The Rolex Fastnet Race is known to sailors as one of the most prestigious and challenging events on the yacht racing calendar.

For some, the Fastnet race conjures images up of the 1979 disaster when a freak storm hit the 303 racing boats where 15 sailors lost their lives, five yachts sank and 19 yachts were abandoned. But for most people with an affinity for offshore racing it is a race that sailors look forward to every other year where boats of all types race side by side.

The first Fastnet was in 1925 when Martyr E.G. Martin returned from racing in the 1924 Bermuda race enthusiastic to start one up in England. He proposed a course from the Isle of Wight to the Fastnet rock off the south-west coast of Ireland, and back to Plymouth. The first race attracted seven yachts.

Today the Fastnet attracts more than 300 yachts, is approximately 607 miles long and takes five to six days to sail.

The entry to this year’s event, which starts on Sunday August 7 (at the end of Cowes Week), will include boats such as the Farr 52 Bear of Britain alongside Simon Le Bon’s (Duran Duran) IOR maxi Drum boat. But the beauty of the Fastnet is you don’t have to be a professional crew or a rock star to participate. 

Yachting World’s 29-year-old editorial assistant, Jo Cackett has never raced on a yacht before and her first real experience of sailing was completing her Competent Crew in the Solent last year. Being from Australia, Jo grew up near the sea and spent much of her pastime surfing the Victorian coastline and travelling the globe before moving to London to work for Yachting World. 

Joining Sailing Logic training school she will be racing on Puma, a Reflex 38, 11m racer/cruiser designed by Christian Stimson – originally owned by Robin Knox-Johnston’s Clipper Ventures for his corporate fleet. Puma is skippered by Philippe Falle, a round the world yachtsman and transatlantic skipper, and former chief instructor of Formula 1 Sailing.

The Sailing Logic Fastnet campaign will consist of three training weekends and three offshore RORC qualifying races including the Myth of Malham, from Cowes to St Helier; Morgan Cup Race, from Cowes to Dieppe; and Cowes to St Malo race, via Dinard. The crew will also complete a RYA Sea Survival course.