#rorcsrbi – The decision to postpone this morning's Round Britain and Ireland race leaves the 1880–mile course and race record wide open, according to the co-skipper of the fastest boat in the race. Ireland's Damian Foxall, a former Volvo Ocean Race winner, says routing shows a possible three day circumnavigation time opeing up all sorts of record possibilities for the marathon course.
Foxall's scratch boat crew, racing on Musandam-Oman Sail, the Sultanate of Oman's flagship campaign, had already made the decision to postpone its own start for 24 hours before RORC organisers issued their own blanket postponement. 'We saw very strong winds for 24 hours so we had already opted for to delay our start until tomorrow', he told Afloat.ie, this morning.
The postponement, says Ireland's top Ocean sailor, means anti–clockwise winds for the whole voyage and possibly no upwind sailing at all. Foxall believes it will be reaching conditions all the way to Scotland. Then the wind is to clock north–easterly at the most northerly point of the course opening up further fast sailing times later next week.
Meanwhile, it has been a cracking day in Cowes today with sun shining and a top wind speed of 30 knots.
Irish skipper Liam Coyne, in the First 36.7 Lulabelle, acknowledged that they bow to RORC when it comes to safety and recognise RORC felt it would hit the 50's in the channel today but at the same time Coyne says he would have 'preferred to go today as the strong winds were on our backs and our plans were showing a 9 day race with us rounding Shetlands by Wednesday/ Thursday and catching the north westerly's down the west coast of Ireland'.
'The day delay for us [Liam Coyne/Brian Flahive] means we will hit the low pressure in north east later in the week and not get down the west coast till Saturday Sunday next and have 30knts on the nose. So while some may set records it has definitely made out job much more difficult', the Irish skipper said.