Trailblazing French doublehanders

Incredibly, a doublehanded crew has won the Rolex Fastnet Race outright

The writing was on the wall when they claimed the RORC Channel Race outright at the end of July, but the French father and son team of Alexis and Pascal Loison have pulled it out of the hat again, successfully winning the Rolex Fastnet Race. While Royal the Ocean Racing Club’s premier offshore event has featured a doublehanded class for a long time, this is the first occasion in its 88-year history that the Rolex Fastnet Race has been won by a doublehanded crew.

Night And Day, the Loisin’s 33ft JPK 1010 crossed the finish line off Plymouth Breakwater at 07:19:57 BST this morning, with an elapsed time for the 611 mile course of 3 days 18 hours 29 minutes and 57 seconds. Under IRC, their time corrected out to being 33 minutes and 17 seconds ahead of the second place yacht, another example of the French-built JPK 10.10, Noel Racine’s Foggy Dew.

Night And Day was racing with a fully crew IRC certificate so her result means, incredibly, that despite only having two crew on board, the Loisons managed to sail their JPK 10.10 better than not only than the full crew that sailed Foggy Dew, but best of the eight JPK 10.10s that competed in this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race.

(Doublehanded class 3
So What - Chris Schram
Night and Day - Pascal Loison (1st overall)
Raging Bee - Louis-Marie Duessere

Crew - class 4
Foggy Dew - Noel Racine (2nd overall)
Leon - Jacques Pelletier
Alkaid III - Gerard Quenot (11th overall)
Wasabi - Vincent Willemart (7th overall)
Swinhoe - Philippe Vicariot (9th overall)

Certainly stronger winds and less headwinds later in the race benefitted the smaller boats, but the JPK 1010 is clearly a competitive boat under IRC – five finished in the top 11 under IRC this year. “The JPK is an excellent boat in every condition – both upwind and downwind,” agrees Alexis.

However the Loisins are clearly special too. Their victory this year follows competing in the 2005 Rolex Fastnet Race aboard their previous Night And Day, a J/105, when they again won the doublehand classes and were second overall in IRC Two.

From Cherbourg, Pascal, 53, is a surgeon while his son Alexis, 29, is a professional sailor who has spent the last eight years competing in the Figaro class, his best result having been eighth last year, and finishing ninth this year in La Solitaire du Figaro, effectively the world championship of solo offshore racing.

“Alexis is a very nice guy – he’s low key, but good fun and performs very well in the Figaro,” describes Gilles Chiorri, Race Director of La Solitaire, who competed in the Figaro class in this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race. “And the conditions we had weren’t easy for doublehanded crews - a long reach under spinnaker, which is not easy to manage with only two on board.”

Many top Solitaire du Figaro sailors competed in this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race, including 2012 and 2013 winner Yann Elies, racing on the IMOCA 60 Cheminées Poujoulat, triple winner Michel Desjoyeaux, who was on the IMOCA 60 MACIF, while two other double Solitaire du Figaro winners were Armel le Cleac’h, who skippered the maxi-trimaran Banque Populaire and Jeremie Beyou, skipper of the IMOCA 60, Maitre CoQ.

“I think the boat is a good reason,” says Alexis of why they won. “Plu,s we sail together all the time and we have good tactical knowledge - our tactics were good all time. We made sure we slept well and we had good weather.”

Otherwise, compared to the fully crewed JPK 1010s, Alexis said he couldn’t put his finger on exactly why they performed better than the fully crewed boats. “With Foggy Dew, it is not tactics, I think we have a better spinnaker and speed.”

During the race the toughest decision they had to make was over which side of the traffic separate scheme (TSS) they should go around off Land’s End.

While it is Pascal’s boat, Alexis is a professional sailor, so come crunch time, who makes the decision?

“Over big decisions we talk...but we don’t always agree,” admits Pascal. His son nods: “We talk...”

In the end they went north, up the west side of the TSS, then tacked to head west leaving the Scilly Isles to port. When they tacked back to north for the Fastnet Rock it was into a big lift that caused them to sail a beautiful parabolic towards the turning mark.

After rounding the Pantaenius spreader mark, it was “fast, but not furious” as Alexis jokes. “We came back from Fastnet very fast under the small spinnaker. It was a great moment.”

Like all the fast smaller boats, the passage to Bishop Rock was a tight reach, followed by a run down towards the Finish – both legs sailed directly to the mark and in good breeze, unlike the stop-start-stop sailing the bigger boats experienced on this part of the course.

Eddie Warden Owen, CEO of the RORC was amazed by the Loisin’s performance. “I think they have done a brilliant job. It is the first time that in the history of the race a doublehanded boat has won the race, so that is a very significant result.”

Night And Day’s amazing achievement for me is that in a very tactical race they beat a fully crewed boat – and a really good one - of the same type.” Wasabi was second overall this year and second in IRC Three in 2011.

However Night And Day’s victory also highlights that it is still possible for well sailed small boats to win the Rolex Fastnet Race, just as the last French overall winner, the Nicholson 33, Jean-Yves Chateau’s Iromiguy, did in 2005.

“That’s one of the reasons the Rolex Fastnet Race is so successful,” continues Warden Owen. “For people, family and friends, sailing in the middle of the pack and at the bottom, it is not just a challenge - they have a realistic chance of winning.”

For their efforts Pascal and Alexis Loison will be awarded the Fastnet Challenge Cup as well as a Rolex Chronograph at tomorrow night’s prize giving.