Day 3 15.30: The smaller boats in the Volvo Round Ireland had a stressful time last night and through this morning off the southwest coast writes W M Nixon. With the veering and fading wind around them putting the bigger boats even further ahead in their stronger westerly breeze, the little ’uns, having had quite a struggle to get past the Fastnet, found themselves getting headed off into the mighty bays of the West Cork and Kerry coastlines.

To add to their woes, they were having the greatest difficulty making reasonable knots to windward in the leftover sea from Sunday’s blow. Two examples perfectly illustrate the divisions of fortune. At 0400 hours this morning, Eric de Turckheim’s splendid A13 Teasing Machine (below) was far north of the Dingle Peninsula, on track and making a steady 10.8 knots towards Connacht.

But at the same time, as daylight came on, Dave Cullen’s J/109 Euro Car Parks, formerly in the top three overall on IRC behind Rambler 88 and Teasing Machine, had been headed into the mouth of Bantry Bay. She found herself coming in on the coast of Beara well east of Dursey Head, and there was nothing for it but to take a tack and beat west at a paltry 3.8 knots.

One small consolation for the Euro Car Parks crew is that regardless of how they’re doing relative to the bigger boats, they still lead the significant flotilla of J/109s, the next in line being Mojito (Peter Dunlop & Vicky Cox). But when you’ve been part of the big picture for a significant part of the race, this is small consolation indeed.

Fast forward to 1530hrs, and Euro Car Parks and those about her have struggled free of the clutches of the great rias of the southwest, the Blaskets are now astern and they’re on course. A further veering of the winds from the westerly arc means they’re happy enough to be logging 7.7 knots in the right direction, but after the frustrations of the night and morning, they’re starting to pick up places again, having in the past few minutes moved back up to 7th overall and 2nd in IRC 3.

But by now, and very far ahead, Teasing Machine has freed her course 15 degrees after putting Eagle Island at the northwest tip of Mayo astern astern, and as of 1530 she was logging 11.5 knots. She went so well through the night and morning in improving weather that she still leads on the water from boats like the nearby Open 50 Pegasus of Northumberland (Ross Hobson) and the winning Open 40 Roaring Forty 2 (Michel Kleinjans) above, which is back at Black Rock.

Nevertheless Roaring Forty 2’s performance relative to the fleet and her near-sisters means that she lies third overall on IRC, behind only Rambler and Teasing Machine. And those bigger boats which managed to get away that little bit earlier from the clutches of Beara have also done well, as Michael Boyd’s First 44.7 Lisa (above) lies fourth overall while Alan Hannon’s Reichel-Pugh 45 Katsu (below) is fifth.

The JPK 10.80 is such a unique boat that we still can’t decide whether she’s one of the smaller boats, or really comes under a bigger category. Whatever, Paul O’Higgins new Rockabill VI, skippered by Mark Pettit, has been going well, as she lies sixth overall.

With the mighty Rambler 88 finishing at Wicklow as we write this, it’s clear there’s going to be a prodigious spread of times, corrected or otherwise. Current class placings are now:

Overall: 1st Rambler 88, 2nd Teasing Machine, 3rd Roaring Forty 2, 4th Lisa, 5th Katsu, 6th Rockabill VI.

IRC 1: 1st Teasing Machine, 2nd Lisa, 3rd Katsu

IRC 2: 1st Sarabande (Robert Mabley), 2nd Aurelia (Chris & Patanne Power Smith), 3rd Team Fujitsu (Donal Ryan)

IRC 3 1st Rockabill VI, 2nd Euro Car Parks, 3rd Mojito

IRC 4 1st Groupe 5 (Patrice Carpentier), 2nd Lambay Rules (Stephen Quinn), 3rd Adelie (Peter Hall & Noel Butler)

See Round Ireland tracker here and keep to up to date with the fleet's progress with Afloat's regular Round Ireland 2016 updates here