#roundireland14 – There were homecoming celebrations tonight for 2014 Round Ireland Race line honours winner David Ryan and his chartered Monster Projects Volvo 70 when they crossed the Wicklow finish. His clubhouse lead will, however, be shortlived, as light winds since last Saturday's start have allowed smaller, lower rated boats, currently racing down the east coast, to take a significant advantage for the overall handicap prize. We predict the overall finishing positions below.

The stretch of water that links the northern Irish Sea to the Atlantic Ocean is called the North Channel and the constriction of the water between Ireland and Scotland gives rise to some fairly significant flows, particularly around Rathlin Island. At springs, there can be in excess of 4 knots of tide on the north Antrim coast along with considerable overfalls. Consequently, were one not racing, the prudent southbound mariner would time his or her arrival at the eastern tip of Rathlin to coincide with low water Dover to not only get the benefit of six hours of south-going flood stream but also to avoid the rough water caused by the overfalls.

In this year's Round Ireland Race already there have been winners and losers. Newstalk for Adrenalin averaged 6.3 knots for this stretch, while Inis Mor, just a few hours later, averaged 7.8 knots. 

At 2000 BST just 2 hours before LW Dover, Cavatina has just rounded Rathlin’s eastern tip. Although not ideal for avoiding overfalls and a couple of hour short of optimal, she is going to get about eight “free” miles from the tide, equal to one hour of elapsed time and perhaps an hour and five minutes of corrected time.  It’s not only Cavatina who benefits from this tidal cycle, Leopard Clipper and Wild Spirit, immediately behind Cavatina, should get a good push as well.  Up ahead, Muskox, Bow Waves Racing and McGregor IV are also in a good tidal position.  However, it’s not looking so good for Big Deal, currently trying duck the adverse tide off Portrush, who look likely to suffer from being somewhat out of sync, tidally speaking.

This push will be a real boost to Cavatina who may well need it.  Closest rival is now Liam Shanahan’s Ruth some 50 miles further along the track.  However Ruth may well benefit from a slight but temporary veering of the wind which may change a beat to the finish to a fetch, while it currently looks like Cavatina will have it on the nose.

Afloat’s current prediction (2000hrs on Wednesday, July 2):

1.       Cavatina

2.       Ruth

3.       IOS - Desert Star

4.       Tanit

5.       McGregor IV

6.       Polished Manx

7.       Big Deal

8.       Dreamcatcher

9.       Endgame

10.   Muskox

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