If you live outside the goldfish bowl which is the International Dragon Class and Dun Laoghaire sailing, you may not have heard that the ginger cat which is resident in the Royal St George Yacht Club had become so fond of spending time in Martin Byrne’s Dragon in the club boat-park that it almost went to Kinsale reports WM Nixon.
Seems that former RStGYC Commodore Byrne hitched up his Dragon without a care in the world to head for Kinsale and the South Coast Championship last month. And everything went smoothly until he was well through the Dublin suburbs, when a guy pulled up alongside him at traffic lights, and asked if he always travelled with a ginger pussy on top of his boat.
The bould Martin gingerly (how else?) headed back to the club, and returned one agitated feline to its home base, then headed off for Kinsale again. But by this time, the Gardai had been alerted and the boys in blue were determined to get their moneysworth. So when the Byrne Dragon equipe pulled up at a police check on the road to Cork, didn’t he have to tell the whole story of how the cat was no longer in the ship’s company before he could go on his way?
And by the time he got to Kinsale, hadn’t the multi-talented Rob Jacob been on the case, and the resulting cartoon was already going the rounds. Even the coolest skipper can be put off his stride when one thing after another is piled like this into the way of his smooth progress. So although Martin Byrne may have won the renowned Edinburgh Cup in the International Dragon Class in times past, in Kinsale a fortnight ago he didn’t even get a podium place. But we’re assured the RStGYC cat is purring along very nicely, thank you.
