#rorcrfr – This Tuesday evening, Dieter Schoen's new Maxi 72 Momo continues to be the best overall performer in the Rolex Fastnet Race's core IRC Division writes W M Nixon. The front-runners in the mono-hulls continue to be the hundred foot Comanche (Jim & Kristy Hinze Clark) with the 88ft Rambler (George David) snapping at her heels. Third on the water as they head down the first stage (to the Bishop Rock) of the leg home from the Fastnet to Plymouth is Mike Slade's veteran Farr hundred-footer Leopard, but always with striking distance is Momo, a potent machine whose performance is a reminder of what the other Maxi 72, Belle Mente, might have done, had she not been obliged to withdraw from the big race with three days to go to the start.

The leading mono-hulls finally crawled round the rock early this morning, with Comanche doing it while still in the dark. But Rambler had the first scrapings of the light of the new day, enough to show just how different conditions were from the time when the ill-fated Rambler 100 came tearing past in 2011, only to capsize half an hour later when her keel fractured.

Rambler 88 has been precisely fulfilling her promise of being the boat to give Comanche a hard time. So absorbed had everyone been with this contest that the Judel-Vrolik-designed Momo had in some ways slipped under the radar. But she was always there or thereabouts, and if conditions stay anything like steady, she has to be favourite, having been most consistently the leader in class and overall.

Historic moment. The Rolex Fastnet Race Tracker at 0506 this morning, with Rambler 88 just rounding the Rock, while Comanche is ahead of her. Not entirely out of the action though still approaching the Rock are Momo and Leopard, with Momo ahead. As for the rest of the fleet, well...

Why can't you Irish spread your winds more evenly? Rambler 88 at the Fastnet at daybreak this morning, very different conditions from Rambler 100's rounding in 2011.

But of course conditions are anything but steady. They're all over the place, and the leading giant multi-hulls have found themselves losing pace as they return to the summer seas off southwest England, so tonight the same thing is likely to happen to Comanche and then Rambler.

However, it's just possible that Momo is sufficiently far astern – while still saving her time – to be more favoured by the rain-bearing southwesterlies which are expected to spread from the southwest across most of the race area tomorrow (Wednesday). The Maxi 72 has enough in hand on smaller boats far astern to be allowed a bit of slackening of pace approaching the finish. But nevertheless if there's any real localised bite to the new wind, it could invert the entire order.

However, Momo certain offers a potent performance in any conditions. While superficially she looks to be every bit as beamy - relatively speaking - as Comanche, with Momo the Judel-Vrolik team seem to have created a boat which is not cursed with excessive wetted area. Thus when the breeze pipes up, her hull becomes immersed and powerful. But in light airs they've managed to give it sections which keep much of the boat clear of the water – Momo stays unglued.

Hull power when it's needed. In stronger breezes, Momo can afford the greater wetted area, as in the overall peformance equation, it is more than offset by the hull's increasing righting moment.

The Maxi 72s Bella Mente and Momo racing in Cowes last week. Bella Mente won the Britannia Cup and came third in the New York Yacht Cub Cup in Cowes Week before being withdrawn from the Fastnet Race.

As the race tracker at the moment when Rambler finally rounded the rock this morning shows, a huge gap has built up between the biggies in front, and the Great Unwashed spread over many miles of sea far astern. Of the Irish contingent, the best-placed in general at 1800hrs Tuesday was Hammy Baker of Quoile YC lying third in the Figaro II class with Artemis 23.

Ronan O'Siuchru's Sunfast 37 Desert Star was best in the ope, but she was 115th, three places ahead of nthony O'Leary's Antix, but even as we've been writing this Antix – after spending a miserable night trying to get past the Isle of Scily in zero wind – is finding her groove and her speed has gone up from 4 knots to 8.4.

Of the boats mentioned in our ongoing coverage of this very special race, 80-year-old Larry Huntington with the Ker 50 Snow Lion lies second in Class ZR, but we note that one of the boats nearest him is the lower-rated Antix, and she's giving the Lion a bad time.

But perhaps the most sensational performance of all is being put in by Matt Baker's Dorade. She may have won the Fastnet overall way back in 1931 and again in 1933, but as our vids on Saturday showed, this super-veteran has to be one of the coolest boats and crews afloat. She has seldom put a foot wrong in Fastnet 2015, and currently is among the front runners in IRC Class 4, having led it on three occasions since the start on Sunday.

The coolest boat and crew afloat.....The 1931 Dorade comes in past the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes in July after completing the stormy Transatlantic Race 2015.