THE STORMY FASTNET OF 1957

he weather conditions in the 1979 Fastnet race, in which 15 sailors lost their lives, were notoriously atrocious, but for some sailors the conditions in the 1957 race were just as bad, if not worse, although luckily there were no serious casualties. The race started on the morning of Saturday 10 August in a south-westerly gale which soon took its toll amongst the 44 boat fleet. In the western Solent, the French yacht and the Windfall yacht  both retired into Yarmouth, the latter having broken her forestay. The rest of the fleet had a strong, favourable tide in the Needles Channel but that came at a price, of course, with the opposing wind resulting in big seas. It was here that the Household Brigade YC’s carried away some gear and also returned to Yarmouth, and the American schooner was dismasted. 1957 was also the year of the first Admiral’s Cup. There were only two teams, however: the USA (the Philip Rhodes-designed , and and , all three of them yawls) and Great Britain (John Illingworth’s Giles-designed , the Robert Clark and the Arthur Robb , all three cutters). The British team held an eight-point lead going into this fourth and final race of the Cup series. had won the previous Fastnet and sailing aboard her this time was EP de Guingand, vice commodore of the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC), who later wrote that in the area of the Bridge Buoy they had “as bad a sea as we had in the whole trip.” It was here that fell off a wave, split a panel in a forward bunk and carried away her staysail tack strop. “The foredeck crew on the job were frequently invisible from the cockpit when they were covered by the sea and spray driving over ’s weather bow,” de Guingand wrote after the strop was replaced.