With an unmatched score of straight wins on Checkmate XV, Manchester sailor Nigel Biggs won the overall trophy at the Volvo Dún Laoghaire Regatta yesterday. Brilliant sunshine and an obliging breeze rounded off a full race programme for the 393 boats at the biennial event.
Biggs’ result continues his form that includes a successful defence of his Irish Class Two national championship title in Fenit at the ICRA series a month ago.
His first outing in Dún Laoghaire week in 2005 was in a Beneteau 31.7 and he enjoyed racing in Ireland so much that he joined the Royal St George Yacht Club, under which burgee he now competes.
He won the half-ton championship in 2007 on his previous boat Harmony with a clean sweep of 10 races. Like Harmony, a 27-year refurbishment project, Checkmate was in a poor state when he took ownership. The decades-old MG30 was bought for €5,000 in 2011 and optimised.
Aside from the straight wins, Class One had the biggest entry of all 25 fleets competing over the four-day series. Biggs' nearest challengers were Stuart and Julie Fitton from Blackpool & Fleetwood Yacht Club on Scenario Encore, formerly a Dún Laoghaire boat.
In other major prizes, Colin Byrne's Class One national champion Bon Exemple, sailing for the British X-Yachts dealership, won the best boat on IRC-handicap, winning yesterday's final race to top the 16-strong division.
Disqualification
Saturday's two races were initially won by Paul O'Higgins' Rockabill V, a club-mate rival from the Royal Irish YC, but a protest arising from a 'port and starboard' incident in the first race resulted in disqualification. That obliged O'Higgins to count a previous 12th place and the score knocked him back to third in the class.
With 2011 Class Zero winner Crazy Horse out of action due to a T-bone incident on Friday, Jamie McGarry's Grand Cru III won the 12-boat class.
Meanwhile, Pat Kelly's Storm II – which had collided with Crazy Horse – led the J109 championship into the final day, on tie-break with John Maybury's Joker II. In a dogfight match to the finish, Kelly was beaten by just two seconds and Maybury took the championship for the Royal Irish YC.
Jean Mitton and her crew on Levana, competing in the Beneteau 31.7, lifted the trophy for the best one-design after winning her 17-strong class, improving on her fifth place in 2011 and boding well for next month's national championships on the bay.
In the dinghy classes, there was a tie-break decider in the world’s oldest one-design boat when Cathy MacAleavey of the National YC narrowly beat Guy Kilroy of the Royal Irish YC in the final yesterday. The 1988 Seoul Olympian had her daughter, London 2012 veteran Annalise Murphy, on board as there was insufficient wind for her own Moth class dinghy.
Frank Devlin topped the Portsmouth Yardstick class in his Laser Standard rig while his club-mate Michael O’Connor won the SB20 sportsboats class with 10 points to spare, bringing the tally of class wins over the four days to seven for the RSGYC, six for the RIYC, four for the NYC and two for Howth YC.
