Team Spirit stays on course for record run

SAILING: The rise and rise of the small boat handicap leader continues in the BMW Round Ireland race as the National Yacht Club's 32-foot Calyx Voice and Data traded places with Royal Cork's 38-foot Minnie the Moocher for the top spot as the fleet progressed up the west coast last night.

Big Atlantic rollers and 35-knot winds swept the fleet northward yesterday afternoon, but the wild west also reduced the fleet to 39 boats as the initial 200-mile beat to the Fastnet Rock race took its toll.

Race organisers Wicklow Sailing Club reported half the fleet passed Kerry's Inistearacht check-in point at 6 p.m., with O2 Team Spirit - after spending less than 24 hours in the Atlantic - checking in at the same time but at the far end of the Atlantic seaboard, off Arranmore in Co Donegal.

Eamon Crosbie's Calyx Voice and Data, champions of the inshore race course and members of next month's Irish Commodore's Cup team, have made the transition this week to an offshore sailing team as well and lead the Maltese J-boat entry Jazz (Chris Bull).

Minnie the Moocher (Anthony Richards and Ian Travers), the overall leader after the Tuskar Rock turning point, has slipped, but only just to third place on corrected time.

The leader on the water, O2 Team Spirit, and seventh on handicap at the Kerry turning point, continued to take the advantage yesterday morning and reached speeds of 23 knots crossing Galway Bay.

Although still 280 miles out last night, she was on course for the elapsed time race record later today (see panel).

The Howth Yacht Club entry had reached Eagle Island by 10.30 a.m. (inside Colm Barrington's 1998 record time), and later in the afternoon was executing heavy air gybes in 35-knot winds off the Donegal coast.

Although Jean Phillipe Chomett, the skipper of the rival 60-footer CityJet Solune, had conceded by satellite phone that, after blowing both heavy air spinnakers in an attempt to catch up after a disastrous run to the Fastnet, there was little chance of closing a three-hour elapsed time gap, that is precisely what appears to have happened off Donegal last night.

CityJet Solune clawed back across the north coast to within an estimated 19 miles, and with a speed under genoa of only 14 knots, instead of 22 under spinnaker, navigator Chris Tibbs was anticipating a drop in wind speed and the opportunity to use Solune's only remaining light air kite early this morning.

Among the race casualties early yesterday was Ireland's second Commodore's Cup team member Fidessa Fastwave, a DK 46, that suffered a total steering failure, forcing her to retire.

Details in SPORTS ROUND-UP

If fleet leader 02 Team Spirit, skippered by 26-year-old Dubliner David Nixon, stays on course he can beat both the BMW Round Ireland race record and the Cork Dry Gin open monohull record by 9 p.m. this evening.

So far race times indicate this is possible, and the water-ballasted yacht would be the first monohull to break the sub-three-day record too.

But a forecast of light winds on the east coast combined with three tidal gates can still conspire against them today.

Onboard navigators will be aiming to make the following times as the yacht, built for a round the world race, tracks down the coast.

2 a.m.: Rathlin Island. Marks the start of the strongest tides of the race. Arriving at 2 a.m. ensures optimum fair tide.

4 a.m.: Maiden Rocks. With still four hours of fair tide to run, the boat needs to keep a speed of 10 knots. If the wind drops or goes ahead, as forecasts indicate, the strength of the tide - up to 2.5 knots at this point in its favour - becomes an even bigger factor.

8.30am: South Rock. The point where the tide splits. If the boat reaches here on a favourable tide (9 a.m. latest) they will pick up the first of the ebb that will carry them down the course with 90 miles to go.

2 p.m.: Dublin Bay. Tide turns. The Irish Sea tide has been edging the boat closer to Wicklow but all that changes after lunch time. The further down the coast they are, and preferably as far past the Kish lighthouse on Dublin Bay as possible, the more realistic the chances of beating the records.

6 p.m.: Finish before 6 p.m. and it's a sub-three day record

9.20 p.m.: Open Cork Dry Gin monohull record set from Kish to Kish by the Irish Independent Challenger in a time of Three days, three hours 27 minutes and 45 seconds in December 2002.

10.23 pm: Jeep Cherokee's Round Ireland race record of 3 days 4 hours, 23 minutes and 57 seconds set by Colm Barrington in 1998.