This year’s Fastnet Race was a wild one – and it proved a baptism of fire for race virgin Tom Pepper
I had a trio of personal objectives for my first Fastnet – 1) don’t get soaked on day one, 2) round the iconic rock in the daylight, and 3) finish the race. Crossing the start line in Cougar of Cowes and heading into a ferocious southwesterly gale, the first of those objectives was quickly foiled.
Cougar is a Reflex 38 that had recently changed ownership and had needed quite a lot of work to get race-ready. She is advertised for charter with a single sentence stating: “Cougar is for hardcore sailors not bothered by the luxuries of life, but she does have eight single bunks and one double.” Our Fastnet crew numbered nine with skipper Ruaraidh Plummer (founder of London School of Sailing), and with each qualifying race we sailed we indeed became more hardcore and less accustomed to the luxuries of life.
By race day the team had gelled well into two watches of four with the skipper outside the watch system. My position was “mast”, meaning I was second on the rail. Twenty minutes after the start, as Cougar pushed on into the gale-force wind and horizontal rain in the Solent, waves crashed over her bow and down the side-deck, lifting me bodily off the deck and onto the next person, who was experiencing a similar drenching. I had thought long and hard about my choice of foulies for this late July race, naively thinking that it could be all sunshine and blue skies. Eventually, I plumped for some near top-of-the-line offshore waterproofs, which I was thankful for, if only because it prevented me from wondering if I’d be any drier had I spent more money. Despite investing in some top-notch offshore sailing boots, my feet were very quickly swimming as a wave shot up my fastened salopette leg and into the top of my gaitered boot. It later transpired that a boot-fastening error may have occurred, and my soggy feet could potentially have been prevented.
A wild start
Considering the wind speed, our skipper had made the decision to start the race flying a trysail and number 4 jib, and we had got as far as the Hurst Narrows when the jib ripped out of its track and we were forced to turn across the full ebb tide in order to hoist the storm jib, with the fleet bearing down on us in limited manoeuvring space. My fellow bowman, Will, and I achieved this just in time, and Cougar continued west, barely out of the Solent and already with one less sail in her wardrobe. As I clambered back from the steeply heeled foredeck, the titles of books that friends had bought me before the race
