The Royal St George Yacht Club, Dun Laoghaire

From the 11th to the 13th of September, a small but competitive fleet of Dragons assembled at the Royal Irish Yacht Club, Dun Laoghaire, to contest the Irish East Coast Championship 2009, including a most welcome entry from the recently reformed fleet at Abersoch crewed by James Peters, Dave Cummings and Rob Riddell. We hope to see more of the Abersoch fleet in the coming seasons.

With a large anticyclone sitting over the country (bringing our long-awaited Indian summer) a light air regatta was in prospect, and there were doubts that the full programme of six races would be completed at all.

However, we needn't have worried. Although each day dawned with glorious sunshine and glassy seas, as the weak thermal wind built Race Officer, Brian Craig, used every ounce of available breeze to get the full programme of away, and only once had to resort to a shortened course! Not only that, but the courses were acknowledged by all to be excellent.

After the fourth race on day two it seemed as if Chimaera with Andrew Craig, Mark Pettitt and Brian Mathews on board, had a firm grip on the beautiful carriage clock - the trophy for this event - with a three point lead over Martin Byrne in Jaguar.

However, on Sunday morning there was a little bit of gradient breeze from the north, and with the pressure always better on the left in the early part of the race, Jaguar got clean away, followed by an opportunistic Zu (Pearson, Dee, Minch) who held off the challenge of the peloton to finish ahead of Diva (Goodbody, Johnson, Johnson). The wind was always threatening to swing to the east and many boats headed this way in the hope of reward. But it was only on the last beat to the finish that the wind obliged and Chimaera salvaged a 4th place.

This left Jaguar and Chimaera level going into the final race. After one false start, Brian Craig used the Z flag. A heavily favoured pin end resulted in a bit of a crush and in the ensuing fight for clear air there was an incident between the two series leaders resulting in a protest. Jaguar got away again to win the race, followed by Chimaera but the championship was decided in the protest room when Chimaera's protest was rejected by the jury to allow Martin Byrne in Jaguar take the title by 1 point.

Results:
1st: Jaguar - Martin Byrne, Adam Winkleman and Pedro Andrade
2nd: Andrew Craig, Mark Pettitt and Brian Mathews
3rd: Neil Hegarty, David Williams and Peter Bowring