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HISTORIC SUCCESS FOR CHIEFTAIN...
Limerick sailor Ger O'Rourke and his crew on Chieftain have made Irish and British sporting history. Winning the tough Rolex Fastnet Yacht Race in what were described as "brutal" weather and sea conditions was a great achievement for Irish sailing. It is the first time in the history of the Fastnet Race going back to 1925, that the name of an Irish winner has been put on the famous British trophy.
Three hundred boats started the race, but weather conditions were so bad that less than sixty finished. "It was hard-going," said Ger, but his crew of 12 sailed their 50 ft. Cookson yacht brilliantly to victory. The victory adds to Chieftain's success in another tough race on the other side of the world, the Sydney to Hobart, where she spectacularly won her class. Amidst this type of tough offshore racing, Ger O'Rourke suffers from seasickness. "Regularly, the first two days of the Fastnet, you take the pain to get the gain," he said.
"This is a recognition of Irish Sailing and Irish sailors and that is good for the country and for the sport."
This article was taken from Tom McSweeney's third issue of SEASCAPES newsletter which is published jointly with the support of the Marine Institute.
20th August 2007
See footage from Chieftan at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9FDv2ChJ84
Ger O'Rourke's Cookson 50, Chieftain, has been confirmed as the overall winner of the Rolex Fastnet Race.
The Farr-designed carbon fibre yacht finished Wednesday night at 19:43:44 local time with an elapsed sailing time of 55:04:43.
Chieftain will be awarded the Fastnet Challenge Cup and a Rolex Yachtmaster timepiece at the prizegiving on Friday, 17 August at the historic Royal Citadel in Plymouth
The first Irish boat in 20 years to win this prestigious offshore race that was first sailed in 1925.
O’Rourke typically waits to finish a race before he enters the next one, “first of all I want to make sure I have a rig up.” Sailing in the Nordbank transatlantic race, Chieftain didn’t finish until six weeks before the Rolex Fastnet start and by that time the entry list had reached its limit of 300 and Chieftain was 46th on the waiting list. Eventually the list was whittled down as boats dropped out, and after completing all the safety checks, just 48 hours before the race start, the boat was officially entered. In addition to his regular crew that had been on stand-by, O’Rourke literally picked up a couple of experienced crew from a Hamble boat yard, including bowman Cam Marshall who “turned out to be a star.”
Chieftain only experienced about 25 knots the first night, not the 40 knots that many boats saw. Chieftain had a double-reefed main and O’Rourke felt prepared for the weather conditions, they had gone through all the procedures and had a fairly experienced offshore crew that had done a lot of miles. Still, It had crossed O’Rourke’s mind, “what am I doing here’, do I need this? But we persevered and it paid off. I was seasick myself as was another crewmember, it was wet, yeah it was grim. Two of us had dry suits and weren’t doing too badly.”
Recapping their strategy, O’Rourke said, “Our navigator, Jochem Visser (from the Netherlands) downloaded some grib (weather) files but available to everybody… the fact that the weather was changing 180 degrees when we got to the Rock kind of suited our size boat as opposed to the larger-sized boats. When we got to the Rock we were running back home and we made a fairly good speed from the Fastnet Rock to the Scillies …I think we did it in 10 hrs which is an average of about 19 knots which is good going for a 50-footer…Loki (the R/P 60) was ahead of us around at the Rock. She