Enter the Dragon. Enda O'Coineen, the Galway man behind the Irish entry in the 2008/9 Volvo Ocean Race is back behind the wheel of the Volvo 70 as the 12th entry into June's SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race.
It's not Green Dragon's first circuit of Ireland either, the Galway Bay yacht was the biggest and fastest of the 38-boat fleet in the 2012 edition of the race.
A year ago, under Johannes Schwarz’s Green Dragon crossed the finish line of the 7th edition of the RORC Transatlantic Race in an elapsed time of 9 days, 18 hours, 53 mins and 40 secs to win the IMA Trophy to take monohull Line Honours in the race.
The Round Ireland campaign for Green Dragon will be is a joint entry from O’Coineen and Conor Ferguson. The boat is entered as both a Galway Bay Sailing Club and Royal Irish Yacht Club entry.
As regular Afloat readers will know, the original VOR team was captained by Ian Walker and finished the race in fifth place overall (from six starters) scoring 63 points. The boat was designed by Reichel Pugh and built by McConaghy Boats.