D2D report – 1700 BST, Saturday June 11th. After 6 hours the fleet is spread along the coast from Mizen Head to Wicklow Head with the leaders some 35 miles from the Tuskar, battling a north-going flood tide writes our Offshore Correspondent. Most of the fleet has closed the shore to try and duck out of the main stream. The decision as to when to make a move to the east as the ebb builds could prove crucial as the yachts struggle to establish an advantage. Arklow boat Aquelina may have an edge here from their local knowledge, but are trailing leader Galway Harbour and previous winner Legally Brunette, although there is not much between them on the water.
Top rated boat, Pride of Dalkey Fuji, is not living up to her billing and may find that going offshore early was not the best move. Current predictions put Galway Harbour as the handicap leader from Raging Bull and Aquelina, but its early doors yet and there is not much physical separation between the boats.
With building southeasterly forecast for Sunday, an early rounding of the Tuskar and eased sheets may provide further separation between the on the water leaders and the smaller lower handicap boats, who look likely to suffer from the backing breeze.
News from onboard Raging Bull from Brian Carlin:
Location: The Arklow Banks Time: 14:20
About 4 miles south of the Mulligans, the wind turned around to the east, it got very light for an hour and then it began to strengthen from the south east.. We had the kite up for quite a while but changed back to the head sail.. The Class 40 started to make some ground on us, but Lynx Racing the Reflex 38 still has the lead closely followed by Legally Brunette. We are approx 3 miles behind them, starting to hike hard now... It's getting bloody cold too...
On the bright side, Emma and Tracey had the shop open down below, but no chocolate been handed up to me yet as I type this with my cold fingers..
We passed Wicklow head with lots of tide against us, but we squeezed through.. We watch the Class 40 run a ground briefly, as we passed the sand bank to the south east of the headland, they got her off fairly quickly and are 200 meters behind us now.
Wind direction is slowly moving from it's south east direction further south. At this moment we are not making the next headland.
Time to sign off for now.
