SAILING/Commodore's Cup: It was hardly the stuff of yacht-racing legend but the final outcome suited the Irish team just fine. After the abandonment of the first two races of the Commodore's Cup on Monday due to lack of breeze, yesterday saw just one race sailed before the near calm was ruffled.

Nevertheless, the result of that one race fulfilled the race pundits' predictions of a strong Irish team and the three-boat squad occupies first place by a mere half-point overnight from the Dutch side.

Leading the Irish charge is team captain Colm Barrington at the helm of his new Jason Kerr-designed, 39-footer Flying Glove. As the highest-rated boat in Class Two, the Royal Irish YC entry needed to be leading its class and it did so with a three-minute lead on the water.

The side's small boat, Eamon Crosbie's Calyx Voice & Data, fared less well, scoring a fourth place after a tricky race filled with wind shifts and dying breeze. Crosbie's crew face additional pressure from their sister-ship rival, Fair Do's IV, which was launched just last week and outsailed the National YC team in the shifts to take second in Class Three.

Ireland's adopted big boat, Fidessa Fastwave, had the least encouraging result of the squad yesterday. A sixth place, mainly due to a back-of-pack start in which the light weather made it impossible to recover significant ground.

The crew can take some solace from the plight of rival big boat Farr 52 Bear of Britain when the Britain Red Team yacht sailed to the wrong windward mark in the first leg, an excruciating error that left them in 10th place of 11 in the class.

Meanwhile, the fleet skippers and the Royal Ocean Racing Club organisers were meeting last night to decide whether to cancel today's long-inshore course around the Solent in favour of staging the missed three short courses. Fears of a start in early-morning breeze leading to a midday calm that would leave the fleet parked were in the minds of many crews.