As 160 of the 271 starters in the Fastnet Race scurried for cover in the havens of Weymouth, Brixham, Plymouth and Falmouth yesterday, the biggest boat in the 978km offshore classic, Mike Slade's 100ft (30m) Leopard, was rounding the lighthouse rock off the south-west tip of Ireland oncourse for a record.
It had taken him only 30 hours to reach the turning point, closely shadowed by the American 90-footer Rambler, skippered by the 2008 Volvo Race and former America's Cup skipper Ken Read. He rounded the rock three seconds ahead, while left behind to limp home to Portsmouth was Neville Crichton's rival 100-footer Shockwave, after ripping the mainsail before crossing the Celtic Sea.
Survival was the better part of valour as winds gusted up to 45 knots, something the organisers, the Royal Ocean Racing Club, had hoped would have abated after it had put back the start for the first time in the 83-year history of the biennial race.
Even so, the Salcombe lifeboat had been called at 2am to the 38ft Puma Logic when it reported a crewman with a broken leg and then at 4am the lifeboat went to escort the dismasted 35ft Jambalya. The Torbay lifeboat went to the 50ft Anna, also dismasted, and escorted her to Brixham, coping with a crew composed entirely of Russian speakers.
Slade could knock hours off the 53-hour record set in 1999 by Ross Field.