The period since the last quarterly has seen a great deal of success for two British Classic Dragons. Bluebottle, sailed by Graham Bailey, won the French Dagon Championship in Port Camargue and the Marblehead Trophy in St Tropez.
This means that Graham gets to choose where the Marblehead Trophy will take place next year. The Solent would certainly give him a good chance of retaining the trophy. Bluebottle also finished 5th in the Gold Cup and sixth in the Regates Royales. She would have won the Gold Cup if a discard had been allowed. As it was, a very painful 32nd place in one race did for her chances. The reverse situation almost happened in the Marblehead Trophy, also a no-discard series. In this instance, however, Graham would have won with a discard by the narrowest of margins, tied for first and winning on countback.
Meteor, sailed by Pete Cooke, after winning the Edinburgh Cup, went on to win the Dragon Wooden Worlds in Sanremo. Both boats have proved throughout the year that they are fully competitive with any other Dragon and tributes to their builders and restorers.
Matters were more mundane in the Vintage section. Basilisk won the Aldeburgh Regatta, in which almost all the participants in the Dragon class were either Vintage or Classic boats. She has subsequently been sold to Tim Hannon. This has made it possible to retire Harkaway to Demon Yachts for a thorough make-over. He will then have the difficult choice between two boats.
Otherwise, both Fei-Lin’s Flirtation, sailed by Ron James, and Fit Chick, sailed by either Chris Grosscurth or Jono Brown, competed on the international circuit. Fei-Lin’s Flirtation was second in Sanremo and fifth in the French Championship. More locally, Whistle was the most successful boat in the Medway fleet.
It looks as though both Chime and Penguin will finish their restoration work in time to participate in 2026. Chime is a 1959 Borresen boat, which raced successfully in the Cowes fleet when helmed by Tim Street. She should make her appearance in Aldeburgh in 2026. Penguin was built by Lallows in 1958 and also raced successfully in Cowes in the hands of Bruce Donald. She will be returning home. There are other restorations under way but none of them appear to be close to the water. However, among the known extant Classics in the UK there are at least three which are for sale, have been restored, and should be capable of competing at the highest level with very little additional expenditure. The difficulty in expanding the fleet seems therefore to be a lack of demand rather than supply and perhaps a rather large bid/offer spread.
Bluebottle’s success is particularly interesting because she is older by at least ten years than almost all the other successful Classics. She was also built by Camper and Nicholson and not by Pedersen and Thuesen, whose boats have become very fashionable. In her younger days, Bluebottle had a very successful but not extraordinary career and has now proved that she can do the same in her restored state. An examination of the successful boats of the 1950s and 1960s does suggest that there are a number of other builders whose boats are worth attention, provided the fundamental integrity of the hull has not been compromised by neglect. Such builders would include Borresen, Bjarne Aas, Anker and Jensen, Johansson, Abeking and Rasmussen and Nunn. Others with more knowledge than me may well want to add more names.
- Patrick Gifford
