#roundireland – As the on-the-water leaders push down the north Irish Sea, the fleet can now be considered in four groups.
In group one, battling it out for line honours, is Green Dragon and Tonnerre and possible Lee Overlay Partners (not updating on the tracker), crossing tacks, in a southerly Force 4. Under present conditions a finish in the small hours of Thursday morning is expected.
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Group two, on the Antrim coast, where the current corrected time leaders reside, consist of Inis Mor, Noonmark VI and, a bit further back, Maxvmg Fortissimo. This group has virtually no wind, but is not under huge threat from the similarly almost windless group three, spread from Instrahull to Aranmore.
Group four is a small group of backmarkers enjoying slightly better wind off the Mayo coast.
For those of us looking to predict a winner, the categorisation into groups allows us to consider the wind and tide effects on each group.
Of the first group, Tonnerre looks the most promising. She could finish early Thursday and post a time for the others to chase, which could turn into the winning result if the wind doesn't fill in for the chasing group.
Inis Mor has been the leader almost since the start of the race and is the most likely boat of the second group to feature on the poium. However, much will depend on the duration of the light winds in the North Channel and having to include an extra adverse tide in this section could prove very costly. Nooonmark VI has been featuring on the leaderboard and one tide could prove to be the separating factor from Inis Mor.
In the third group, the J-109s Jedi and Sgrech, the Reflex 38 NUI Galway and the J-105 Diablo J are the leading contenders to upset the current leaders, and don't rule out Cavatina making one of her charges for the rear.
Its all with the gods of the environment right now.
Assuming that Tonnerre finishes in Wicklow just after 4am on Thursday, the attached table speculates on leaderboard showing what each boat needs to do to match Tonerre's time.
Could it be a third time for Cavatina?