Biggs bags glory at Dun Laoghaire Regatta

Racing a 27-year revamped 30-foot yacht, Nigel Biggs won the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta yesterday with a perfect record of six race wins.

His Checkmate XV also won the national Class 2 championship at Fenit a month ago at the Irish Cruiser Racing Association series, successfully defending his 2012 title.

A fleet of 26 boats contested his class, the largest of the 25 divisions in Dun Laoghaire that eventually attracted 393-boats, down fractionally on the debut regatta in 2005.

The series also hosted the J109 national championship, which saw a match-race between the two tied leaders of the 14-boat class for yesterday’s single race finale.

Pat Kelly’s Storm II from Rush Sailing Club was the overnight leader but only on tie-break from John Maybury’s Joker II.

In the end, the pair were separated by just two seconds, with Maybury taking the gun and the title for the Royal Irish YC.

Olympians were also in action at the opposite end of the sailing spectrum on Dublin Bay as the regatta caters for dinghies as well as bigger boats.

Seoul ’88 veteran Cathy MacAleavey enlisted her youngest daughter Annalise Murphy to crew for her on Mollie, a Water Wag dinghy that is a replica of the world’s first one-design sailing class founded on Dublin Bay in 1866.

Winning the final race made all the difference for MacAleavey in the 12 boats class as she won the event on tie-break only.