After impressively beating Widnes Vikings the previous week, Rovers had high hopes of ending their away drought against a Whitehaven side they beat 28-6 at the Chris Moyles Stadium in March in their opening league fixture.
But it all went wrong for Featherstone from the start at the Recreation Ground when they found themselves 18-0 down after just nine minutes.
Howard Hill (2 mins), Spencer Miller (4 mins) and Ade Adebisi (9 mins) grabbed tries, all converted by Tane Manihera, to give Whitehaven a commanding lead.
Rovers hit back with a 14th minute touchdown from Tom Saxton but then fell further behind when Scott McAvoy and Craig Calvert crossed and their former winger Adebisi collected his second try to put the home side 30-6 up at half-time.
Featherstone's cause wasn't helped when Paul Handforth was sin-binned after 42 minutes.
They played better in the second-half but it was too little too late.
Stuart Dickens scored a 44th minute try and Carl Hughes went over in the 79th minute, with Dickens kicking his third goal, but a losing margin of 14 points meant Rovers narrowly missed out on a bonus point.
Whitehaven's only second-half points came from a Manihera penalty goal.