Thursday (Day 5) 17:00 hrs: When the bright brown arrows start marching across the XCW forecast screen, it means hard work for sailors. Squally weather, with almost continuous adjustment of sail areas. At 17:00 hrs today (Thursday) the southwest to west wind pushing out of Dublin Bay was jumping from 26 knots (quite enough) up to 39 knots (a more than elegant sufficiency, as Mrs Malaprop would say) as rain drove through, and tired salt-stained sailors laboured to keep themselves up to pressure in resolving private battles their own way.

For that's how it goes in a Round Ireland Race. It's an entire community afloat moving round the Emerald Isle, with these private battles developing with other boats that may be of completely different type, and a very different rating and maybe even in a different class, yet somehow you get glued to them.

By Day 5 nothing really matters except finishing ahead of these strangers who, for perhaps one night or even less in Wicklow after the finish, are the VBFs you never met before. And if you do somehow arrange to meet them in more formal surroundings some months later, it can be very difficult to resolve the smooth city-attired people of winter with the scruffy ruffians you met in what is allegedly summer in Wicklow.

700 MILE DING-DONG

Thus the Hall family of Pwllheli in the likeable and much-travelled Lombard 46 Pata Negra found themselves in a 700 mile ding-dong with the higher rated A13 Phosphoros, Mark Emerson's school ship which once upon a time was a previous Teasing Machine, and no stranger to the Round Ireland Course.

It all came down to decisions made for the final long-and-short beat down he Irish Sea from St John's Point to Wicklow. Pata Negra hauled to the west, while Phosphoros went down the middle, and for a while it looked as if she'd made the right call.

VEERING WAS TOO SLOW

But the wind didn't veer quite as much as they hoped, and Pata Negra was back in business. Andrew Hall and his crew closed in on the finish right along the long Wicklow beach in smooth water, and going like a train with ten knots over the ground. They finished ahead of the higher rated Phosphoros, and that was all that mattered.

Checkmate XX (Nigel Biggs and Dave Cullen) Photo: Afloat

Equally, the fully-fitted First 50 Checkmate XX (Nigel Biggs and Dave Cullen) may have tended to hobby-horse a bit more in a seaway than the sparsely furnished J/121 Darkwood (Mike O'Donnell). But as Checkmate closed with the coast this afternoon, she finally began to put clear water between herself and the O'Donnell boat, and – like Pata Negra a little earlier – carried that lead to the finish.

DAVID & GOLIATH

Then too, there's the David & Goliath effect. The posting yesterday of the stern view of Pete Smyth's awesome black Ker 46 Searcher just after finishing was almost traumatic. She's just such an absolute MACHINE of a boat. And what on earth does it mean across the stern stating "Since 2046" ?

Searcher - 'since 2046'. A stern view of the cryptic transom of Pete Smyth's Ker 46 Photo: Afloat

We may enjoy our afternoon power nap as much as the next man, but so far as we know a good snooze hasn't yet carried us through to 2046. Don't they know aboard Searcher that 2046 hasn't happened yet? Or has it? She may be a Tardis in yet another form.

UNEXPECTED SUPPORTERS

Be that as it may, people were stricken so dumb by the sight of the Super Smyths on Searcher that some very unexpected folk started rooting for that supposedly most ordinary of boats, Irish Offshore Sailing's Sun Fast 37 Desert Star.

She's so ordinary she's exceptional, and she's still out at sea slugging towards Wicklow, where she has to be finished by 01:00 hrs tomorrow (Friday) morning to have the faintest of chances of toppling Searcher from her seemingly impregnable second overall.

PERCEPTIONS OF TORY ISLAND

We doubt it will happen, but you never know. It's those remote possibilities that keep Round Ireland interest at a peak entirely its own. And of course there's the interest of the tail ender Fulmar Fever from Dunmore East, just past Tory Island, and still battling on.

For most folk, Tory Island only comes into the awareness when Atlantic storms have cut it off for several days or even weeks, so the thought of a 32-footer out there on this rawest of evenings must be frankly scary for anyone who hasn't been to the island.

But be of good cheer. William Dibden put it all into perspective in verse a long time ago:

Point of View

At night came on a hurricane,

The sea was mountains rolling,

As Barney Buntline slewed his quid,

And spake to Billy Bowline:

"A strong nor'wester's blowing Bill,

Hark, can't you hear it roar now?

Lord love me how I pities them,

Unhappy folks ashore now,

For comfortably as you and I,

Upon the decks are lying,

Lord knows what chimney pots and tiles,

About their heads are flying"