Handicap favours Formidable

SAILING/ROUND IRELAND RACE:AFTER A first-night pounding on Sunday evening - the price of fast pace southwards - the fleet in the BMW Round Ireland Race were in remarkably good shape last night, with 38 boats at sea in reportedly ideal racing conditions.

The pace set by Mike Slade's super-maxi ICAP Leopard heralded similar performances from several notable challengers for the overall prize to be decided on handicap corrected times at the Wicklow finishing-line.

But in spite of the apparently fast sailing, there was still room for slip-ups and even the leader appeared to take a flyer, diving southwards away from the Cork coast for up to 80 miles before tacking back to pass the famous Fastnet Rock off west Cork yesterday morning.

By contrast, Dutch veteran yachtsman Piet Vroon brought his 56-footer Formidable more conservatively along the coast which paid well when he took the lead on the provisional handicap results.

Prior to this, Aodhan Fitzgerald's team on Ireland's West, the Beneteau 40.7 from Galway Bay Sailing Club, had been holding the lead but last night had slipped to third place behind Dun Laoghaire entry Lee Overlay Partners, a Cookson 50-footer with a canting keel.

Fitzgerald was holding pace on the final approach to the Fastnet Rock last night and was within sight of Matt Davis's Team Kingspan, a Corby 41 in fourth place on corrected time. Davis was another skipper who opted for the coastal option.

"So far the single tack option seems to have paid off but we won't know for certain until we meet up with the boats shortly," he told The Irish Times yesterday.

But conditions after Sunday's start hadn't made for comfortable sailing until yesterday. "Life on board is improving as we got a hot cup of coffee this morning and a warm meal later during the day," Davis said. "We bailed some of the water out of the bilge and even got a chance to dry out the cabin and the sleeping bags, so we're looking forward to a fast spin up the west coast."

But if conditions were hard for the crewed boats, the 10 boats contesting the two-handed race had a tougher time, because of the additional workload of keeping their boats moving quickly.

"We now have perfect conditions, flat sea and a white sail reach all the way to the Fastnet which we should make just before dusk," past race-winner Michael Boyd and co-skipper with Niall Dowling on Slingshot, a J105 that was lying third place in the two-handed class.

Like all boats in the fleet, a new warning for south-easterly gales becoming southerly is being eagerly awaited. "We could have a very long run or broad reach up the west coast which should suit Slingshot well," said Boyd.

That new depression will also suit Slade and his 25-strong crew on Leopard as they surge ahead once more with fresher winds delivering boat speeds averaging around 15 knots. At that pace, Colm Barrington's 1998 record time seems certain to fall by a considerable margin.