The north coast of Ireland played its traditional hand of slowing the fleet competing in the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race as a combination of adverse tide and light winds brought almost every boat to standstill on Tuesday.
Few entries managed to time their arrival at the Rathlin tidal gate for a combination of a favourable flood plus breeze, or any breeze as the 39 competitors start to compress together from the lead boat at the top of the Irish Sea as far back as Sligo Bay.
For a time, it appeared that Franco Niggeler’s Kuka3 had stalled off Antrim for several hours.
The Volvo 70 Green Dragon managed to close the lead down from 20 nautical miles to just six before also falling victim to the conditions. If ever there was a moment that their goal of winning line honours might become possible, this was it.
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Further behind, other crews were hunting options.
American Greg Leonard on his Classe 40 entry Kite powered past Innistrahull as third boat on the water and leader of his division.
Desperate to break his class lead, fellow Classe 40 entry Andrea Fornarno on Influence with Greystones sailor Pamela Lee on board took a flyer over to the Scottish side of the channel, a move that appeared to backfire as several other crews slipped past towards Rathlin.
But on Tuesday evening, as the main frontrunners slowed once more towards dusk, Fornano was the fastest boat as his team powered to the north side of the Traffic Separation Scheme off Rathlin and appeared to be gaining better breeze and possibly an attacking position for the final sprint southwards to the finish.
Estimated arrival times for the first boat at Wicklow vary wildly, and the evening’s Met Éireann forecast held little hope of significant overnight wind.
In fact, fog was expected on the east coast and, while the computer predicted a dawn finish for Kuka3 based on race performance to date, a Wednesday afternoon or later finish is possible.
Either way, Wicklow Sailing Club will be receiving a steady stream of visitors for the coming two days, among whom will be the overall winner to be decided on handicap-corrected time.
That winner was provisionally listed as Paul O’Higgins Rockabill VI for much of Tuesday until the evening lull when French entry SL Energies Groupe Fastwave took over – for now.
