If you wanted to design a meteorological setup to provide Ireland with five or six days of sunny weather with gentle winds with some calms, then this morning’s Saturday MetSit IRL (In Real Life) could be used with very little modification.

The most recent swirl of the all-powerful North Atlantic Jetstream is currently clearing from far above our green island in a northeasterly direction, and for some days – possibly until next Friday, June 26th - much if not all of Ireland stays cleanly south of the Stratospheric Sinister Serpent that dictates much of our weather.

Meanwhile, in terms of millibars, a High building over Ireland - which will eventually reach 1032 when it is centred on the western North Sea mid-week - will be having its western fringes occasionally enlivened by gallant little Lows coming from northwest of the Azores. And they will be finding that, for the week that’s in it, Atlantic Lows are out of fashion in Ireland.

She seems to have everything going for her. The Botin 56 Khumbu is line honours favourite, and the very fact of doing the course in minimum time means that he crew can keep up the pressure while smaller slower boats begin to experience exhaustion. Photo: RORC/Rick Tomlinson

ATLANTIC LOWS “OUT OF FASHION”

In fact, with their central “low pressures” rising to the 1010 level at times, we’re looking at the kind of brief lows they experience in the Mediterranean, whereas in Ireland there are times when we’d be more than happy to welcome 1010 as being High Pressure.

WOBBLY WEATHER

Now all this highfalutin met predicting may prove to be off the mark, for in recent days and weeks we’ve been experiencing Wobbly Weather with one day’s confident forecast turning topsy-turvy even as it is going through. And although there’s a dominant overall high pressure system such as this Solstice Spike a-building, our “little” island can provide remarkably varied local conditions within surprisingly close distance of each other.

Classic Atlantic seaboard? Although strong summer weather can bring haze, it’s very different from the low-visibility poor weather conditions that can make you wonder if Ireland is there at all until some headland looms up out of the murk. Photo: WSC

THE RICH GET RCHER

This could mean that boats big and swift enough to get away relatively rapidly from today’s 2.0pm Round Ireland Race start off the Wicklow pierheads may steadily work themselves into a slightly more favourable wind pattern on which they build - as the race progresses - in a blatant case of the rich getting richer.

STEADY EDDY

But equally, as we’ve seen in past races, the horizon-job flying machines may be constantly rebuffed in their quest by being first to a total flat patch or an unfavourable tide, in overall conditions of generally slow progress which will mean that the Steady Eddy low-rated boats just have to keep plodding along to build up an impressive corrected time advantage. This is then inexorably confirmed as the win at the Wicklow finish, long after the stratospherically-rated line-honours-capturing glamour speedsters have left the building.

Race Director Kyran O’Grady of Wicklow Sailing Club with Royal Ocean Racing Club Commodore Deb Fish. Photo: W M Nixon

ENTRY LIST

We post the complete Entry List here, including the withdrawals, in all its glorious 62 boats to underline the breadth of international interest this glorious 704-mile mile race is attracting to Wicklow. and all power to Race Director Kyran O’Grady and his team in Wicklow Sailing Club for keeping it going some 46 years since it modest inception in 1980.

ROUND IRELAND ENTRY LIST 2026 

And we share any gloom that the legendary Alexis Loison of France, winner in 1925 of both the Centenary Rolex Fastnet Race and the Rolex Sydney Hobart, has had to make a late withdrawal (to his own great disappointment), as his new-build Marc Lombard-designed Class40 Groupe REEL simply isn’t sufficiently finished.

Bouroullec Tanguy’s Pogo RC Aruba is now Courrier Pogo with te formidable talents of Gery Trentesaux and Tom Dolan added to the strength. Photo: Pogo SA

FRENCH PRESENCE

However, French presence is well maintained by Bouroullec Tanguy’s Pogo RC, which is now Courrier Pogo with the great Gery Trentesaux transferring aboard, along with Ireland’s Figaro star Tom Dolan

But now there’s no need to talk of today’s developing drama as being Hamlet without the prince if Loison doesn’t show. For the expected gentle weather conditions won’t suit Class40 boats in the overall line hnours stakes, and the conditions equally look like being a disappointment for those hearty souls who expected the race to be a rugged experience of battling Ireland’s Atlantic seaboard, and well worthy of attention at the bar of the Chipping Norton Yacht Club of a Tuesday night.

KHUMBU HAS TO BE ALL-ROUND FAVOURITE

We cannot disagree with Mystic Meg’s prediction of yesterday, that Guy Gillon’s recently unwrapped Botin 56 Khumbu has to be the all-round favourite. With a top rank crew, she’s light and fast and quick manoeuvring, with the rapid acceleration that accumulates into a substantial lead in flukey conditions.

DON’T STOP WHATEVER YOU DO

For the reality is that if conditions really do turn out as windless as some predict, then the cardinal sin is to lose steering way altogether. You have to keep moving with some element of control, and if that involves actually sailing away from your immediate destination in order to latch into a stronger zephyr, then so be it – just DON’T come to a complete stop.

BELLINO WON

But though Khumbu had the line honours win and a good place in the recent full-length RORC Myth of Malham Race, shout it from the rooftops that the overall Myth winner was Rob Craigie’s Sunfast 3600 Bellino, raced two-handed with RORC Commodore Deb Fish as co-skipper to take full advantage of a building breeze towards the finish.

Commodorial yacht? Rob Craigie’s Sunfast 3600 Bellino racing the Fastnet in the two-handed division, with RORC Commodore Deb Fish as co-skipper. Photo: Rolex/Kurt Arrigo

They’re no strangers to the Round Ireland, and seem to be going better than ever, so Bellino is ticking a lot of boxes and has a light air performance that is a useful barrier against the significantly lower-rated vintage boats. Nevertheless it could be another Round Ireland race in which Cork Harbour’s veteran Granada 38 Cavatina (Ian Hickey) emerges yet again to claim the top prize after days of calms as the overall wind returns.

OUTRAJEOUS FORM BOAT

At mid-fleet, the possibilities are many. Current Irish distance racing form boat, Johnny & Suzy Murphy’s J/109 Outrajeous from Howth, was winner last year of the Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race with a truly all-Ireland crew. Though regular lead helm Neil Spain is aboard, there’s a notable Galway input headed by Aodhan Fitzgerald, who was much involved with Ronan Considine’s ex-Pat victory with Nagini in the Dubai-Muscat Race early in the year.

All Ireland champions. Johnny Murphy (centre) in Dingle on the victorious J/109 Outrajeous after the biennial NYC race from Dun Laoghaire with a nationwide crew, incluing Aodhan Fitzgerald from Galway (left) and John Molloy from Clew Bay (right)

RACING IN A WAR ZONE

This was less than a week before the US-Iran War broke out over the same waters, and now with that war over he is racing round Ireland (where’s he’s scored a win or three in times past), and so too is Ronan Considine, taking it on two-handed with Tom Murphy GBSC in the Sunfast 3300 Paradox.

REGULAR PEFORMERS

There’s a group of reliable boats which can always be counted on to show up when the race merits it, and most reliable of them all is surely Chris Power Smith’s J/122 Aurelia (RStGYC). Also there is the Pride of Pwllheli, Sam & Andrew Hall’s Lombard 46 Pata Negra, 2025 ISORA Champion, while another notable is Mike & Richie Evans J/112 The Big Picture from Howth, which is something of an unknown on the current offshore scene.

But then, so too was their previous boat, the J/99 of the same name, which astonished everyone by coming within five minutes of being overall winner of the Round Ireland after a superb final stage down the Irish Sea, and all that after taking on the West Coast in a boat which many old salts would have reckoned to be too small and light for any comfort out in the Atlantic.

LET’S HEAR IT FOR LOUGH REE

Those Atlantic waters were most recently challenged in Kinsale YC’s Inishtearacht Race three weeks ago, from which John Malone and Emmet Sheridan’s Sunfast JPK 1030 Loinnir Girl emerged from a rugged sail as overall winner. A casualty of that race was Cian McCarthy’s Sunfast 3300 Cinnamon Girl, but it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, with Cian and co-skipper Sam Hunt signing aboard Loinnir Girl for the round Ireland, and in the unexpected position of finding themselves racing oceani under a lake club burgee, as Lough Ree YC (founded 1770) is home club for John Malone and Emmet Sheridan.

A lake boat for the high seas? John Malone & Emmet Sheridan’s Loinnir Girl sails the oceans for Lough Ree Yacht Club.

SUNRISE FROM THE ISLE OF MAN?

We were about to round it out by saying that after a lake boat, it’s appropriate to conclude with a boat from an island of the same area, because we can’t get it out of our head that former Fastnet and Middle Sea winner Tom Kneen’s distinctive surname must be Manx in origin. But Tom is a west of England lad, and for this race he proudly declares his membership of the Royal Irish Yacht Club for his JPK 11.80-plus Sunrise.

ORC NABOBs

In the recent kerfuffle about the new XR41 from Denmark appearing with a startlingly low ORC rating which has since been dealt with by the ORC nabobs, it emerged that ne of the reasons the JPK boats have such a sensible ORC figure is that it’s built into their mighty calculating machine that the hyper-successful successful JPK range might have an inbuilt stickiness in the lightest of airs, and the X Boats team had hit on this factor and used it.

Thus in keeping with the JPK 11.80 through a couple of boats, Tom has gone along with every effort to improve the design’s light airs potential, and it rather looks as though the big race starting today will provide ample opportunity to test how well the mods have worked.

Isle of Man boat? Maybe. There’s a link of sorts. Tom Kneen’s optimised JPK 11-80 Sunrise sails for the Royal Irish Yacht Club

TOP OF THE SIZE SCALE

At the top of the size scale, it doesn’t look as though there’ll be enough wind to enable the 70ft Spirit of Shackleton to give of her best, but in having Bob Beggs aboard as skipper, the Atlantic Shackleton Trust have secured the services of the commander who has won the two most recent Clipper Challenges round the world.

But for boats large and small, this Saturday morning in Wicklow there may well be some last-minute victualling enhancement at the nearest supermarket, as it makes for optimum performance right to the end of the race if the crew are properly fed, provided they don’t think the boat is over-laden.

Spirit of Shackleton is co-skippered by Bobby Beggs, winner of the last two Clipper Round the World Races

FARR MAXI APPETITES

Just imagine trying to get that right for a serious biggie. Back in 1990, I’d a real fun Round Ireland Race with Dickie Gomes skippering the 83ft Farr-designed Maxi Atlantic Privateer, aka Woodchester Challenger, a much-liked veteran ship that needed a crew of 22 to give of her best.

Imagine providing to feed that mob for what seemed to be likely to be an increasing length of time, as the forecast emphasized the probability of light winds later in the race. Yet Vinnie Higgins – a star of the garment business who proved to be a master chef - calculate it to a treat, such that we had our last supper getting past Bray head, and the absolute final slice of bread was eaten two miles from the finish, with a breeze off the land to get us there in a timely manner.

Another thing to be considered in the days ahead is the assault of sunshine. We’re much more up to speed on this than we were in times past, but Ireland still has a worryingly high occurrence of skin cancer. Back in the day, with easygoing months on sunny seas and little thought for the future, we used suntan oil of doubtful quality, and if it ran out it was not unknown to resort to cook oil.

ASSERTVE BLEMISHES

So not surprisingly some years ago at the annual check-up, my GP said it was high time to get a specialist to look at some interesting facial blemishes that seemed more assertive. “We’ll have them off” said the specialist, “it’s just a minor procedure”.

Maybe so, but having seven minor procedures one after the other with a Stakhanovite surgeon (my goodness, but these guys DO work) seemed quite enough like one major procedure for me. And it wasn’t over then. It ended on a serious note. “We’ll have the histology reports back in two weeks, and I’ll probably need to see you again”. But ten days later, his secretary – normally a person of serious mood – rang back like a cheerful schoolgirl: “No need to come back in. All those bits we removed were benign. Have a lovely weekend.”

WONDERS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE

And we did. But on Monday morning, I could only think it was a wonder of medical science, that they had removed the only provenly benign bits of me.

Good sailing and good times to all in Wicklow’s Round Ireland Race 2026. It can be one helluva fine sail, as the Massachusetts whaling skipper said after voyaging right round the world without spotting one single whale. And all power to Wicklow Sailing Club for bringing it to its current position of respected international strength.