Since its inception in 1925, The Fastnet Race is considered one of the world’s foremost offshore yacht races. It is contested biennially, organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club and is limited to three hundred yachts. To be admitted to the race the yacht and half of its crew must have completed RORC races of distances totalling more than 300 miles.

The course of 608 nautical miles starts at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, continues westward along the southern English coast, past Land’s End, up to the Fastnet Rock on Ireland’s south-western coast, around the rock and then back, past the Scilly Isles, to the finish at Plymouth.