"Lucky Lucky " lived up to her name yesterday when the €30,000 Dragon racing boat, stolen from outside its owner's home on Monday morning, was found "intact and undamaged" in a Co Kildare car-breaker's yard.
A motorist who had heard about the theft spotted the 30-foot-long, two-tonne white boat being towed along a back road in Co Kildare yesterday morning and told gardaí of its whereabouts.
Gardai surrounded a car-breaker's yard at Paddenstown, Kilcock, at lunchtime yesterday and arrested two men.
The owner of the boat, Mr Denis Bergin, was "absolutely delighted" that it had been recovered so quickly. "I'm very relieved. Without the publicity yesterday \, it never would have been found," he told The Irish Times.
Mr Bergin lives beside the Stillorgan dual carriageway, from where the boat, which was on a trailer, was towed away in busy traffic on Monday morning.
The owner of the breaker's yard was being questioned at Donnybrook Garda station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984. The second man, a Dutch national, was being questioned at Ashbourne Garda station.
Garda sources believe that the plan was to use the yard to keep the boat "out of sight for a while". They said that the boat would have been readily recognisable to the sailing fraternity in the UK and Ireland and believed that it was bound for "further afield".
Mr Bergin intends to travel to Kildare today to collect his boat after Garda forensic investigations have been completed.
Further arrests are expected to be made in relation to the theft.