FEMALE PARTICIPATION STRENGTHENS IN THE ROLEX FASTNET RACE
In August a record fleet of 450 boats is expected to be on the start line of the world’s largest offshore yacht race, the Rolex Fastnet Race.
Among the 4,000 crews of this traditionally male-dominated sport, just over 10% will be women, according to present crew registration. While still a minority, this is nonetheless a strong sign of how female participation has grown in the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s premier event, since 1926 when Mrs T Aitken Dick became the race’s first female competitor aboard her 38ft 14 ton cutter Altair.
In fact in the intervening years female skippers have won the race (Catherine Chabaud aboard her IMOCA Whirlpool in 1999) and twice arrived first home (Dona Bertarelli, co-skipper of Spindrift2 in 2013 and 2015).
Competing in this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race are many of the world’s most accomplished female sailors, from Dee Caffari, the most capped female round the world sailor of all time and double Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson – both of whom are competing doublehanded. Many of the world’s top female offshore sailors are in the IMOCA class, such as Initiatives Coeur’s Sam Davies, who has competed in three Vendée Globes and skippered the all-women’s Team SCA entry in the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race; Swiss former Mini, Figaro and Volvo Ocean Race sailor Justine Mettraux racing with Simon Fisher on 11thHour Racing or Franco-German former Mini and Vendée Globe skipper Isabelle Joschke, in charge of MACSF.
