Lady's Day at Cowes Week may sound like a charmingly old-fashioned Victorian concept, but there was nothing old-fashioned about the way that top women sailors of the calibre of Laura Dillon of Howth contested the time-honoured event yesterday in the Solent, with Laura on top form to win overall helming Harry Heist's classic S&S 41 Winsome against an impressive fleet of female talents.
Laura is still the only woman sailor to have become the All-Ireland Champion (she did it in 1996) and in addition to starring afloat, she has shone ashore, becoming a Flag Officer of the RORC some years after her mother Breda became the first female Commodore of Howth Yacht Club.
