#rorcrfr – There's a whole secret community in sailing worldwide which thinks it's the Fascinating Race writes W M Nixon. But if the Fastnet Race with all its intriguing twists and turns and tidal gates and heaven only knows what else leaves you cold, then please move on to the Gardening Section, and leave those of us who are totally absorbed by the 46th Rolex Fastnet Race in this its 90th Anniversary Year to our harmless addiction.

To those who may have made a modest wager on Bryon Ehrhart's Reichel-Pugh 63 Lucky on the strength of our enthusiasm here on Saturday for this fine boat (formerly the all-conquering Loki under Gordon Maguire's command), well, all we can say is: Tough.

In the mad crowded scramble to get through the Needles Channel and out into open water, Lucky strayed a bit too far to the north towards the Shingles bank. So far as we could make out, Brian O'Sullivan's Amazing Grace and Griff Rhys Jones' Argyll were both nearby and even further in, but they draw less and went merrily on their way, while Lucky with her much deeper draft came to a complete and utter halt, which is very un-merry indeed

Not that anyone else was going all that fast through the water. But the water itself was racing out of the Solent at a real rate of knots, so very soon poor Lucky was left all on her own, and now she has retired, hurt in feelings but otherwise uninjured, back to Southampton. Changed times indeed from the Transatlantic Race of July when she was being navigated by Ian Moore, who called the shots to such perfection that she won overall.

Meanwhile, of the thousands who sailed on with hope in their hearts but a dread of complete calm in the dark which – to a greater or lesser extent – was amply fulfilled for nearly everyone last night, we can only say that the respective performances have been, well....intriguing.

Truly the Yellowbrick Tracker is a very cruel instrument. With a fleet of this size, you could soon see some boats which were apparently being sailed in the light airs so badly that one wonders what quirk of personal vanity persuaded their owners, skippers and crews that they should be taking part in this Grand National of Ocean Racing at all.

But equally, there were cheers for the one crew who were game enough to try swinging for the fences, instead of going down the middle of the English Channel in the midst of the crowd who had been persuaded that's where the wind would be

So step forward 80-year-old Lawrence Huntington, the former Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, who for 25 years was navigator on Carina for the great Dick Nye, another skipper who enjoyed taking a calculated flyer.

Swinging for the fences....that's Snow Lion all on her own up towards Portland Bill

These days, Huntington has the attractive Ker 50 Snow Lion of 2006 vintage (she's very much a big sister of Anthony O'Leary's silver Antix of the same year), and with her he raced Transatlantic for the fifth time in July's atrocious conditions.

But in looking at the hyper-gentle way things were panning out off the Dorset coast yesterday evening, the crew of Snow Lion reckoned their best chance would be close inshore where they might enjoy a night breeze off the land. Other boats may have intended to do the same, but Snow Lion was there to make the choice when there was still enough breeze to do it, so they went right in towards Weymouth and then went round Portland Bill in solitary splendour close inshore, while the rest of the fleet were very many miles away going quietly mad in mid-Channel.

Snow Lion did indeed get a decent reaching breeze off the land down towards Start Point, and for a while she was looking like our photo, albeit in the pitch dark night. But it has been a swings and roundabouts sort of race, and now while the bulk of the fleet are piling up around The Lizard, the biggies have broken away and a very interesting scenario is taking shape west of the Isles of Scilly.

As anticipated, George David's Rambler 88 had managed to stay close enough to the Kenny Read-skippered hundred-footer Comanche (Jim & Kristy Hinze Clark) to be almost an embarrassment. But in negotiating round the edge of the exclusion zone between Land's End and the Scillies, Comanche swung right as soon as she could to leave the Scillie to port as Fastnet Racers have done since time immemorial, for that's the course.

But there's nothing in the race instructions which says you can't go south of the Scillies going out to the rock, and you have to do so coming back. So some of the giant multihulls had already taken the southerly option in hope of getting as soon as possible to the fresher brezes further west, and when Rambler 88 came along and had this stark choice to face, she went left as well.

So as of 150 hrs today Monday, Comanche and the Volvo 70 Moma have gone north of the islands, and Rambler and Mike Slade's hundred foot Leopard have gone south, and for the moment Rambler is looking good.

As for the rest of the fleet, they've been getting to see that scenic rugged coast of West Cornwall in rather more detail and for longer than they want, but gradually as the breeze livens up – inevitably followed by the rain and who knows what - all things are possible, and it's the boats best-placed in the morning which will be the serious contenders for the Fastnet Trophy, with a clearer pattern emerging. Meanwhile, here's to Snow Lion and all those eighty-years-olds who are game to swing for the fences.

The situation for the mono-hull leaders early this afternoon – Comanche and the Volvo 70 Moma have gone north of the Scillies, while Rambler leads Leopard to the south of the islands.