In the 1250-mile Trans-Tasman Sydney-Auckland Race, which started last Saturday, the "Irish boat", Mike Martin's TP 52 Frantic (ex-Eamonn Conneelly's Patches, with Clontarf's Trevor Smyth on the strength) is looking good. Four of the five competitors elected to go to the Southern side of the Rhumb Line in the dash to the top of New Zealand. By and large, you'd have to say it paid. Painkiller, the Bavaria 51 from the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron was the one exception, but they may have been on a slightly different mission, namely fishing, so that could well explain that.

The crews report that those affected have got past the early seasickness, and are now charging hard. Frantic would be the one to have done the most in that regard, and is all over the significantly larger Antipodes. The two vessels representing the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia are virtually neck and neck, with the early TP52 holding on to the slenderest of leads for now, and just at that.

As expected, the wind abated somewhat and went into a Southerly to Sou'sou'westerly trend and something in the order of 8-15 knots, accompanied by a Sou'westery swell of some 3m or so. This will be advantageous to drive the boats back up to the Rhumb Line and their turning mark atop New Zealand (just look out for the Manawatāwhi/Three Kings Islands), before they make down the East coast of the North Island and into home at Auckland, which for the leaders could well be later tomorrow.

On Friday, the winds are expected to strengthen once more for that predominantly Nor'west direction, before clocking back left to the Sou'west under a new line of low pressure. You would think Intiy from the host club, the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club, will be best placed to capitalise on this. The Two-Handed crew have some ground to get back off the full crewed Mayfair from the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron that is around 242nm ahead of them. They have done just over 200nm in the last 24 hours, so that is commendable for short-handed and a 36-footer at that.

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