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Displaying items by tag: Isolation

The Ireland rowing team which did so well at the European Championships in Italy will not return home as planned before their next outing in Lucerne in Switzerland. The team reached six finals and won gold and silver at the event and were due to return for a week to Ireland before going on to the Olympic qualification regatta and World Cup next month. 

 However, Ireland high performance director Antonio Maurogiovanni told Afloat today that he had spoken with the team and they had agreed that with the restrictions around Covid-19 quarantine becoming an issue it was more sensible to stay in their camp in Italy and then go on directly to Lucerne.

 Two crews, the lightweight women’s double and the women’s four, will go to the Olympic qualification regatta (May 15th to 17th) and the rest of the team will compete at the World Cup (May 21st to 23rd).

 Sanita Puspure, the world champion in the single sculls, missed the European Championships, but is set to join the team next week in Italy. 

Published in Rowing

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.