Mike Slade's 30-metre maxi ICAP Leopard will lead the charge for line honours, gobbling up the 704 miles with 15,000 square feet of canvas at max capacity.
The Russian Volvo entry will add some further international glamour to the entry list, and rounding out the list of canting-keel sleds is Lee Overlay Partners, the renamed Cookson 50 formerly known as Chieftain. Given the right conditions, this could be the year the record finally falls.
At this stage, nearly half the entries are double-handers, with former Round Ireland winners Michael Boyd and Niall Dowling teaming up and putting in some serious training in the Solent ahead of the big day.
The fleet also boasts its first female doublehanded crew.
Wicklow Sailing Club have said they are very happy with the current level of entries in the race, which stood at 20 earlier this week.
No doubt, attracting a Volvo entry is a major coup, and many will be disappointed that Green Team are unable to get their boat to the start line to race off against the Russians.
Editorial opinion: It may be greedy, but one has to ask why, if we can attract one VO70 to the Round Ireland, why not two, or even five? It is, after all, the perfect training run to work out bugs and pace against the competition - a pre-packaged, no-pressure practice race. Are they not showing up or did we forget to invite them, assuming they would say no?
The benefits of having a slew of VO 70s should be glaringly obvious - obvious enough for us to court them with all our might.
If Irish sailing wants to interest more of its people in the sport it'll have to show it off a little better. Bring on the big guns and show them that this (see vid below) is why sailors do what they do.
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