40 Years On

This year marked the 40th anniversary of a race never to be forgotten. Elaine Bunting looks back at crews’ experiences of the 1979 fastnet race.

- Elaine Bunting

Back in 1979, Ted Turner’s Tenacious took line honours in the Fastnet Race, finishing in 3 days 8 hours. Over the last 30 years the average speed across the 605-mile Fastnet course has increased phenomenally: at the elite end, the fastest Ultime trimarans complete the course in just a third of Tenacious’s time. Yet for the smallest yachts in the race, the race can still take five full days.

Yacht design has changed enormously in 30 years, but even more so communications, navigation and access to weather information. So it begs the question of whether a tragedy on such a wide scale could ever happen again?

Navigating in 1979 was a world away from today. The article on page 46, a contemporaneous account written by the late Sir Peter Johnson in his monthly Yachting World column ‘In the Offing’, was published directly after the finish and paints a picture of a time when developing weather conditions and other competitors’ situations were something of a mystery, and safety and navigation gear rudimentary.

Since today there is never a doubt as to our position, the role of the navigator is more one of tactician and strategist. Back then, nav aids such as Loran and Decca were specifically banned and sat nav, then in its infancy, was also prohibited. The tools for the navigator were a sextant, a radio direction finder (RDF), compass and experience of dead reckoning navigational skills.

Communications were poor. VHF or MF radio was not mandatory. The larger yachts mostly carried VHF but only an estimated 25% of the smaller yachts did. Radio sets were heavy, cumbersome and expensive, and also power-hungry on yachts with small capacity batteries.