The big Lombard 46 Pata Negra of Andrew and Sam Hall took the size advantage to win line honours and the overall handicap prize in the Lyver race, the twelfth race of the ISORA Viking Marine Musto Championships from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead on Saturday (July 6).
Pata Negra finished the 75-miler with a 10-hour, 44-minute, 36-second corrected time, beating overall series leader Chris Power Smith's J122 Aurelia by 45 minutes (11:29:01 corr). Third, according to the provisional results below, was Alan Hannon's Belfast Lough JPK 1030 Coquine (11:33:23 corr).
Strong and gusty southwesterlies gave the ten boat fleet a beat across the Irish Sea, leaving Rockabill to port off the Dublin coast, then passing the Kish Light House to starboard on to ISORA's Dublin Bay Virtual Mark.
It is Pata Negra's second cross-channel victory this season and follows a light-air victory in race eight in May.
As Afloat reported previously, the race was the first race of the Royal Dee Offshore Championship, which is being sailed as part of next week's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta as a non-discard event.
A rescue operation was averted after an EPIRB was accidentally activated by one competitor shortly after the start. HM Coastguard sought the assistance of nearby competitors to resolve the problem, and the Holyhead RNLI lifeboat was stood down.
