Dubbed as the most famous Dragon in the World, Bluebottle GBR 192 is among the 53 teams from 13 nations racing at the Dragon World Championship 2022 Kühlungsborn, Germany.

The latest addition to The Royal Yacht Britannia’s historic fleet, Bluebottle is flying the flag for classic Dragons, helmed by world-class helm Graham Bailey and crew Julia Bailey, Rurairidh Scott and Will Bedford.

This year’s Dragon World Championship in Germany got off to a great start on Sunday 12 June. Day two saw Bluebottle creep up the scoreboard and finish the last race in 6th just behind overall leader Klaus Diederichs GBR 819.

It was Tremendous Tuesday for the Bluebottle team with two fourth place finishes on day three, making it the top boat on the water that day. After five races this places Graham Bailey’s team in sixth place overall, on equal points with Jens Christensen DEN 410 and Wolf Waschkuhn SUI 318 in 4th and 5th place.

Bluebottle is still owned by Her Majesty The Queen, and much loved by the late The Duke of Edinburgh who regularly competed at Cowes Week with Bluebottle, the 75-year-old wooden hulled yacht is considered to be the most iconic Dragon and will be competing against state of the art modern day GRP hulled yachts at this prestigious event.

The Baileys will be hoping to build on its success since Bluebottle returned to racing last year. In August, they won Overall Champion in the Dragon Class at Cowes Week. Just three weeks later, they finished 2nd in the Scottish Dragon Class Championships and 3 rd overall in the Edinburgh Cup at the Royal Forth Yacht Club in Granton, Edinburgh.

Following the Dragon World’s Bluebottle will be making the journey along the south coast to Falmouth for the British Dragon Association Southwest championship and 2022 Edinburgh Cup.

Britannia’s Chief Executive, Bob Downie, said ‘We are delighted that Bluebottle has had such a good start competing against such a strong fleet of Dragons’.

The 20th edition of the infamous La Baule Dragon Derby and 2022 French National Championships took place last week with 25 Dragons taking part. Within the line up of those taking part were seven British Dragons from fleets across the country.

Martin Payne’s True Story and Gus de Groot’s Fury got off to an early start. It was close racing, especially with the top five Dragons including Poul-Richard Hoj-Jensen’s Danish Blue, Richard Blickman’s Cobweb and Jean Breger’s Ulysses.

After six races just two points were separating each first, second and third places, but the True Story team had done enough to secure the win with Ulysses taking the French National Championship title for the first time. It was fantastic to see all of the British Dragons racing so well with many finishing in the top 20. Congratulations to all of the Dragon sailors.

1. Martin Payne True Story GBR 818
2. Gus de Groot Fury NED 309
3. Jean Breger Ulysses FRA 391
4. Richard Blickman Cobweb NED 393
5. Poul-Richard Hoj-Jensen Danish Blue GBR 822
6. Patrick Gifford Basilisk GBR 515
7. Mikael Mahe Cloud Nine FRA 368
8. Ron James Fei Lin’s Flirtation GBR 633
9. Frederic Gourlaouen Q Ti Too FRA 207
10. Alain Lathioor Revolte FRA 21
11. Ian Grey Still Crazy GBR 827
12. Antoine LeBlanc Viking FRA 336
13. Martin Byrne Jaguar IRL 201
14. Peter de Gruse Cogito
15. Bruno Peyron Ready To Turn FRA 379
16. Christian Normand Dragonfly FRA 283
17. Mike Hayles Naiad GBR 764

What’s next on the Dragon racing calendar? Check out the British events here >>>