Midnight Date At the Fastnet For Lee Overlay & Antix?

13th June 2015

#D2DRace – The two leaders in the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2015 – Adrian Lee's Cookson 50 Lee Overlay Partners and Anthony O'Leary's Ker 40 Antix – were nearing the Fastnet Rock at 2330hrs on Saturday night with the underlying northerly wind now reinforced as the classic summer night breeze off the land writes W M Nixon

The Cookson had finally begun to find conditions to her liking once more, and had been logging 9-11 knots which could have had her at the rock by midnight, while Antix is only two miles astern, but had been slightly slower at between 8 and 9.5 knots.

However, the O'Leary boat continues to hold the overall IRC lead while Lee OP is lying 11th in the fleet of 30 boats. Twenty-eight miles astern, at the Seven Heads southwest of Courtmacsherry, George Sisk's Farr 42 WOW is enjoying good sailing at 8 knots plus, and lies 8th overall, but less than ten miles astern of WOW around the Old Head of Kinsale, there's battle royal with the Power Smiths' J/122 Aurelia recovering well from her brief period of being becalmed offshore in mid-afternoon, and she has Old Head abeam to put her a mile and a half ahead of James & Sheila Tyrrell's sister-ship Aquelina, with Aurelia lying seventh overall while Aquelina is tenth.

Just three miles astern of Aquelina (which is sitting on 7 to 8 knots) it's neck-and-neck off Oysterhaven for the two leading J/109s, Mojito (Peter Dunlop & Vicky Cox, Pwlheli SC) and the Shanahan family's Ruth (National YC), but times are so close in this part of the fleet that Mojito comes to 2330 hrs in second place overall while Ruth is fourth, the boat between them being Mike Murphy's JPK 9.60 Alchimist which is just three miles astern of Ruth, with Frank Doyle A35 Endgame (lying sixth OA) between them.

The Elan 340 Blue Eyes (Colm Buckley and Simon Knowles, Howth YC) continues to head the two-handed division, but is now in 9th overall after a frustrating time in late afternoon off the West Waterford coast in headwinds.

However, Blue Eyes and the rest of the fleet are now well into this classic stern chase along the Cork coast, but up ahead for the two leaders, the interest will lie in how far they can move along from West Cork towards Kerry without coming hard on the wind in the northerly which has been recorded at Valentia all day. Current wind reports from Sherkin show that the day's sea breeze from the southwest has completely reversed in textbook style to become a nor'easter. It will be crucial for the pace of Lee OP and Antix as to how far they can carry the nor'easter along towards the Bull Rock and perhaps even Skellig Michael itself.

That's for the night owls to follow. We sign off by noting that the two leaders are now south of the entrance to Baltimore with Lee OP leading by two miles, but both slowing to 7.7 and 6.3 knots respectively, so the wind is a bit erratic off Cape Clear

Published in Dun Laoghaire Dingle

Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race Live Tracker 2023

Track the progress of the 2023 Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Yacht Race fleet on the live tracker above and the leaderboard below

Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race Live Leaderboard 2023

The 16th edition of the 280-mile race organised by the National Yacht Club starts at 2 pm on Wednesday, June 7th, on Dublin Bay.

Read the full 2023 race preview by WM Nixon here
Read all the D2D Race News in one handy link here
Listen to Lorna Siggins's interview with Race Chairman Adam Winkelmann on Afloat's Wavelengths here

WM Nixon will be posting regular race updates and analysis throughout the 2023 race here

Published in Dun Laoghaire Dingle

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Dun Laoghaire to Dingle

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Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Yacht Race Information

The biennial Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race is a 320-miles race down to the east coast of Ireland, across the south coast and into Dingle harbour in County Kerry.

The race is organised by the National Yacht Club.

It never fails to offer a full range of weather, wind and tide to the intrepid entrants, ranging from a 32ft cruiser to a 79ft all-out racer.

Three divisions are available to enter: cruiser (boats equipped with furlers), racing (the bulk of the fleet) and also two-handed.

D2D Course change overruled

In 2019, the organisers considered changing the course to allow boats to select routes close to shore by removing the requirement to go outside Islands and Lighthouses en route, but following input from regular participants, the National Yacht Club decided to stick with the tried and tested course route in order to be fair to large and smaller boats and to keep race records intact.

D2D Course record time

Mick Cotter’s 78ft Whisper established the 1 day and 48 minutes course record for the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race in 2009 and that time stood until 2019 when Cotter returned to beat his own record but only just, the Dun Laoghaire helmsman crossing the line in Kerry to shave just 20 seconds off his 2009 time.