Lawrie Smith has claimed his fourth Edinburgh Cup win surpassing Graham Bailey’s three titles and, placing him within the prestigious group of most wins along with Tony O’Gorman, Poul-Richard Høj-Jensen and Rory Bowman.

The final day of the 76th Edinburgh Cup was a true celebration of the annual British Dragon National Championship but sadly delivered no racing. Race six was unable to take place due to insufficient wind, so on count-back Lawrie claimed the win over Grant Gordon GBR 833, on equal points.

Visiting from Ireland, Cameron Good’s IRL 211 Little Fella relished the stronger wind races to claim the Corinthian title, holding off IRL 201, GBR 763 and GBR 763.

“It is our first Edinburgh Cup as a team.” said Little Fella crew Henry Kingston. ” It has been fantastic. The local area is beautiful. The shops are great restaurants, great, the ambience is lovely. We’ve been sailing together as a team for 20 years now. So, we’ve invested a lot of years and it’s really nice to come here and be the top Corinthian boat, it’s something we’re really proud of.”

Congratulations to the 76th Edinburgh Cup winners

🥇Alfie GBR 815 Lawrie Smith, Goncalo Ribeiro, Rualridh Scott, Martin Wrigley
🥈Louise GBR 833 Grant Gordon, Luke Patience, Elliot Hanson, Faye Chatterton
🥉Saturn POR 89 Pedro Reiberio de Andrade, Miguel Leitmann, Martin Westerdahl

Corinthian Champions
🥇Little Fella IRL 211 Cameron Good, Henry Kingston, Shaun Kingston
🥈Jaguar Sailing Team IRL 201 Martin Byrne, Adam Winkleman, John Simms
🥉Fit Chick GBR 753 Jono Brown, Chris Grosscurth, Andrew Norden

🏆Jordan Bell Trophy – Jaguar Sailing Team
🏆 Seagull Trophy, Best lady foredeck crew – Faye Chatterton
🏆 Classic Trophy – Fit Chick
🏆 BDA Vintage Trophy – Ran

Owner and crew of GBR 753 Fit Chick and winners of the Classic Dragon trophy commented “The results shows that regardless the age of the boat she is still competitive and it’s still all about where you put it on the race course. It’s not so much about the boat when we were sandwiched in amongst two V6’s. Hopefully, that will show prospective new Dragon owners that you don’t have to enter the class at the highest level until you’re ready to do so.”

Full results can be viewed here

Well done to all sailors taking part in the 76th Edinburgh Cup and we look forward to seeing you all at the 2025 event in Torquay.

Wet and wild conditions were on day three of the 76th Edinburgh Cup in Abersoch. A short postponement in racing allowed for the Northerly wind to arrive in Cardigan Bay, which brought with it more rain and a bigger swell.

RACE FOUR

As the Dragons lined up for the start of race four a big left shift meant that a number of boats were unable to clear the pin-end. Within the rack of boats Lawrie Smith GBR 815, Simon Barter GBR 763 and Owen Pay GBR 777 were among several boats that dipped the melee to make the line.

However, Graham Bailey GBR 192 had a good start and headed left into the shore.

As the Dragons approached the windward mark near Pwllheli they were met with increasing wind with gusts exceeding 20 knots.

GBR 815, didn’t have the best start but it was Lawrie Smith who was in a leading group of three Dragons along with GBR 192 and Grant Gordon’s GBR 833.

Abersoch sailors James Budd GBR 808 and Mike Cope GBR 809 used their advantage of local knowledge sailing strongly in the top ten along with Pedro Andrade POR 89, and Denis Bergin IRL 161.

Alfie GBR 815 Lawrie Smith, Goncalo Ribeiro, Ruairidh Scott, Martin Wrigley
Louise GBR 833 Grant Gordon, Luke Patience, Elliot Hanson, Faye Chatterton
Bluebottle GBR 192 Graham Bailey, Julia Bailey, Will Bedford, Killian Boag

Corinthian – The Knucker GBR 808 James Budd, Geoff Edwards, Christopher Thorn
Skipper James Budd commented; “We’re enjoying it. It was one of our better mornings. It was quite tricky for the race officer and the committee to set the course because of where the Llanbedrog headland sits. Being local, we knew that it was going to flick left. So that’s what we did. We came off the startline and did what we said we were going to do.”

RACE FIVE

The unrelenting rain didn’t make for great visibility across the bay but by the middle of race five the waves became surfable downwind.

It was not a great start for GBR 192 as they were called over the line (OCS), while GBR 815 laid down a mark to lead from the outset.

Three upwind legs of 1.3 nautical miles delivered some match-race style sailing as every Dragon team were keen to increase their leaderboard positions.

Controlling the race from the front GBR 815 led the fleet with Jerboa GBR 813 and Louise GBR 833 trading places to make up the top three. Closely followed by Saturn POR 89, Little Fella IRL 211, Fit Chick GBR 753 and Bluebottle GBR 192.

“We had a good day today. I’m pleased about that, because we had a tricky second race, yesterday, which sort of left us a bit flat after the day, but we’re pleased with today.” said Gavia Wilkinson-Cox GBR 813 after the final race of the day.

“We were particularly pleased with our second race, although we lost a place on the last leg, the last beat went to Grant. But we weren’t really strong enough to get into a tacking duel with him. We decided to let him go and keep an eye on everybody else. But it was so changeable one moment, Pedro was ahead of us then one tack later, he was miles away from us again, so it was really tricky.”