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Royal St.George Jaguar Dragon Team Lying Fifth at Edinburgh Cup

18th July 2019
Jaguar skipper Martin Byrne (right) - race two winner at the 2019 Edinburgh Cup Jaguar skipper Martin Byrne (right) - race two winner at the 2019 Edinburgh Cup

Martin Byrne’s reassembled 2011 Edinburgh Cup-winning Dragon Jaguar Sailing Team with Adam Winkelmann and Pedro Andrade onboard are fifth overall and top Irish boat after four races sailed at the Cup in Abersoch, North Wales. The Royal St. George trio scored a win in the second race and are seven points off the overall lead in the 33-boat fleet.

The Irish Phantom team led by Peter Bowring, Commodore of the Royal St George Yacht Club are seventh overall. They are regular visitors to Abersoch and have won the British Northern Championships there on a number of occasions. They last attended the Edinburgh Cup there in 2015 where they finished 5th overall while winning the final two races.

Tim Pearson sailing ZU with Conor Grimley and John Bolger are lying 12th.

Denis Bergin from the Royal Irish Yacht Club with Sir Ossis of the River is competing again at an Edinburgh Cup for the first time in over a decade.  But he returns with a very experienced & successful father & son team of Con & Ronan Murphy and is 18th from 33. 

Now in its 71st year the Edinburgh Cup remains a championship with a great deal of history. It has always been difficult to win and is revered by those who have won many other competitions and events.

Full results here

Published in Dragon
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The Dragon was designed by Johan Anker in 1929 as an entry for a competition run by the Royal Yacht Club of Gothenburg, to find a small keel-boat that could be used for simple weekend cruising among the islands and fjords of the Scandinavian seaboard. The original design had two berths and was ideally suited for cruising in his home waters of Norway. The boat quickly attracted owners and within ten years it had spread all over Europe.

The Dragon's long keel and elegant metre-boat lines remain unchanged, but today Dragons are constructed using the latest technology to make the boat durable and easy to maintain. GRP is the most popular material, but both new and old wooden boats regularly win major competitions while looking as beautiful as any craft afloat. Exotic materials are banned throughout the boat, and strict rules are applied to all areas of construction to avoid sacrificing value for a fractional increase in speed.

The key to the Dragon's enduring appeal lies in the careful development of its rig. Its well-balanced sail plan makes boat handling easy for lightweights, while a controlled process of development has produced one of the most flexible and controllable rigs of any racing boat.