Scorpio Cleans Up and Fogg Lands Major Clanger 21 Nov 2015
The Dragon fleet turned out in force on Saturday evening for their end of season black tie prize giving dinner. They were joined by their Belgian friends Steven Vermiere and Nathalie Gunst along with Xavier Vanneste and crew who had brought over Dragon ‘Herbie’ to race against the fleet for the final weekend.
A wonderful evening was enjoyed by all with a fabulous meal prepared by Chef Simon and his able kitchen crew to round off a wonderful 2015 of sailing and socialising.
Prize giving was dominated by Ian Gray and the Scorpio team of Alex Burnett and René Nel who won an armful of awards. They all but managed a clean sweep of this year’s trophies with Peter Marchant & Katie Cole, Mark & Mandy Wade, Jono Brown, Mike Holmes and Rob Campbell sneaking in a few wins here and there to ensure Ian didn’t have things entirely his own way.
Trudi Churchward was the very shocked but worthy winner of the Crew’s Prize, which, when added to her RCOD Crews Award last year, must make her one of the best crew in the club. Well done Trudi, a very popular winner.
David Crabb was given champagne glasses by the fleet in recognition of his twenty years of Dragon sailing and we hope the rumours that he might be retiring are untrue as he will be sadly missed, both on and off the water.
An extensive raffle added to the Dragon fleet funds in no small measure with some amazing prizes generously donated by members of the fleet (and mostly won by Thomas Wilton, it has to be said).
Mark and Selina Dicker were presented with the cup for the highest placed visiting boat during Burnham Week. Selina then crowned this by winning a new set of “Oilies” through the annual Musto donated raffle draw.
The highlight of the evening was the presentation of the annual Clanger Award by last year’s worthy winners, Mark and Mandy Wade, who continued the Dragon fleet tradition of presenting in word/song/skit/sketch…
The room darkened and a film flickered into life showing an original 1970’s episode of the Clangers. The fleet sat in semi darkness, re-living their childhood as the small “mouse like” pink knitted creatures of our youth scampered across the moon they inhabited. Speaking only in whistles and of course eating green soup provided by the ubiquitous soup dragon. Ah yes, the soup dragon!
I digress – just as someone asked if Mark and Mandy had in fact gone home and left us all watching the film, Mandy appeared, dressed as a Clanger and then Mark appeared, or was it the “Mud Dragon”.
The narrative continued as various members of the fleet who had encountered the Mud Dragon during the year were rounded up and provided with wooden whistles to assist the storytelling. Nigel Cole had clearly missed his vocation as a penny whistler extraordinaire!
Finally, the Major Clanger of the year was revealed and Martyn Fogg took the honours. After parking his Dragon high and dry on the bank at Wade, enabling his crew to actually leave Hat Trick and walk ashore without getting their feet wet, he was well and truly crowned with the Clanger Award for 2015!
The evening was a resounding success and enjoyed by all. Well done and thank you to René for her continued hard work as Fleet Captain and we are all looking forward to 2016 with much anticipation.