Zero gravity flight above the Earth
Parabolic flights allow scientists to conduct experiments under almost zero-gravity conditions. Science reporter Conor Dillon went along for a ride. Maybe for the first and last time.
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Record Fastnet Race Challenge Taken Up By Ten Irish Boats
21st January 2021
Paul O Higgins champion JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI in action off the West Cork coast in Calves Week. She has raced round or past the Fastnet Rock several times in other events, but this year the star Dun Laoghaire boat will be doing the Rolex Fastnet Race itself for the first time
Credit: Robert Bateman
If anyone in the Royal Ocean Racing Club s suite of race offices was bothered by the thought that the 2021 change of course in the club s core event, the biennial Fastnet Race, was going to have a detrimental effect on entries, they didn t show it. And there was no need to worry, for within an hour of the list s electronic opening, it was already banging up against the 400-boat ceiling.
Fastnet Race Entry Numbers Smash All Records
12th January 2021
A massive fleet make their way out of the Solent in the 2019 Rolex Fastnet Race
Like tickets to Glastonbury, registration opened on the dot of 1000 UTC today for this summer’s Rolex Fastnet Race and speedily sold out. Within an hour an unprecedented 400 boats had entered the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s flagship event, which this year will follow a route finishing for the first time in France. Bow to bow this line-up represents almost 5km of yacht, confirming the Rolex Fastnet Race’s position as by far the world’s largest and most popular offshore yacht race.
Yachts and Yachting
(c)Rolex
Registration for the Rolex Fastnet Race opened at 10am UTC on Tuesday, 12 January, and within an hour an unprecedented 400 boats had entered.
It wasn’t quite as fast as previous editions of the race, which have sold out in five minutes or less, but it shows that there is no lack of enthusiasm for the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s flagship event, despite its course change.
This year for the first time the race will finish not in Plymouth but in Cherbourg.
RORC said that the entry “bow to bow represents almost 5km of yacht, confirming the Rolex Fastnet Race’s position as by far the world’s largest and most popular offshore yacht race”.