The demanding Fastnet 450 course kept crews working very hard indeed until the last couple of miles running in towards the finish in the entrance to Cork Harbour under the iconic Roche's Point Lighthouse this (Monday) morning. Out at sea in the Harbour approaches, and struggling to reach the final turning point at the Daunt Rock Buoy, a sloppy sea and light winds had downwind sailing speeds down to below four knots as Chris Power Smith's J/122 Aurelia kept her cool to stave off a persistent line honours challenge.
This came from corrected time leader Denis and Annamarie Murphy's Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo, which in turn was constantly keeping an eye over the shoulder toward the much smaller Cinnamon Girl, Cian McCarthy's Sunfast 3300 with the determined Mark Mansfield aboard and always looking for a way to pull another Lazarus Act out of the hat.
But it was not to be. In fact, weather and wind-wise, the only time Cinnamon Girl really had conditions which truly suited her was during the short three-sail dash from the start at Dun Laoghaire to the Muglins at the entrance to Dublin Bay, where she duly led the entire fleet.
Yet now approaching the finish many miles later off Cork with the Daunt finally astern, for the last three miles Aurelia found herself more comfortably in business at the front of the fleet, sailing in a slightly firmer breeze in a more purpose-like way for the finish, which she reached at 10.26, having covered 304 nautical miles to complete the 263.5 miles course.
When Nieulargo came in just 23 minutes later, she'd covered 303 miles, and immediately with her lower rating had jumped into an unassailable Corrected Time lead. But although the Murphy boat had Cinnamon Girl clearly beaten as they have the same IRC Rating, when the McCarthy boat finally finished at 11.46 she still had corrected time comfortably in hand on Aurelia to move into second overall on IRC, which no other boat can now challenge.
Image: The Royal Cork YC have been denied much of their Tricentennial Celebration during 2020, so it was a very special moment when Denis & Annamarie Murphy's Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo (RCYC) crossed the line at Roche's Point Monday morning to win the Fastnet 450 Race Photo: Robert Bateman
Click here for full report and photos at Afloat