Royal St. George's Martin Byrne sailing with Adam Winklemann and John Simms has won the International Dragon Class Southern Area Championships at Royal Cornwall Yacht Club.
A warm-up event for Tuesday's prestigious Edinburgh Cup at the same venue in Falmouth saw Ireland's Jaguar Sailing Team six points clear of the Royal Yacht Squadron's Graham Bailey at the helm of the Duke of Edinburgh's classic Bluebottle on 18 points.
Six races were sailed with one discard in a 22-boat fleet. Simon Barter of Cowes Corinthian YC was third.
Although Byrne did not win a race, the Irish trio counted five results in the top three in a consistent display that bodes well for the first races of the British National Championship for the Edinburgh Cup today.
2022 Edinburgh Cup
They will be the only Irish team competing – and a Corinthian team to boot – and up against some stiff UK competition just arrived in Falmouth Harbour, including the pre-regatta favourite, Andy Beadsworth's Provezza.
As regular Afloat readers will know, victory at the Edinburgh Cup is nothing new for Byrne and Winkelmann; the Dun Laoghaire crew lifted the Cup back more than a decade ago in 2011.
And their pre-event training reveals the depth of their ambitions to hold the Cup for Ireland again.
Byrne's last event was pre-Covid at Abersoch in 2019, when they finished runners-up to Mike Budd.
"It is almost a decade since we won the Edinburgh Cup in 2011, and we have had a couple of near misses since then".
Over the winter, the Jaguar team competed in a series of events in Portugal; four events in Vilamoura and one practice week in Cascais. Last month they competed in La Baule, France and at June's National Yacht Club regatta on Dublin Bay.
Ireland has won the Edinburgh Cup 13 times in its 73-year history.
Dragon UK South coast results here
