If we’re going to have this abominable weather for the first week of August on the fronts and backs of the weaving Jetstream, then somebody might as well do something useful with it writes W M Nixon. So here’s cheers to Lloyd Thornburg and his crew on the MOD 70 Phaedo 3 as they gather themselves in Dun Laoghaire to rocket out to the Kish Lighthouse and get timed on their way by NYC Commodore Larry Power for yet another tilt at the magnificent challenge of the Round Ireland Record. Tracker here
Time is of the essence, for as the noon pressure map shows, a low of 989 (already up from its lowest of 987) is currently tightly bunched at Tory Island, giving favourable winds northward through the Irish Sea and North Channel. But as the low continues to march eastward off Ireland’s north coast, it’s going to continue losing the depths of its central pressure – albeit slowly - the isobars will start to spread, and what had been strong winds can become messy stuff all over the place surprisingly quickly.
Assuming they’re going anti-clockwise, the idea is to reduce the tricky bit on the North Coast from Rathlin Island to Malin Head to as quick a sail as possible, as there’ll be more favourable nor’westers beyond Malin for a while.
It should be remembered that a lot of time was lost during the clockwise Volvo Round Ireland Race on the south coast with the long board taken seaward in search of stronger winds, and to make windward progress down to the Fastnet in the earlier southwest wind.
As a result, the three MOD 70s sailed 790 miles to cover the 704 mile course. Yet despite that they chopped a clear two hours off the record to bring it down to 38 hours 37 minutes. So a time of 30 hours – okay, let’s say 33 – is theoretically possible.
Lloyd Thornburg has a crew of all the talents, as he has Brian Thompson who set the beautiful Lakota record with Steve Fossett in 1993, and he also has Damian Foxall who was on Oman Sail when she set the new record at the finish line of the Volvo Round Ireland Race on June 20th.
But Foxall was also on Oman when she flipped during the Quebec Transatlantic race to France on July 17th, so he knows only too well how much on the edge you are with these boats when pushing to the limit, and this will be a continuous theme if this challenge is going to be a success.
The seas are tide-riven and turbulent the whole way from the South Rock at the south end of the North Channel on past Rathlin, continuing potentially rough to very rough until you’re well beyond Malin Head.
And then out there in the open Atlantic, even if you do catch a useful amount of the strong north’westers on the back of the low, you’ll find the strong to gale force sou’westers of the past couple of days have provided a leftover head sea which may never completely disappear, for after a while it is presaging the next lot of bad weather coming in from mid-Atlantic.
It’s a complex and fast-changing meteorological scene out there. But the message from this weather map at noon Wednesday seems to be that they should be on their way northward from Dublin Bay right now
