As solo star Tom Dolan said when he arrived this week in Greystones to position himself on stand-by for his waiting-game round Ireland record challenge from the Kish Lighthouse, the current increasingly Autumnal weather pattern is much more encouragingly dynamic than it was when he made his previous attempt in the Spring.

It’s the Meath Maestro’s first time back in Ireland with the boat since he emerged as the winner of Stage 1 of the Figaro Solo Paprec 2023 in Kinsale on the last day of August, after racing over an artificially lengthened, extremely challenging and complex 620-mile course from Caen in Normandy.

While the Figaro 3 can certainly make to windward with enthusiasm - as seen here in the 2023 Figaro Solo Paprec in which Tom Dolan won the first stage from Caen to Kinsale – the strategic minimizing of windward work is essential to a successful Round Ireland challenge

The Figaro concluded, he then teamed up with fellow Figaro racer Gaston Morvan on Region Bretagne, and with three others aboard they contested the crewed season-concluding Figaro 3 Nationals at Lorient on October 7th, and won. As it was sailed while the late summer weather prevailed in heatwave conditions, subsequently choosing to sail north in Smurfit-Kappa Kingspan when the summer shutters came down with a bang on Ireland was inevitably a matter of going suddenly into a very different world. But it’s typical of Tom’s approach to challenges that he can put a cheerful spin on it all.

This was just a fortnight ago in South Brittany - Gaston Morvan and Tom Dolan and their crew basking in late summer sunshine after winning the Figaro 3 National at Lorient

STORM BABET? SHE WAS DEFINITELY “DYNAMIC”

And certainly “dynamic” is normally used in this positive way. Yet those who have been at the receiving end of Storm Babet in recent days - whether through wind damage, flooding, power outage, or just plain inconvenience - might find different and often unprintable words to describe the current rapidly moving chaotic kaleidoscope of conditions. It’s doubtful they’d enjoy being told they’ve just had a dynamic experience, accentuated by the brief bursts of sunshine lasting just long enough to emphasise the meteorological horrors in between.

These have included yesterday’s near-visit by Babet’s un-named little sister. While in development form, she went slowly past to the south of us, heading in an eastward direction in deepening mode. Then, having gained power, the nameless one unfairly turned back to have a whack at Ireland’s East Coast yesterday afternoon before settling down over England to start the messy process of fading away.

FLOATING ON DOLAN ENTHUSIASM

So what else can we do other than let ourselves be carried along by Tom’s bubbling enthusiasm? The Irish weather may be adversely under the heel of the jet-stream at its most malignant. And there are too many places in the world where intractable people-made horrors prevail ashore. Yet when we look at what this weekend has to offer as that latest low pressure area grinds away to the eastward while slowly filling, we find Irish sailors coming out for more sport at home and abroad.

Unlikely as it might have seemed early in the night, the final race may be sailed this afternoon in the monday.com Autumn League at Howth. And although there’ll be a real nip to the northerly wind, there are enough close placings at the top of various leaderboards to make it well worthwhile competing.

When Autumn sailing is good, it’s very very good – the Autumn League at Howth celebrated its 40th Anniversary last year, and memories tend to be like this, as seen with the two Howth 17s Leila and Aura, both of 1898 vintage. Photo: HYC

As for the seasonal leagues in Cork and Kinsale, being further west and using more of the weekend, they can expect even gentler conditions.

OUR NAVY OF ARMCHAIR ADMIRALS

But meanwhile, the considerable presence of Ireland’s navy of Armchair Admirals has been glued to weather observation and prediction charts as they wait and opinionate about Tom and Smurfit-Kappa Kingspan making their move.

It’s easy enough to say that wind directions were near enough just right to take off anti-clockwise on Tuesday. But severe easterly gales and zilch visibility in the shipping-busy North Channel would have been unnecessarily and extremely hazardous when the campaign has the luxury of time.

CHALLENGE OF 1986 GOT AWAY “BY SKIN OF ITS TEETH”

The last thing you need in a Round Ireland Record attempt is too much wind, even if it is favourable. Back in May 1986 when we were hanging around in Dun Laoghaire with Robin Knox-Johnston and his 60ft trimaran British Airways to inaugurate the current wave of non-racing Round Ireland records, we waited for winds from all sorts of easterly directions (with much rain) to abate a bit, and settle in a favourable direction.

Robin Knox-Johnston’s 60ft MacAlpine-Downie catamaran British Airways making away from Dublin Bay at the start of a successful Round Ireland record challenge in May 1986. Shortly after disappearing northeastwards into the murk, she was almost capsized in a sudden extra gust of wind. Photo: BA

All the ducks seemed to be in a row by Saturday, with a strong yet seemingly steady easterly. So off we went anti-clockwise in driving rain from the Kish, in sailing conditions which saw the big twin-hulled bucket at her noisy best. But she went so fast that we caught up with a line of squalls that had been retreating northwards, and one of them as near as dammit capsized us, though happily it’s a memory that had been largely obliterated by all the subsequent experiences before the job was done.

A FAVOURABLE GALE?

A favourable gale is just about manageable if you’re on a straight-line course, but a problem-filled challenge like the Ireland circuit is better off with good steady whole-sail winds and reaching conditions, just like Tom is enjoying in our header photo. So maybe after the current climatic chaos has fully departed, we can revert to the dynamic conditions the Meath skipper favours, and the show will be on the road.

And to think they might have been guiding a plough – former Meath farmboy Tom Dolan’s hands exfoliated by salt water at the end of a tough solo race

Yet while we’ve been left meteorologically punch-drunk at home by the hectic conditions, elsewhere Irish sailors are enjoying competition in something approaching summer, although it looks to be tough enough in Tangiers where Eve McMahon (Howth YC) is at the top of the table in the ILCA 6 U21 Worlds, which conclude tomorrow.

Thanks to Eve McMahon, IRL has been looking good at Tangiers this week in the ILCA6 U21 Worlds. Photo: ILCA Class

Meanwhile in Malta, it has been high summer by our standards in the countdown to today’s start in Valetta of the 609-mile Rolex Middle Sea Race, in which Conor Doyle’s xP50 Freya from Kinsale is defending an ORC Class podium place. Whether or not the strong wind conditions in Tangiers move eastward towards Malta is a moot point, as the Mediterranean weather is something of a law unto itself.

The ultimate in-harbour start: tradition dictates that the Rolex Middle Sea Race from Malta should start within Grand Harbour, Valetta. Photo: Rolex/Kurt Arrigo

She certainly gets around - Conor Doyle’s Freya from Kinsale in Dublin Bay. This morning (Saturday) she starts her second Middle Sea Race from Malta. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

Either way, the smart money overall might be on Bryon Ehrhart’s Lucky from the US, as she is of course the former round Ireland mono-hull record-holder Rambler 88 with which George David and his team demonstrated that they probably had the best-all-round big boat on the planet, with overall victory - including a course record – being part of their track record in the Malta major.

“Sail clear through the gap….” Nobody knows how the gap opened up to let Rambler 88 through the smaller boats at the start of the record-breaking 2016 Round Ireland Race from Wicklow, but she was right there at the Naval Vessel end of the line, bang on time and going two or three times as fast as any other mono-hull. Photo: W M Nixon

TWO MONTHS TO SYDNEY-HOBART

Rambler 88 had yet to prove herself in the Sydney-Hobart Race, which is sailed again in just over two months time, but meanwhile, Down Under the new season is having its traditional opening in New Zealand this weekend with the Auckland-Russell coastal race numbering a fleet of 150-plus.

Among them is “The Irish Boat”, Mick Martin’s TP52 Frantic (ex-Patches). She won the new Sydney-Auckland Race - a 1250-mile marathon – a week ago, with Trevor Smyth, formerly of Clontarf and one of the legendary Sailing Smyths, in the afterguard. After the Auckland-Russell contest, Frantic heads back to Australia and the Hobart count-down, with Trevor Smyth aboard for his second Sydney-Hobart.

While you can have year-round sailing in Auckland, for many New Zealanders the annual Auckland-Russell Race (seen starting here) marks the beginning of “the real season”

IRISH RUFFIANS IN HONG KONG

Thousands of miles to the north in Hong Kong, yesterday they were enjoying 25 degrees Centigrade, but on a cloudy day. Over the weekend, the temperature will drop a little, but the sky will clear, while the winds – 18 km/h today from just east of north - will freshen to 23-24 km/h fr between north and northeast.

It may be the other side of the world, but it’s of nationwide interest in Ireland today, as the Irish Ruffian 23 Class is carrying its Golden Jubilee celebrations to a new level with the resumption post-Covid of the biennial inter-port contest between the Irish and Hong Kong fleets.

This weekend sees the Irish Ruffian 23 Class in Hong Kong defending the inter-port trophy which they narrowly won in Dun Laoghaire pre-lockdown in 2018

In the fast-changing Hong Kong sailing scene, the relatively venerabe Ruffian 23s are seen as something of a mascot class in the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, where they’re much celebrated. That will reach new heights today as Ann Kirwan of the National YC – a former Dublin Bay SC Commodore – has managed the logistical challenge of getting an all-Ireland team of twenty Ruffian 23 sailors from half a dozen widespread clubs out to Hong Kong for a long weekend of international sport and celebration.

The Ruffian 23 Hong Kong class’s trophies on display in the Royal Hong Kong YC

That Ruffian 23 international Corinthian contest is probably about as far as you can get – both in real distance and spirit – from top level sailing in France. As has been said maybe too often, the past is a different country, they do things differently there.

THE FRENCH WAY IS DIFFERENT

Certainly as far as sailing is concerned, at the top level France is indeed a very foreign and different country, with the corporate structures of its society reflected at the highest levels of professional sailing. The talented sailors compete for the support of promotion-geared companies which recognise that there’s an enormous appetite for news of extreme sailing among the population, most of whom live at some distance from the nearest bit of sea. And ashore, the gung-ho regional authorities vie with each other through big budget campaigns to host the starred events.

Obviously we’re looking at an Irish take on this with Tom Dolan’s Smurfit-Kappa Kingspan support. But in a week’s time one of the the really big one is right on top of the agenda with Le Havre hyper-alive with the crowds gathered for the start on Sunday, October 29th of the Transat Jaques Vabre to Martinique in the Caribbean.

Irish interest has never been higher, as Pamela Lee of Greystones – currently holder of two of the most meaningful Round Ireland Records as the two-handed champ and women’s record titleist - is on the line for the two-handed division with her loaned Class 40 and lead sponsorship from Brittany Ferries.

THE 2024 VENDEE GLOBE?

At the moment, there’s no noise from any of the four Irish sailors who announced potential campaigns three years ago towards the November 2024 Vendee Globe solo from Les Sables d’Olonne in IMOCA 60s, but the outcome of the upcoming Transat Jacques Vabre might put a different spin on that.

Fast women. Pamela Lee (right) and Catherin Hunt in speed mode on the Figaro 3 with which they established a solid Round Ireland in October 2020

The weekend saw a crowd of over sixty Greystones locals gathered to listen to a talk between leading offshore sailor Pamela Lee - back in her home town - and Damien Wildes of the organisation Flowstate Swimming.

Pamela is a professional offshore sailor who established a doublehanded World Record for sailing around Ireland, has participated in some of the world's toughest ocean races (including last year's SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race), and has accumulated extensive offshore miles, including crossing the Atlantic nine times. A former Irish Sailor of the Year nominee, she has been selected to be part of the squad preparing to take on the 100% Female Jules Verne Trophy in 2025.

Flow State Swimming provides information and training for Open Water Swimmers, and is the creation of Damien Wildes, who among other adventures, was the first person to prone-paddleboard across the Irish Sea in June 2022. The talk, titled 'Adjusting the Sails', was the third 'Water and Me' series, organised by Flow State Swimming, with previous guests, including Open Water Swimmer Ger Devin and Surfer, Eoin Visions.

The talk was planned to coincide with International Women's Day, just two days before and with the announcement that Lee was recently awarded the French 'Cap Pour Elles' grant for her female offshore-racing project. Over the course of the evening, Wildes interviewed Lee, in a relaxed conversation style, about her story, the determination and grit required to succeed in a male-dominated field, and also her advocacy for the further inclusion of women within the sport.

Pamela Lee (right) with co-skipper Tiphaine Raquenau - they'll be racing the Transat Jacques Vabre this Autumn from Le Havre to Martinique supported by the "Cap Pur Elles" award

Multi-talented offshore sailor Pamela Lee of Greystones has been at the heart of it in the annual late season Classics racing on the French Riviera, crewing on Richard Matthews’ 1898-vintage 48ft William Fife-designed-and-built cutter Kismet in a notably successful programme which included winning the Gstaad Yacht Club Centenary Trophy 2022 at St Tropez.

Richard Matthews of West Mersea, a familiar figure at Cork Week over the years, is renowned for his association with the Oyster range of performance cruisers, and a succession of top offshore racers under the Oystercatcher name. He first acquired a taste for classic restoration when he brought his late father’s Holman-designed Stella OD back to life. She was one of the first of the successful class when new, and he still sails her - he raced the Stella at Ramsgate Week in Kent in 2022.

Also in the Matthews stable afloat is the America’s Cup-targeted 12 Metre Crusader, but when he decided to go down the pure classics restoration route, it was with a boat that was a familiar sight in the neighbourhood. The originally hundred per cent Fife cutter Kismet was in a local mudberth, and had been used as a houseboat - with a large “living shed” on deck - for sixty years.

Kismet (1898) to weather. Uneven conditions this year provided continuous sail configuration challenges…

….but then the Mediterranean would pause to be its most presentable self.

The return route to full classic trim - using the noted talents of master craftsman Adrian Wombwell of Tollesbury, and the design input of David Cooper of Holman & Pye in West Mersea - took four patient years “and an element of budget over-run”. Initially, Kismet was a feature of Classic regattas in England, but in 2018 she made her debut in the high-powered September-October programme in the south of France. And though this has been interrupted to some extent by the pandemic, it was very much back for 2022, and particularly for the Gstaad YC Centenary Trophy at St Tropez, a feature since the GYC’s Centenary in 1998, a date Kismet shared.

The Centenary Burgees of Gstaad Yacht Club in 1998, with the club’s regular burgee on the right. Quite how the Howth Yacht Club burgee (left) became involved is anyone’s guess.

As it happens, the Swiss Alps-based Gstaad YC’s centenary burgee almost exactly replicates the burgee of Howth YC (founded 1895) in Ireland, and the Gstaad club shares the classic Howth Seventeens date of inauguration in 1898, so both – like Kismet - will be celebrating their 125th in 2023.

Both clubs also share distinctly hilly locations, but while HYC manages direct sea access from its clubhouse, the Gstaad sailors have to trundle down to Monaco to get afloat on salt water. As to whether or not Gstaad shares Howth’s distinction of having a hillside flock of pure-bred Old Irish Goats complete with blonde goatherd, we couldn’t possibly comment…….

MAGIC WIN OF CENTENARY TROPHY

For Richard Matthews, winning the Gstaad Centenary Trophy was a magic moment, and he commented:

“We are very happy - the boat went perfectly, we never had her going so fast to windward. And the course was perfect, we had enough wind, not too much. It was just a perfect sail. We were looking back and kept saying ‘where are they?’ We saw Scud (Ernesto Bertarelli with Torben Grael) coming up fast, but we thought we’ve got enough time, we can make it, and we did. The key moment was when we decided to change the small jib into a bigger one. We have got a great crew too - they are very good sailors, and we would love to come back next year to defend the title”.

Kismet crosses the line off the unmistakable St Tropez waterfront to win the GYC Centenary Trophy. In an easing wind, it was the very smoothly-executed change-up to that powerful masthead Yankee jib which kept her in the lead.

Irish interest in the series didn’t finish with Kismet, as the Royal Cork YC’s own Cork Harbour OD Jap was also racing, while probably the oldest boat in the fleet was the 1874 former pilot cutter Madcap, owned for many years and cruised far and wide by current Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association President Adrian “Stu” Spence.

When he took his emotional farewell of Madcap to a French owner some years ago, it was in the understanding that she was going into a maritime museum situation – more or less - in La Rochelle. To hear that she’s alive and well and racing at St Tropez is great news. She’s the oldest boat aboard which I ever did the Lambay Race (we were beaten fair and square by Paddy Murphy of Renvyle racing the Galway Hooker Naomh Cronan), and this latest chapter is an appropriate addition the story of a boat which has been surprising everyone for 148 years.

In 1998 when the Gstaad YC was celebrating its Centenary, Adrian Spence’s 1874-built former pilot cutter Madcap was in Greenland. Twenty-four years later and now in French ownership, Madcap was the oldest boat racing for the Gstaad YC Centenary Trophy at St Tropez. Photo: Frank Sadlier

The all-categories Round Ireland two-handed sailing record-holders, Greystones' Pamela Lee and shipmate Catherine Hunt, have been nominated as contenders for the Team of the Year Prize 2020 by HerSport.ie, thereby renewing sailing's position at centre stage in national womens' sport.

When the determined duo headed south in the early morning light of Tuesday 13th October to start across the official Round Ireland Record Line from the Kish Lighthouse to Dun Laoghaire pierhead with their foiling Figaro 3 Iarracht Maigeanata provided by RL Sailing, their only stated aim was to establish a competitive time for a 700-mile round Ireland circuit by a two-handed female crew, as such a thing didn't exist at the time.

When the going was good………steady fast sailing like this was great for record-making, but the round Ireland challenge will always include a menu of frustrations to be overcome

But when they swept back across that same line again in the small hours of Saturday, October 17th, their time of 3 days 19 hrs 41 mins 39s proved to be a new all-categories two-handed record, as they'd bettered the previous best – an all-male two-handed crew in a larger Class 40 – by three hours and two minutes.

It had been a tough sail, with total-concentration hard-driving interrupted by occasional frustrating calms. And while the Irish sailing community following them every inch of the way on Yellowbrick tracker would have been well pleased if they'd got round within four days, a final mad sprint through the dark down the North Channel and Irish Sea to the finish put them very firmly into the record books across all listings.

Commenting on their nomination, Pamela Lee said yesterday evening: "We're very proud to have been able to bring sailing and offshore sailing in particular into this conversation for 2020 – may it be the first of many".

The determined duo. Cat Hunt and Pam Lee proved to be the ideal double team throughout a carefully-orchestrated challenge

Female Two-handed Round Ireland Speed Record: The Iarracht Maigeanta Two-Handed Round Ireland Record Challenge by Pamela Lee and Cat Hunt of Greystones Harbour Sailing Club just got better and better through yesterday evening and last night as they swept – with impressively consistent speed - through the final hundred miles southward from the Antrim coast to a new record in Dublin Bay, riding on a potent combination of good sailing in a very workable mostly east to southeast breeze, and a fortuitously timed combination of favourable tides to finish at 0327 hrs this (Saturday) morning.

Yet at 1600hrs yesterday afternoon, as their Figaro 3 sat off the Antrim coast between Glenarm and Larne, virtually becalmed and locked in an adverse tide, few would have thought that such a magnificent performance could have been achieved following a frustating afternoon in which expected winds had failed to materialize.

But the transformation of their prospects was already complete by 1800 hrs yesterday evening. With the wind back again from the east and a strong new flood tide pushing them south along the Count Down coast with speeds soon getting into double figures, the possible time for their arrival at the World Sailing Speed Records Committee line in Dublin Bay from the Kish Lighthouse to Dun Laoghaire's East Pier in Dublin Bay just kept getting better and better.

Sailing Magenta Round Ireland Tracker

Yesterday afternoon, the hope of making it round within four days – that is, finishing before 0745 hrs on Saturday - was starting to look like a long shot. Yet by 2200 hrs last night, the continuing combination of favourable conditions was such that the four day circuit seemed well within sight and it was a question of by how much, with a finish time between 0400 and 0500 looking increasingly likely.

Well, they did even better than that again. In due course the very deliberative workings of the WSSRC will come up with their final figure. But according to the Yellowbrick Tracker loaned for the Iarracht Maigeanta/RL Sailing challenge by the Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association, Iarracht Maigeanta and her tired but very happy crew were home and dry around 0327 hrs.

For temporary convenience, let's conservatively call it 0330hrs. Thus Pam Lee and Cat Hunt have completed the circuit in 3 days 19 hours and 45 minutes. It's a fabulous performance, as the previous best two-hander by Aodhan Fitzgerald and Yannick Lemonnier in a Figaro 2 in the 2004 Round Ireland Race from Wicklow was 4 days and 6 hours, and that has long been thought an impressive figure.

We'll be doing a more detailed analysis of it all in the fullness of time. But just to give it further perspective and its proper historic position, the much-admired record established by Denis Doyle in the fully-crewed Frers 51 Moonduster in 1984 stood at 3 days 16 hours and 15 minutes. That a much smaller Figaro 3 sailed double-handed should get within three and a half hours of that monumental time is really very exceptional indeed, and the mood in Greystones, where Iarrache Maigeanta is now serenely home in her marina berth, is very rightly on a high as Pamela Lee and Cat Hunt take their well-earned chance to do a bit of serious sleeping for Ireland.

Read all of Afloat's coverage of this Round Ireland speed record in one handy link here

Female Two-handed Round Ireland Record Day Four 2100hrs: The situation became transformed. It was like the clicking of a switch. Or so it seemed to those on the edge of their seats ashore, as they watched on screen as the Figaro 3 Iarracht Maigenta struggled with little wind against the last of the ebb tide off the Antrim coast at Glenarm. First, there came the breath of a fresher breeze from between southeast and east to bring the boat to life. And then by 1800hrs, the new flood tide was surging them on their way, zapping two-handed crew Pam Lee and Cat Hunt south across Belfast Lough and past Mew Island in jig time, such that they were tearing along the County Down coast with their speed over the ground comfortably into the double digits.

Admittedly the pace slowed a little as they swept past the South Rock at 2000 hrs and began to get away from the most powerful stream of tide. But they'll still have something of it in their favour until St John's Point is abeam, provided the breeze keeps up.

Sailing Magenta Round Ireland Tracker

On the present rate of going, St John's will be there - though well to the west – around 2130, and this is where things start to get extra-interesting. If they can keep up their beam reaching speed around the 8 knots mark through the water, they can then make the classic hop of going from the last of the south-going flood as it peters out east of the entrance to Carlingford Lough, and make the leap across slack water for an hour or so until they then begin to feel the very first of the ebb in the new tidal system where the flood goes north, but the ebb is favourably going south.

It will be doing so with real determination as it accelerates south past Rockabill. As of 2100, Rockabill is still 48 miles away, while the finish line is 63 miles distant. You do the maths. If this good easterly breeze keeps up and they can be hovering between 7 and 8 knots through the water, the four day circuit is a distinct possibility, as to do it they've to be past the Kish by 0745 hrs tomorrow (Saturday) morning, and the current rate of progress allows them a bit of leeway on that.

But as we've seen, the winds today are in a capricious mood, even if a proper southeaster is in the offing. The tension in this project will be maintained right to the end.

Female Two-handed Round Ireland Record Day Four 1500hrs:  The North Channel is one very unforgiving bit of water to go sailing on. It only gives you the gift of a fair tide for just long enough to begin to think that the dark cliffs of the inappropriately-named Fair Head and the gloom-inducing Mull of Kintyre aren't such oppressive bits of coastline after all as you buzz merrily along in the morning sunshine. And then the tide turns. The wind shuts down. And in near calm, you can appreciate only too well the sheer unfeasibly enormous vastness of this bulk of water moving in the wrong direction, struggling as you are to squeeze enough speed out of your boat simply to hold your own until the tide turns again. Meanwhile, the steep coastline becomes spookily claustrophobic.

We left round Ireland two-handed record challengers Pam Lee and Cat Hunt this morning as merry as grigs after they'd swept in past Rathlin with a grand fair flood tide at sometimes better than 12 knots over the ground. And we hoped that there was still enough life left in the flood to carry them well on their way towards the South Rock off the County Down coast, where tidal streams start to be less dominant.

But was not to be. At least they'd got a far as Glenarm, and south of the very worst of the foul tide. But the new ebb soon built up to strength, the wind – such as it was - drew more from the south and eased, and speeds of 2 knots or less over the ground became the order of the day.

Sailing Magenta Round Ireland Tracker

It will be 6 o'clock this evening before they have significant tide in their favour, but then it's good news, as every bit of southing they make taking them closer to the Irish Sea's relatively tide-free western sector. And it all brings them closer to the bit of more active weather that's distantly developing to the far southwest of Ireland, and should be preceded by a decent sou'easter which might even be the leading wind to bring them into Dublin Bay to complete the circuit within four days – deadline is 0745 tomorrow (Saturday).

But for now, they can have to live with seeing the Antrim coast in slow detail, and imagining life in Glenarm Castle up on the heights. It's the stronghold of the Mac Donnells, the Earls of Antrim, who were originally the Lords of the Isles in the Hebrides, but moved their HQ south when they found the real estate was of better quality in Ireland.

However, they never lost their love of the isles, so by tradition, each deceased member of the family is buried upright in the family graveyard on top of the hill so that he or she can look out over the coasts and islands and waterways that were their extensive domain.

But once upon a time, a notably unpopular member of the family died, and none of his relatives could be bothered to come home for the funeral. So the faithful retainers of the descendants of the Lords of the Isles struggled on their own up the hillside with the loathed one's very heavy coffin and buried him head down.

Female Two-handed Round Ireland Record Day Four 0900hrs: When Pam Lee and Cat Hunt entered Day 3 of their Magenta Project Round Ireland Challenge at 0745 hrs this morning (Friday), they were nearer the Scottish coast than they were to the northern shores of Ireland. But they were reaping the benefit of the new favourable flood tide, after a difficult night spent beating to windward into the Sea of Moyle, the appropriate-sounding ancient name for the tide-riven area between the north of Ireland and the large Scottish southern Hebridean island of Islay.

Back at midnight, they'd got to Inishtrahull. But with the barometer rising, there was every chance that the calm which was settling over central Ireland for the night would spread northward over the sea. Thus any notion of short-tacking inshore along the north Irish Coast, in search of slacker water as the ebb tide ran west at full blast, was abandoned in favour of shaping a course well offshore where southeast to east wind was still to be found, even if there was little or no relenting of the adverse tides.

Rathlin Island, Ireland's supreme tidal gate
They were around 5 miles from Islay's southwest headland as they tacked with the new flood starting make properly at 0640 hrs, with speed in a local tidal hot-spot at one stage getting up to 10 knots. And now, at 0840 and out in the less excitable waters getting rapidly clear of the Islay coast with a crisp passage past the supreme tidal gate of Rathlin Island in prospect, they are around 9.4 knots and rising, making the best of a light easterly and a surging fair tide.

Sailing Magenta Round Ireland Tracker

The conditions and their course are such that the tide will help to sharpen the apparent wind strength without making the sea unduly rough, so conditions are maximised for smooth progress by a tired crew brought back to life by real progress after an exceptionally difficult and wearing night.

After they've passed Fair Head and Tor Head on Ireland's northeast corner, they're clear of the worst of the tidal blackspot, and though a favourable tide right through the North Channel to the South Rock Light would be a bonus, as the new ebb begins to start running north again around noon that would be too much to hope for.

But with moderate mainly easterly winds forecast today for the North Channel, and with east to southeast wind indicated for the final leg from the South Rock to the official record line at the Kish Light off Dublin Bay, they've a good chance of continuing in a leading wind and overcoming any unfavourable tides for the rest of the day after the mighty hurdle of Rathlin has been cleared.

Next Magenta update on Afloat.ie will be early this afternoon, but meanwhile, at 0900 hrs they've 136 miles to the finish, and SOG is 10 knots.

 

Female Two-handed Round Ireland Record Day Two 0900hrs:  The Magenta Round Ireland two-handed record challenge Record campaign from Dublin Bay by Pam Lee and Cat Hunt of RL Sailing and Greystones has logged an excellent start in its first 24 hours. They put the Fastnet Rock astern at 0400hrs this morning, and at 0745 hrs – just 24 hours after they started from the official records Kish Lighthouse-Dun Laoghaire Pier line in Dublin Bay – they were passing Dursey Head, the first headland of the majestic Kerry coast.

Having made many good miles in sometimes boisterous but always favourable northwest to northeast wind, they are now facing lighter conditions off the southwestern seaboard, something which had been predicted as the breeze veers until eventually, it's hoped, it will settle in more firmly as an easterly to give fair winds as far as distant northwest Mayo, when it's even possible another veering will provide a reach across to Tory Island.

Pam Lee and Cat Hunt at 0945 this morning off the County Kerry coast. Scroll down for live tracker below

That's some time in the future. Meanwhile, the Magenta Shore Team, headed by Kenneth Rumball, are well pleased by the relatively steady progress past the often tricky stage from the Fastnet to Dursey. And while at Dursey Head itself there was a slight pause as speed fell back to 5.5 knots, they'd soon found the veering nor'easter had settled in with more vigour to give them better than 8 knots, and comfortably on track for the next course adjustment at Skellig Michael.

It's said that any single sailor, soldier or airman on active service needs about seven people providing background comprehensive support ashore, and while the Magenta Project direct shore management team doesn't quite reach the total of 14 this might suggest, nevertheless it's an impressive international array of talent. Headed by Kenneth Rumball of Irish National Sailing School, it includes communications co-ordination by Volvo Ocean Race media veteran Brian Carlin (originally of Kerry), while tactical and strategic advice is continuously available from ashore through Miles Seddon and Libby Greenhalgh, and additional support comes from Hannah Hunt (Cat's sister) and Abby Elher of the Agenta Project.

Brian Carlin of Kerry headed the international press team on the 2017 Volvo Ocean Race and is much involved on the shore team with the Magenta Challenge

Behind it all is the benevolent but very effective presence of Big Daddy. aka Marcus Hutchinson of Howth, Kinsale and Brittany, whose exceptional knowledge of campaigning a Figaro boat is rivalled only by his access to boat resources in areas like IMOCA 60s and the entire Figaro selection. It was Uncle Marcus who came up with the state-of-the-art Figaro 3 which had made this possible, and much helpful advice and encouragement with practical support has come from him with it.

There are many other less direct supporters in technical, equipment and sail services, while the stamp of officialdom is provided by Chris Moore of Dun Laoghaire, the former National YC Commodore who is currently in the onerous role of DBSC Honorary Secretary, yet somehow finds time to be Ireland's World Sailing Speed Records Commissioner too, and thus his presence on the start line yesterday morning in DBSC's Committee Boat Freebird made it all very official.

Chris Moore of DBSC and the NYC is Ireland's World Sailing Records Commissioner

Yet even with all the shoreside support and widespread goodwill, for much of the time, it comes down to two female sailors very much on their own out in the Atlantic in volatile weather. Although the next underlying problem may well eventually be a softness of wind strength as high pressure gradually comes to dominate the weather systems, yesterday evening there was plenty of wind about from the north as Magenta Project scooted along far at sea off the coast of East Cork, and at 1910hrs there was a sudden adjustment of course downwind and an easing of speed which caused concern for those ashore about sail or rigging damage.

But instead, it was a prudent easing of the pressure in order to change as safely as possible from the A5 spinnaker - which had carried them so well and so quickly from Dublin Bay - to the now more useful Code Zero, and in the relatively conservative approach which had underlined the first day of the challenge, this was very much the right way to do it, and soon they were back to 12.5 knots, and blasting west into the night, on towards the Fastnet.

Sailing Magenta Round Ireland Record Tracker

Female Two-handed Round Ireland Record Day One 1400: Kish Lighthouse for breakfast. Tuskar Rock for lunch. That's the way it is for Pam Lee and Cat Hunt as they've scorched down Ireland's East Coast in a fine fair wind with a sluicing ebb tide in the Beneteau Figaro Magenta Project, intent on establishing a significant female two-handed Round Ireland record

Eight o'clock this morning saw them sweeping away from Dublin Bay in gathering sunshine and brisk northwest to north winds. But at this early stage of the challenge, we haven't seen any incredible speed bursts, as the secret is to avoid damage to the boat in general and sails in particular as they take advantage of a wind and tide system which is panning out very nicely, and will get them on to the south coast and west of the Coningbeg by mid-afternoon.

A significant female two-handed Round Ireland record in the making - see live tracker below

In doing so, they're achieving a steady and more-than-respectable average speed of upwards of 11 knots, and in closing in on the Tuskar with the favourable tide doing some serious work, they're showing better than 13 knots over the ground.

Visibility is currently good at that often misty corner of Ireland, but they'll be so busy they'll scarcely have time to appreciate the views, or the irony of the crowded wind farm of giant turbines on Carnsore Point. It was there that people camped out for months in protest against the possible sitting on the point of a nuclear power plant, so now instead the locals are left with giant turbines whirling in sinister style all about them.

However, Magenta Project's ship's company will be busy at other work, optimising their sail plan for a speedy reach along the south coast, which may well see them thinking in terms of dinner a la main as they zoom on past the Old head of Kinsale.

Sailing Magenta Round Ireland Record Tracker