Dragon Crews’ Race 2012 22 Jul 2012

The Dragon Fleet struck gold with the date for the Annual Crews’ Race as it turned out to be the first sunny Saturday for weeks. Conditions were perfect, wind and sun, to give the crews the confidence they needed.

And with all that advice on hand, how could they possibly go wrong?

This is Geoff Butcher. “What a start! Spinnaker upside down – agressive helm now as crew and great racing.

But not a good start for Avalanche as we were well above the start line with Butcher on the helm and Wade and Makey shouting abuse – finished fourth.

(Just a thought…Obviously Wade and Makey have lessons to learn about spinnaker setting… Editor)

We were shown the way by Karen in Beauty and the Beast
with many place changes in the rest of the fleet. The most eventful part of the second race was Butcher forgetting which way the tide was flowing and nearly wrapping the Dragon round an Old Gaffer! All good clean fun!”

This is Matt.” I was very relieved not to hit anything! Karen and I shared the helming in a fleet of ten boats including Xavier Vanneste in his new Dragon Pass a Brugge Zot with Tim Tavinor on board.

Can’t remember a thing after the start until someone said, “You can stop now!””

Finally, this is Karen. “This is the first time I have entered the Dragon Crews’ Race for the Pat Burnett Memorial Trophy. The wind was light and shifty and there was a strong spring flood. On such a fine day it was just a case of calming the nerves of the crew and settling down to ‘watch the woolies’.

The race was over before I knew it and no one was more surprised about the result than me.

Everyone seemed to enjoy this important annual event.

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