Round Ireland Race Day four (Tuesday) 2100 With the tides of the North Channel running favourably southwards for the Round Ireland fleet from around 16:30hrs today, the state of play for the leaders in the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race has been akin to windless riding on a roller-coaster that terminates at the South Rock Light off the County Down coast, where the flood tide loses speed and power as it dissipates into the Irish Sea

This is all-too-vividly illustrated by the progress of line honours leader Kuka3, the Swiss Cookson 50, which at 1730 was merrily making her way southward at 7.3 knots, yet an hour later with the South Rock astern, it was all she could do to keep the needle pushing towards 4 knots.

But her closest contender, the Volvo 70 Green Dragon, was having an even less agreeable time of it off Belfast Lough, so we learn yet again that anyone who thinks they understand the effect of the tides of the North Channel may never have been there, while being there only adds to the bewilderment.

Green Dragon - second in line honours Photo: Afloat

That said, away to the north Robert Rendell’s Grand Soleil 44 Samatom – having re-found her mojo once the navigator Richie Fearon was back in his home waters around Inishowen and Malin Head – has done remarkable things to come south from Rathlin now clearly ahead of Michael Boyd’s J/121 Darkwood.

It gets stranger than that. The American Class40 Kite has been sailing an exemplary race for the past 24 hours, and was well ahead coming into the North Channel. But now her Italian rival Influence has thrown caution to the winds (such as they are) and has been making her way south at 9.6 knots close west of the Mull of Kintyre.

Meanwhile, the emerging French star, the J/111 SL Energies (Laurent Charmy) has continued to make significant dents in what had seemed the pre-ordained order of things, and is close east of Rathlin making 6.7 knots in a light following breeze. But this has been good enough to put her into the overall lead in IRC, where second is held by Darkwood while Rockabill VI (Paul O’Higgins) stays in contention in third.

The current charts indicate an almost complete absence of wind between the South Rock and the finish at Wicklow, but a new nor’easter seems to be filling into the North Channel, and it may in time spread further along the course. Nevertheless, Maritime Mystic Meg’s most recent statement is that currently it’s a lottery, so we’ll leave it at that for tonight and see how things have been going first thing tomorrow morning.

Race tracker and data below