Senior sailor and noted offshore veteran Frank Larkin of Limerick claims he only got his latest Laser a year or so ago as a present for himself for his 73rd birthday, and for “just the occasional sail to keep in trim”.

But it looks as though the canny curmudgeon has lost none of his competitive cunning with victory in a varied fleet of 24 boats in Killaloe’s disarmingly-described “Covid-19 Training Race” this weekend. For “training”, read “Red Hot Racing”….. And In it, we note that sail numbers indicate that some Lasers were even newer than the Larkin Lovely, suggesting that the Laser is living up to expectations as the No 1 Covid Buster, something already demonstrated with their turnout "way beyond expectations” at the recent Greystones pop-up challenge and also on Dublin Bay in the DBSC dinghy league

Results from Killaloe here