Dragons at Ostend 6 Aug 2017
Quicksilver VI (Rob Campbell, Nigel Cole and Andrew Moss) and Scorpio (Ian Gray, Alex Burnett and René Nel) joined 26 other boats in Ostend to compete in the Belgian Open Dragon Championship (theoretically) held over 4 days.
Perfect sailing conditions were on back order for day 1 and 2 with big seas and winds gusting over 30 knots keeping the boats ashore, but a trip to the Brouwerij De Halve Maan was quickly organised on Thursday to keep the teams out of mischief (or maybe that should be in?) and Friday’s pontoon drinks went ahead in the shelter of the harbour wall and glorious sunshine.
A change to the SIs brought Saturday’s start time earlier, and the boats finally headed out onto the North Sea for three long races in tricky and decreasing wind conditions. By the end of the day Quicksilver was 7th overall and Scorpio 10th. The conditions on Sunday were, if anything, even trickier, but the race officer managed to get 2 races off to clean starts. The prize giving followed with Scorpio in 12th, Quicksilver in 7th (and top British boat), with BEL80 (Ben Van Cauwenbergh) crowned champion.
A special award was made to Rob Campbell as it was his 30th visit to Ostend.