With a freshening breeze bringing a fresh twist to the Round Ireland Race fleet yesterday, a new scenario may be emerging as the halfway stage in this record breaking edition is reached. At the Slyne Head check-in point, George Radley's Ron Holland one-tonner Imp had extended his overall lead on IRC handicap. The south-easterly breeze that kicked in over Monday night reached as much as 16 knots for a time before settling down to an average of 10 knots later yesterday.

The direction of the breeze assisted the smaller boats towards the back of the fleet and had the immediate effect of firmly dumping the larger boats to the bottom of the corrected time standings. British entry Psipina, a 35-footer skippered jointly by Lorna Graham and Joanna Burchell, held on to second overall for the second day running while George McConnell's Sigma 38-footer Galliver moved into third place and was just under three hours behind Radley according to last night's provisional placings. In stark contrast to previous years, the fleet was still closely grouped. Swan 60 Fenix from Britain led the pack past Slyne Head at 0737 hours yesterday followed by the Royal Cork YC team on ex-Whitbread 60-footer Tokio just over half an hour later.