Round Britain & Ireland Race: Anniversary marathon gets underway off Cowes

This British classic has been around for 50 years now. It has in its anniversary edition has lost none of its appeal. The Round Britain & Ireland Race, which, like the Olympic Games, is held only once every four years, sets off its fleet Clockwise round Great Britain and Ireland, but excluding the Channel Islands.

Round Britain & Ireland Race: often close to the coast, yet still a gruelling offshore challenge

The Round Britain & Ireland Race takes participants past Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly, across the Celtic Sea and out into the rough North Atlantic to the remote archipelago of St Kilda. Next, the northernmost waypoint awaits at Muckle Flugga in the Shetland Islands. Finally, the route heads back through the shallow, busy North Sea into the English Channel. This circuit covers 1,805 nautical miles.

Click here for the live tracker for the Round Britain & Ireland Race.

As with the revived Admiral’s Cup, the event is organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club. Its Commodore, Deborah “Deb” Fischer, said ahead of the start: “The Round Britain & Ireland Race is undoubtedly the most demanding regatta on the RORC calendar. It covers 1,800 nautical miles packed with headlands, rocky coasts, tidal currents, traffic separation schemes, sandbanks, wind farms and everything else this extraordinary coastline has to offer.”

Deb Fish should know. Twenty-six years ago, at the turn of the millennium, she herself steered the “Incisor of Wight” to overall victory in the Round Britain & Ireland Race. In 2022, she competed once again as a double-handed crew with co-skipper Rob Craigie. The duo finished second overall on ‘Bellino’ on a time-on-time basis.

What makes the race around Great Britain and Ireland so special

Today’s message from the RORC Commodore, who has held office since 2024: “What makes the Round Britain & Ireland Race so important to the RORC is that it embodies what offshore sailing is really all about: it’s logistically tough. It’s physically demanding. And it’s mentally demanding. But when you overcome difficult moments together – whether as a pair or a crew of twenty – it forges a bond between the crew. This regatta does that more than any other.”

​The Sunday start in the Solent was initially followed by the course round the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. More challenging conditions were expected as early as the first evening. Westerly winds of around 10 to 15 knots were forecast, bringing a headwind as the fleet exits the English Channel before the wind shifts to the north-west. The crews could face short, choppy waves right from the start of the Round Britain & Ireland Race, as the wind and current are working against each other.

Four German teams are in the running

Four German teams have taken up the challenge: Jens Kellinghusen’s crew on “Varuna VI” are sailing one of the fastest boats in the fleet. After the first few hours late on Sunday evening, the Ker 56 was in second place behind the even larger VO70 “Pace”. At that point, the “Pace” was heading for the former Olympic venue of Weymouth.

Tim Behrendt and Andreas Buchheim also got off to a good start in the Round Britain & Ireland Race with their JPK 11.80 “Frida”, sitting in eleventh place on elapsed time after the first few hours. Their potential was demonstrated by their provisional first place in IRC 1 at that stage. The “Frida” crew have been preparing for this premier event for many years through a wide range of offshore races. The duo highlighted one of the differences between the Round Britain & Ireland Race and other long-distance races: the course offers hardly any breaks.

In the “Frida” crew’s preview, they said: “We have gradually worked our way up to increasingly complex formats. On routes such as the Skagen Round, Heligoland–Edinburgh, and several editions of the Baltic 500 “Whether it was right on our doorstep, at the AZAB or the Transquadra across the Atlantic, we’ve learnt how to push a boat to its limits around the clock as a two-man crew – without putting undue strain on the equipment or our own stamina.”

"The Round Britain & Ireland Race has what it takes to test the limits of our seamanship and our stamina. We believe that ‘Frida’ and we are up to the task." Tim Behrendt

Also competing under the German flag are the Sun Fast 3600 “Löwe von Bremen”, owned by the sailing club “Das Wappen von Bremen”, and Dirk Lahmann’s Peterson 43 c/B “Snifix Dry”. The boat, designed in 1978 by Doug Peterson as an IOR two-tonne class yacht, was acquired by Dirk Lahmann and Susanne Schade from its first owner in 2011; they have already competed twice in the Rolex Fastnet Race and, in 2022, once in the Round Britain & Ireland Race.