Kinsale Yacht Club sailors dominate the top three places overall at the Irish East Coast Dragon Championships 2021 at the Royal St. George Yacht Club at Dun Laoghaire Harbour this evening. 

James Matthews leads by three points having scored 3,1 in sea breeze conditions on Dublin Bay. The Kinsale ace is followed by clubmate Tomas O'Brien in Scarlet Ribbons on seven points with Cameron Good's Little Fella in third place on 11 points.

The south-easterly breeze built from ten knots for the opening race up to 16-18 knots for the second race of the day.

IRL 201 Titan in her first race since refit wins the opening race of the Dragon East coast Championships. Photo: Adam Winkelmann

Host club hopes were high when former Royal St George Yacht Club Commodore Martin Byrne took the gun in the first race but retired in the stronger breeze of the second race.

Byrne, a former Edinburgh Cup winner, was sailing IRL 201 Titan in her first race since refit. Byrne is sailing with Ben Cooke and Rui Ferreira.

Racing continues over the weekend. Provisional results below.

The first major Irish Dragon Championships in Ireland since 2019 was hosted by Glandore Harbour Yacht Club with 19 Dragons on the racecourse under Principal Race Officer Ciaran McSweeney. 

Cameron Good's Little Fella from Kinsale and Neil Hegarty's Phantom from the Royal St. George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire Harbour were the pacesetters and after six races sailed were tied on eight nett points each. 

A winners tie break was settled in favour of Little Fella with third overall going to Good's clubmate James Matthews. 

The Championship Trophy and lots more race prizes were presented on the Glandore Terrace by GHYC Commodore Eamon Timoney and Fleet Captain Kieran O’Donoghue.

While local Dragon veteran Don Street did not race Gypsy in the event, he sailed out to the race area on Friday & Sunday to inspect the fleet.

Full results here 

After two decades of printing hard copy yearbooks, the International Dragon Association has launched its first-ever digital edition. 

The bumper edition has 54 pages of entertaining and informative reading about one of the leading racing keelboats.

Despite many predictions over the years of the boat’s decline in the face of new technology, it has not just survived but prospered, and now numbers 1400 active registered Dragons.

The class will stage its 2024 Gold Cup in Kinsale following the cancellation of the 2020 Cup in the West Cork port due to COVID.

The new yearbook can be accessed from the Home Page of the International Dragon website here. It can be read on a tablet, phone or computer.

Just as Ireland's one-design keelboat classes were gearing up for the last blast of the season this weekend, anticipated COVID-19 restriction hikes are threatening the staging of the annual regatta at Dromineer in County Tipperary.

Flying Fifteens, Dragons, Squibs and SB20s are all scheduled to compete.

Organisers of the traditional end of season freshwater regatta at Lough Derg Yacht Club (9-11th October) will be watching out for COVID-19 level announcements today. The much-anticipated hike in restrictions aired on Sunday night (NPHET advice for a countrywide Level Five lockdown) would bring the curtain down on the popular autumn event that typically sees boats travelling from Northern Ireland, Dublin, Cork and other ports for the three-day event.

Some of Dublin's One Design keelboat classes are hoping that current Level 3 restrictions due to expire this Friday will allow travelling out of the county for the last sail of the season. All Dublin club racing has been cancelled over the last three weeks due to the county-wide restrictions.

Lough Derg Yacht Club has posted a Notice of Race with the rider that the 'Club reserves the right to cancel this event with short notice and all fees will be refunded' if it cannot go ahead.

In Kinsale, Squibs were hauled out at the weekend in anticipation of the Squib Inland Championships that are being held as part of the Lough Derg event.

After some disappointing cancellations for the Dragon class this season at Kinsale Yacht Club, local Dragon racing made a welcome return to the West Cork harbour at the weekend.

As regular readers will know both the International Dragon Gold Gup planned for this month at Kinsale and then its replacement Cantor Fitzgerald Dragon Week were both cancelled in the wake of COVID-19 restrictions.

However, a busy weekend on the water for KYC, saw local racing resume as well as KYC cruiser racing in the first race of the Mary P September Series, as Afloat reported earlier.

Afloat's Bob Bateman captured the Kinsale Dragon action in the slideshow below

Kinsale Yacht Club has announced that the Cantor Fitzgerald Dragon Week, which was scheduled to take place in lieu of the earlier Gold Cup event has now also been cancelled.

Speaking of the announcement, Matthias Hellstern, Rear Commodore of Kinsale Yacht Club stated "It's a real shame that we have to cancel another Dragon event in Kinsale, however, we looked closely at the new Government restrictions and felt that we really couldn't work within the guidelines and still provide an exceptional event, which Kinsale is noted for. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Cantor Fitzgerald for their support and of our decision. We very much look forward to working with them again in the near future".

Daniel Murphy of Cantor Fitzgerald added "As a Dragon sailor, I am really disappointed that Dragon Week is cancelled. I know Kinsale Yacht Club had put so much plans in place for the week and its volunteers had once again come to the fore, to ensure its success. However, given where we are with regard to this Covid-19 pandemic, we fully support Kinsale Yacht Club's decision".

Cameron Good's Dragon 'Little Fella' was the overall winner of Kinsale Yacht Club's one day Dragon keelboat Regatta on Saturday (August 1).

Good, who also won KYC's Pery Knox Gore 2020 Trophy in late July, sailed with Henry Kingston and Simon Good.

The Race officer for the one-day event was former KYC Commodore, Dave O'Sullivan. The event is part of the build-up for next month's Cantor Fitzgerald sponsored Dragon Week at the club. As Afloat reported previously, interest is building for the event that will include racing for National Championship honours.

Following the recent announcement of the Cantor Fitzgerald Dragon Week, enquires and interest has steadily been making their way back to the Kinsale fleet in West Cork.

Kinsale Yacht Club is hopeful that the “green list” will allow UK travel by September as several UK teams have indicated their intention to travel.

Kinsale Yacht Club dragon sailors should have seven boats competing with long time Dragon campaigner Cameron Good along with his crew on “Little Fella” will be hoping to lift the National title, the one championship that has eluded this team over their illustrious career

Other Kinsale hopefuls will be the Goggin/ Murphy team on “Serafina” along with “TBD” made up of experienced campaigners James Matthews, Dave Good and Fergal O’Hanlon.

Glandore Harbour has indicated that five teams are hopeful of making the short journey down the coast and no doubt multiple national championship winners “Phanton” from Dublin will be in Kinsale to defend their crown. The class rumour mill has also been in overdrive recently with suggestions that Royal St. George's Michael Cotter together with Belfast Lough's Simon Brien and Davy Gomes are to sail the Dragon, “Whisper” for the week!

The “Cantor Fitzgerald Dragon Week” will run in the following format:

• South Coat Championships - Saturday 5th – Monday 7th September
• Lay Day – Tuesday 8th September
• National Championships – Wednesday 9th – Saturday 12th September

Much of the rest of the sailing world may be whirling in coronavirus confusion, but in serene and elegant Glandore in West Cork. the strong local division of classic and modern International Dragons went smoothly into their 14-race Dragon Derby at the weekend. And last Saturday’s racing had a very special flavour, as it marked the 90th birthday of international super-sailor Don Street, who must have done more sailing his time in a greater variety of boats – inshore, offshore and oceanic – than possibly all of his fellow-members of Glandore Harbour Yacht Club combined.

……but as start time approaches, a youthful crew appears from below decks

Don’s classic Dragon Gypsy – IRL 15 – is of much the same vintage as himself, and is undoubtedly the oldest actively raced Dragon in Ireland, one of a very elite group of seniors worldwide - as is her owner-skipper. It says much for the profound qualities of the 91-year-old Dragon design that Don Street and his colleagues in Glandore should put so much enthusiasm in keeping this very special division of the class actively alive. Happy birthday, Don……

Glandore Dragons closing in on the mark

A very special birthday party in Glandore – at 90, Don Street (second left) enjoys his post-race parties as much as ever.

Kinsale Yacht Club has announced Cantor Fitzgerald is the headline sponsor for Dragon Week 2020 which will be held in Kinsale from the 5th to 12th of September 2020

After the unfortunate cancellation of September's Gold Cup, the Kinsale fleet got together and the idea of Dragon Week was born.

“We had huge interest in the Gold Cup this year and were expecting over 80 entries”, commented Kinsale Dragon stalwart Cameron Good. “However we know that there are many very keen Dragon sailors out there looking to get sailing and the idea with Dragon Week was to maintain the enthusiasm within the Irish fleet. We are using the same dates as the Gold Cup and will run a weeklong series, incorporating the South Coast and National Championships, but with an open invitation to sailors from any nation to come and race if they can”.

The “Cantor Fitzgerald Dragon Week” will run in the following format:

• South Coat Championships - Saturday 5th – Monday 7th September
• Lay Day – Tuesday 8th September
• National Championships – Wednesday 9th – Saturday 12th September

Reacting to the announcement that Cantor Fitzgerald were to headline sponsor this unique event, Daniel Murphy, Head of Cantor Fitzgerald’s Cork office stated that “With the disappointment associated with the cancellation of the Gold Cup, we were immediately attracted to the proactive nature of how Kinsale Yacht Club went about redesigning the calendar by being creative and coming up with the concept of Dragon Week.

Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland is part of leading global financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald. With a proud history of stockbroking and servicing our private clients and financial advisors in Ireland since 1995, we provide a full suite of investment services, primarily in personalised share dealing, pensions, wealth management, fund management, debt capital markets and corporate finance. We are proud to be working in tandem with the Irish Dragon fleet and Kinsale Yacht Club in these exceptional times and look forward to a great week.”