Event organizer Peter Craig wisely held the fleet of 262 boats onshore in the morning while waiting for updated information. Since the forecast still looked promising at noon, the AP Flag (postponement) came down and the armada of racing boats was sent out to the Atlantic Ocean.

In attendance from the emerald isle is IRC veteran Colm Barrington with his yacht 'Flash Glove', Colm has turned out an impressive set of results to date which leaves Colm and crew sitting third only two points behind leading yacht Samba Pa Ti.

From Northern Ireland joint owners Allen and Monahan are racing in IRC class 2 with their new Mark Mills designed 37 footer, 'No Naked Flames'. The crew onboard is a mix of a reguklar Northern Ireland crew with a make up of Commodores Cup team mates from Cork. No Naked Flames is headed up by New Zealander Chris Maine. The crew are currently sitting third overall. It is the crews attention to parttake in the 2008 Commodores Cup in Cowes in June. 

Lo and behold, conditions proved even better than expected with the wind starting at 5-8 knots from the southwest then clocking around to the north and increasing to 12 knots. That allowed for two races on all four courses and resulted in an awful lot of happy faces when the boats returned to port.

There was minimal shakeup in the standings with the lead changing hands in only five of 16 classes. However, the difference between the first and second boat in the other 11 classes is six points or less and things could change dramatically before this series concludes. It sets the stage for an historic final day at Acura Key West 2008 with organizers moving the first gun up one hour and planning to conduct three races.

For two decades, there have been very few three-race days at Key West. Now, in the 21st season of the largest winter regatta in North America, there could possibly be a pair of three-race days. Prospects of that happening are quite great as the forecast is for 15-20 knot winds on Friday.

There was a change atop the ultra-competitive Farr 40 class with Barking Mad jumping from third to first on the strength of a bullet in yesterday's second race. Skipper Jim Richardson has finished sixth or better in the 25-boat fleet for all five races and now holds a four-point advantage over opening day leader Mascalzone Latino.

Blu Moon, the Swiss entry skippered by Franco Rossini, remained atop the Melges 24 class by counter-balancing an 18th in Race 4 with a victory in Race 5. Helmsman Flavio Favini said the team will be hard-pressed to hold of the likes of WTF (Alan Field), Tresvailles.com (Benoit Charon), Pegasus 505 (Ullman) and Full Throttle (Brian Porter), all of whom are within striking distance.

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