Remon Vos’ RP100 Black Jack 100, skippered by Tristan Le Brun, has taken Monohull Line Honours in the centenary edition of the Rolex Fastnet Race. The sleek 100-footer and her 19 crew crossed the finish line of the 695 mile course not long after midnight in a time of 02 Days 12 Hrs 31 Mins 28 Secs.
Victory was never certain until Black Jack 100 had crossed the finish line in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. They were pushed all the way by their arch rivals on SHK Scallywag, who crossed the line 58 minutes later, closely followed by Leopard 3 just five minutes further back. These three 100-foot giants were all vying for the glory of taking line honours in the 100th year of this famous race.
“It feels like relief,” smiled Le Brun as he stepped ashore. “We were the outsiders and challengers because we were facing some very experienced and established teams and we have been growing our team for just a year and a half. We trained very hard and meticulously to arrive here in good shape, but to win here is beyond our expectations.”
Remon Vos only bought Black Jack a year ago but has enjoyed almost instant success with the boat. Last year Vos, Le Brun and the crew nearly took line honours in the Rolex Middle Sea Race only to be pipped to the post by Scallywag on that occasion. “They beat us by 20 minutes in the last part of the race,” he said.
“They had a great setup, they were faster than us, and this time we were a little faster. There are some beautiful boats in this race, very similar, very competitive. Having three boats of similar speed we enjoy the close competition – it makes you better and sharper. We won this time. You need a bit of luck, you need the right people and the right strategy.”
At one point on the long upwind race to the Fastnet Rock, Scallywag and Black Jack engaged a boat-on-boat tacking duel, a ‘Rolex Fastnet Match Race’. Scallywag’s navigator, Will Oxley, explained the importance of that strange boxing match. “We knew they were going to be quick downwind. And so if we if we gave them any room and they got ahead of us on the way out to the Rock then they would just scoot away.
“To give ourselves a chance, we needed to be ahead of them at least to the Rock. We managed to achieve that but, yeah, there was quite a bit of tacking going on. Once they got around the Rock they hoisted their A2 and they were just faster and deeper downwind.”
Jelmer van Beek, a 30-year-old up-and-coming offshore talent from the Netherlands, was one of the helmsmen on board Black Jack. “I never expected to have a match race out there, but I loved it, it was pretty cool. We had to fight all the way and you could never take anything for granted in this race.”
Black Jack certainly had to look carefully over their shoulder on the final push into the finish. Oxley was pleased to have been able to close the gap on the leader and give them something to worry about. “We were a bit lucky with having better tidal gates than them, but we were also quite aggressive at playing the shifts in the English Channel and then lining up the current in the Alderney Race.”
This is where notoriously strong currents can flow at up to eight knots, potentially creating havoc on the final run-in to Cherbourg. “From observation it looked like Black Jack had a bit of trouble in the tidal lee of Guernsey, and so we managed to make up a lot of ground on them and I’m sure we made them a little bit nervous.”
Le Brun could certainly confirm that he and his teammates were indeed feeling the mounting pressure. “Everybody came back into us towards the finish and that was quite complex to handle. We were a bit nervous at the end of the race and very focused.
I think I spent two hours downstairs with Max [Deckers] our navigator, looking at different scenarios and different options. The IMOCAs were coming back on one side and Scallywag and Leopard were coming in from the other side, all of them with more wind than us.
“So Max came up with a strategy that took us on a different route, very close to the land, and we ended up with six knots of current pushing us along, which made the boat handling feel really strange, with all kinds of disturbances in the water which you couldn’t see in the dark. But it worked and we managed to hold on.”
Beating Scallywag into Cherbourg has gone some way to exorcising the demons of missing out in Malta last year. “In last year’s Rolex Middle Sea Race we were very tight with them the whole race. When we lost to them on the final leg to Valletta we wanted our revenge, because we were very sour to be honest. So yes, this feel like revenge. Winning today, it feels like we have put the church in the middle of the village.”
