SAILING/Commodore's Cup: Knife-edge. Today sees the waiting game reach its climax at Cowes and sometime later this evening, the outcome of the Rolex Commodore's Cup will be known. Balanced precariously is the Irish Team with a four-point lead before starting the 24-hour RORC Channel Race last night.

Hovering nearby and hoping to unsettle them are two British teams, equal on points, but demonstrably furious at the prospect of defeat by the Irish squad. With few slips on the leaders' part, Colm Barrington's team have outsailed the ten other squads to date by a combination of the right boats, the right equipment and good crew-work.

For their part, the runners-up showed their desperation yesterday in the single windward-leeward race in an apparently co-ordinated effort against the Irish boats. As many as six separate incidents were reported during the race, three of which ended up in the protest-room with British crews on the offensive.

Bear of Britain succeeded in one of these by having Fidessa Fastwave disqualified when they produced team-mates as witnesses to an alleged starting infringement.

Nevertheless, Barrington's Flying Glove produced another race win in Class Two while Eamon Crosbie's young crew on Calyx Voice & Data scored their second victory in Class Three.

The net result before Fidessa's disqualification was a gain for the Irish team, who almost doubled their overnight lead from 4.5 points to eight.

Britain's Black and Red teams were tied in second place while the defending title-holders, France Blue, were ten points behind Ireland in fourth place.

The problem today is weather. This has been a largely light-airs event since the outset on Monday, and the overnight forecast was for continued near calm weather.

As the Channel Race counts for a doubling-points factor, a lottery scenario was being predicted.