Day #2 2230 - Conor Doyle's Xp50 Freya was leading the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle fleet at the Fastnet Rock at 2147hrs tonight (Thursday), and then with slightly eased sheets eased was starting to make more serious knots – 9 knots and rising - to see off the remaining sixty miles to the D2D finish at Dingle.
Being the first of the fleet to get into faster sailing mode after a day of windward work gives her a brief advantage, and for now shows her as second on estimated finish. But unless the wind evaporates for the group of six boats following in a relatively tight-packed group, her advantage will be short-lived. That said, the post-finish working out of the redress she’s owed for time out to save a drifting kite-surfer near Arklow will provide some interesting research.
All the leaders may have to face a new twist to the wind tomorrow with an easing and veering to a northwest direction a possibility. But as today’s southwester has already lasted for several hours longer than forecast, it may be that all the leading group gets to the finish with a fair wind from the Fastnet.
While Chris & Patanne Power Smith's J/122 Aurelia (RStGYC) is now second on the water with George Sisk’s Xp44 WOW third, the exceptional performance by the Murphy family’s Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo has been maintained to such good effect that she may even pass the legendary rock ahead of her larger new sister, Robert Rendell’s Grand Soleil 44 Samatom.
Newly into the podium positions is John O’Gorman’s Sunfast 3600 Hot Cookie from the National YC. Her crew includes the formidable talents of Mark Mansfield, and with some other crews showing signs of exhaustion, it seems that the hyper-tough Mansfield is finding fresh reserves of energy to bring the O’Gorman boat up into more immediate contention with the newer sister-ship, Pete Smyth’s Searcher (National YC), where the already impressive talents of the Smyth brothers Pete and Nick have been augmented by Maurice “Prof” O’Connell and a suit of his very newest North Sails.
Defending champion Rockabill VI (Paul O’Higgins) has always been there or thereabouts with the leaders, and currently lies fifth overall on CT, but this puts her almost exactly an hour-and-a-half adrift on the extraordinary Nieulargo, with the two Sunfast 3600s between them.
Overall, it may look fairly straightforward from here to the finish. But as much of it is being sailed off the coast of Kerry, absolutely nothing – but nothing - will be quite as it seems.