Irish skipper wins Figaro

Irish solo skipper Tom Dolan took a historic victory in this year's La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec, winning the solo multistage offshore race overall only the third non-French competitor ever to do so.

- 

La Solitaire du Figaro is one of the most gruelling, prestigious and renowned of all the solo offshore races, and has been the proving ground of some of ocean racing's greatest stars.

However, it has also been French dominated, with just two international skippers ever having won it: the Belgian Joan de Kat in 1970 and the Swiss skipper Laurent Bourgnon in 1988.

In a typically nail-biting scenario for the one-design race, in which finish positions are calculated on cumulative time, the top 20 boats all finished Leg 1 within five minutes of each other after 615 miles of racing from Rouen to Gijón, Spain. Dolan finished 9th in the first stage, but with the fleet so close the race effectively restarted for Leg 2.