This year’s Dragon Classic Championship will be held within Aldeburgh Week between 12^th and 17^th August. The Aldeburgh Yacht Club is delighted to welcome as many elegant wooden Dragons as possible to its petite estuary, which is exceptionally kind to elderly boats much cosseted by their owners. Rick Gillingham, the AYC Commodore and himself a Dragon sailor, said ”It would be fantastic to see a good turn-out of classics. We have photos of large classic fleets racing here in the 1950s and hope that we can emulate them.

The Classic Championship will take place within the Dragon class racing in the mornings of the Week. This has always been very competitive with Rory Bowman, multiple Edinburgh Cup winner, Patrick Gifford, past BDA Chairman and Rick Gillingham, twice second in the Edinburgh Cup, among recent winners. In the afternoon any Dragons not exhausted by their morning race take part in the fast keelboat handicap, an event which they have often won.

A special feature of the Dragon class racing is that it is scored both on a “first past the post” basis and on a personal handicap basis. The latter prize is much sought after by the local boats which do not aspire to the top of the fleet and any visiting classics will be given a handicap to enable them also to compete in this event. There are therefore a total of four events that can be won by a visiting Classic Dragon. These are the Classic Championship, the Aldeburgh Week Dragon class, the Aldeburgh Week Dragon personal handicap and the afternoon keelboat handicap series. In addition there are Cups for two of the Dragon races.

Racing at Aldeburgh is different to most other Dragon venues. Starts are from a fixed line just south of the Yacht Club and the races use fixed marks in the river between Dove Point at the bottom of Havergate Island below Orford and Barber’s Point, about 3 miles above Aldeburgh. The river has bends and mudbanks. As a result it produces challenging beats and tricky corners to negotiate. Above all it is fun, not too serious and yet extremely competitive.

The Aldeburgh Dragon fleet and AYC very much look forward to hosting the Classics this year. For further information contact Patrick Gifford, Rufus Gilday or David Keates as below.

By the way, if you happen to be the owner of a plastic Dragon reading this and think you are tempted to come, don’t hesitate. We would love to see you as well.

Patrick Gifford
28.2.12

Contacts: 

Patrick Gifford: Patrick@Gifford97.fsnet.co.ukTel: 07930-558737
Rufus Gilday: rufus@gildays.comTel: 01728-45355
David Keates: secretary@aldeburghyc.org.uk  Tel: 01728-452562

BDANews