Media Information

5th July, 2006

BMW Round Ireland Yacht Race 2006 – UPDATE 4

First boat to cross finish line expected this evening

With little or no wind on the Irish Sea, progress south towards the

finishing line of the BMW Round Ireland Race has been painfully slow for the

New Zealand super maxi Konica Minolta Zana. The 98-footer passed the Mew Island

radio check-in point 110 miles from the finish at 00.30 on Wednesday

morning. Some 18 hours later, she was on final approach to Wicklow and

expected to achieve line honours at dusk.

Winds have been untypically light through the race so far. Normally a

mixture of light to fresh or strong winds can be expected but headwinds have

been a dominant factor since the start four days ago.

While several boats have reported running low on food supplies, there was

good news for the smaller boats still only reaching the halfway stage.

Force five winds from the south-west veering westerly are expected on the

west from Thursday morning and will remain favourable until the weekend.

The fresher conditions reaching the fleet from behind spells bad news for

the mid-sized entries. Although dominating the provisional handicap results

to date, they now stand to lose out to the back-markers in what may prove to

be a classic Round Ireland Race about turn in the results.

Up to half a dozen boats have been in contention since the weekend:

defending champion Eamon Crosbie on “Teng Tools”; Aodhan Fitzgerald and his

Galway Bay team on Ireland's West; Anthony Richards' Minnie the Moocher from

the UK; George Radley's 1980 classic Imp and Niall Dowling's Jeronimo from

Dun Laoghaire.

With line honours safely secured by Konica Minolta and all records unbroken,

the battle for the overall victory in the most testing of races remains wide

open and it may be the weekend before final results are confirmed.

For information about the top boats you can call our hotline on 1540

933 269. Or you can receive twice-daily updates direct to your phone

by subscribing to our exclusive text service by texting BMW to 53307.

Follow the action all the way and logon to our website for GPS

Tracking of all the yachts. For more information about the race and to

see the full list of Provisional Results please log on to our website