongly in contention as the boats head up the east side of the Land’s End TSS.
Track the fleet in the Rolex Fastnet Race
