Niall Dowling’s chartered Ker 43 Baraka GP was across the finish line at Wicklow a few minutes before 1.30pm to comfortably take line honours in the 2018 edition of the Volvo Round Ireland Yacht Race, the 20th staging of this major event.
The Royal Irish YC skipper has seen his specialised boat put in a spectacular performance during the past 18 hours, lengthening away from all opposition to such good effect that the next in line, the Volvo 60 Libertalia Team Jokolia, is still all of 90 miles from the finish.
Baraka is indicated as currently having a strong lead in the main section of the fleet, the IRC Handicap Division. Her closest challenger, Chris Power Smith’s J/122 Aurelia, still has 140 miles to race, and at the time of finish, Baraka was shown as having a Corrected Time lead of seven hours.
Race tracker and leaderboard HERE
Afloat.ie Round Ireland updates in this one handy link HERE