SAILING/Round Ireland Race: Jazz's overall lead for handicap honours in the BMW Round Ireland race that held all day yesterday was in the balance last night as Calyx Voice and Data hit back with a Rockabill time of 5.52 p.m.
It put Eamon Crosbie's crew on track for a finish in Wicklow before midnight to re-establish the lead he lost when gale-force south westerlies in Rathlin sound yesterday reduced his 32-footer to bare poles.
Punching well above her weight, the 32-footer from the National Yacht Club can move into the overall lead by a significant margin over the rest of the fleet if she beats the 50-footer's time.
Crosbie, with navigator Ian Moore on board, had closed on Chris Bull's 15-man Jazz crew at Innistrahull along the north coast on Tuesday but fell back again early yesterday as wind speeds across the deck reached around 40-knots.
Strong winds battered all of the leading boats yesterday but none were so badly affected as Royal Cork's Minnie the Moocher, an early race leader at the Tuskar, who lost significant time after being blown into the teeth of a gale as a text message to The Irish Times indicates: "Have been blown out to sea. Jib only. Doubtful that we could finish.Heading for Strangford. Pretty washed up. We were so close.Never doing an offshore race again."
It was a gale that sealed Minnie's fate. To beat Jazz's she needed to arrive in Wicklow no later than 2.30 p.m. but by 3 p.m. she had not even made Rockabill. By 8 p.m. she eventually closed on the finish line.
Eamon Crosbie and his seven-man crew, that includes two sons, Alan and David, were also forced to take action as winds rocked the second smallest boat in the fleet. In Rathlin sound they were first forced to reef, then drop the mainsail altogether and then sail under jib alone. At one stage they were under bare poles as they started out on the last 110-mile leg to the finish.
They arrived at Mew island off Belfast at 6.57 a.m. and after the strong winds faced being becalmed as fickle light winds ate away at their boat speed.
Last night abeam Lambay Island at 7 p.m. and 25 miles off the Irish coast they were oblivious to their overall position or of the importance of making Wicklow before midnight.
The eight-man crew were doing as they had done for the whole 704-mile race since Saturday, hiking in full dry suits to keep their boat speed above eight knots in the last fetch to the Wicklow finish line.
They estimated their arrival time between 11 and midnight in Wicklow where the Jazz crew were waiting anxiously since 11.30 a.m to hear the corrected times of competitors who could still snatch victory from them.
Although Calyx presented the biggest threat last night, crews of both boats were anticipating fast times from two Royal Cork boats, one of which is defending champion Cavatina, who can still win the Round Ireland title up until lunch time today.
Ger O'Rourke's Chieftain, a Limerick entry, was reported at Rockabill at 6.30 p.m. but who was unlikely to make Wicklow by 9.30 p.m., the deadline to beat Jazz. Eamon Rohan's Blondie can win if she hit the Wicklow line by 1.27 a.m. this morning, Conor Phelan's First 36.7 Endeavour needs to be back by 2.27 and the vintage, long-keeled Cavatina, one of the slowest boats in the fleet, has until 1.23 p.m. to beat Jazz.
On top of this there is an outside challenge from French entry Inis Mor, a Jeanneau Sunfast 40 (Bernard Guoy).
In Cork Week news, Hasso Plattner's Maxi Z86 Morning Glory is 1,000 miles off the Irish coast and heading for Crosshaven fresh from her Newport-Bermuda win over Roy Disney's Pyewacket. Pyewacket is also coming to Crosshaven but is being transported by ship and due to be unloaded in Cork on Friday.
