Stronger winds will bring the Round Ireland 2010 fleet home earlier than expected and it will be a fascinating, tactical race, says Wind guru Mike Broughton. The Irish Commodore's Cup team weather specialist says the 37 competitors in today's Round Ireland race will get a close hauled course along the south coast to the Fastnet tomorrow. After light northerly winds for the start at 12 noon today the fleet can expect winds to go southwest by 8pm. Mike's podcast prediction is below. Listen in!

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Round Ireland Yacht Race 2010 Review

Round Ireland Yacht Race, Ireland's top offshore fixture

With 48 hours now to the start, Sunday's Round Ireland race is expected to get away in light northerly winds. Weather specialist Mike Broughton predicts winds will go right by Sunday evening off the Wexford coast. Broughton also favours stronger winds, up to 15 knots, offshore from a 030 direction. His analysis for the first 24 hours of the race plus a prediction of some good news for the small boats by Tuesday is on afloat.ie's podcast below.

Afloat.ie has teamed up with specialist sailing forecaster Mike Broughton of Winning Wind.Com to bring you a series of detailed Round Ireland race forecasts. Click back to the home page for regular weather updates from Mike.

More on the Round Ireland Yacht Race:

Round Ireland Yacht Race 2010 Review

Round Ireland Yacht Race, Ireland's top offshore fixture

Afloat has enabled competitors in this year's Round Ireland to post their own podcasts on Afloat.ie, and the first two are already in.

Noel Davidson has posted a welcome post on behalf of Spirit of Rosslare Europort, and the Daft.com entry have done the same, heading out for a photo shoot en route to Wicklow.

If you want to do the same, simply download the free audioboo podcast app to your iPhone from the app store, and link it to the Afloat Round Ireland account. 

The account name is AfloatRoundIreland and the password is hellosailor.

Keep your podcasts to 45 seconds or so, and in the following format:

Hello, [sailor's name] here from the boat [boat name].

We're currently located [location details] and the conditions are [weather report]

Then give us a brief status report. A good way to keep it in the desired length is to restrict news to what went on during the last watch, or just tell us your most interesting news snippet.

Sign off, and hit 'publish' on your iPhone.

We'll do the rest, and your family will be able to see your podcasts appear on Afloat.ie almost immediately.

Looking forward to hearing more.

Team Daft Heading to Wicklow:

Spirit of Rosslare Europort Says Hello:

More on the Round Ireland Yacht Race:

Round Ireland Yacht Race 2010 Review

Round Ireland Yacht Race, Ireland's top offshore fixture

With the Round Ireland Yacht Race starting on Sunday, we have an extended podcast for you including a look at the weather, interviews with competitors and news of a new Irish offshore race coming to western shores very soon.

Here at Afloat.ie we want to be able to connect Round Ireland sailors with the sailing community even while they're racing around Ireland (and all her rocks and islands). So we've set up a simple way for any competitor with an iPhone to submit mini-podcasts during the race.  Using your iPhone, log into the app store and search for the free app 'Audioboo'.

Once you have it downloaded, all you have to do to record mini podcasts and send them for publication on Afloat.ie is link it to our account.

The account name is AfloatRoundIreland and the password is hellosailor.

Once you've done that, all you need to do is give us a shout.

Keep your podcasts to 45 seconds or so, and in the following format:

Hello, [sailor's name] here from the boat [boat name].

We're currently located [location details] and the conditions are [weather report]

Then give us a brief status report. A good way to keep it in the desired length is to restrict news to what went on during the last watch, or just tell us your most interesting news snippet.

Sign off, and hit 'publish' on your iPhone.

We'll do the rest, and your family will be able to see your podcasts appear on Afloat.ie almost immediately.

More on the Round Ireland Yacht Race:

Round Ireland Yacht Race 2010 Review

Round Ireland Yacht Race, Ireland's top offshore fixture

In this week's Afloat podcast, Markham Nolan hits the pontoons of the Royal St George to get a glimmer of how the first day of the ICRAs kicked off. 

In this week's podcast we speak to Ross Killian about stepping back into an Olympic campaign and into a 49er for the first time. We profile a J105 that's ripe for short-handing in our boat of the week slot, and talk to Richard Glynn of Kilrush about the joys of boat sharing.

This week's Afloat podcast looks at coaching. Who needs it, who doesn't know they need it, how much it should cost and what you should be getting. Plus, we go off the water to see how a business coach is helping marine businesspeople stay, ahem, Afloat.

Thanks to Thomas Chaix (www.tcsailingcoach.com) and Jason McChesney (www.businesscoach.ie) for taking part.

It's a longer than usual podcast this week, as we speak to Irish sailor John Coffey, who's joining Bear Grylls on an RIB expedition through the Northwest passage, Hal Bleakley on handing in his cap and badge at Dun Laoghaire marina, and Wicklow's youth Round Ireland challenge.