Palma, Scarlino, Douarnenez, Vilamoura !

Scarlino, Italy is included in the 2020 European Grand Prix Cup.

The 2020 European Grand Prix Circuit begins in the beautiful bay of Palma de Mallorca 26th to 29th March, with the Princess Sofia Trophy hosted by the Real Club Nautico Palma.

Spanish Dragon Grand Prix begins at R.C.N.P. in Princess Sofia, 26-29 March.

From Palma the fleet will travel to the west coast of Italy, to a brand new venue for the Dragon Class, Scarlino. This is a fantastic place to sail offering a wonderful Marina set in idyllic surroundings.

The “Crew Party” will be a popular evening in Scarlino Marina.

Claudia Tosi and all the Organisers at Club Nautico Scarlino welcome all Dragon Sailors to join the festivity’s at their superb location. As the Dragon Class looks for new and exciting venues we are delighted and thankful to Claudia for all her hard work to add Scarlino to our amazing circuit. I would also like to thank Italian Dragon Class Secretary Marco Cimarosti for his work to promote and encourage an ever increasing Italian Fleet. Marco recently visited Scarlino and told me “Claudia & Carlo Tosi will be the ‘soul’ of this event, everything is ready for the Dragons and the Italian Fleet hope to be well represented”.
The Club Nautico Scarlino are well know for hosting many major events including the TP 52’s, various Swan Championships and many other top class regatta’s.. The IDA hope  sailors will make the effort to travel to Scarlino to enjoy the club’s hospitality and excellent sailing waters.

Dragons will be berthed close to the club in Scarlino, similar to the TP 52’s.

From Scarlino the Grand Prix Circuit will move onto the ever faithful and superbly attended DOUARNENEZ. This time Dragon sailors will get the chance to visit this quiet, picturesque and wonderful town during August from 19th to 22nd. Douarnenez has been so popular with the Dragons since the great Louis Urvois initiated the biggest single gathering for an annual regatta back in 1999… I can remember being fortunate enough to win a race in the early 2000’s with 106 boats on the start line! Receiving a crate of delicious local wine from Louis at prize giving will always be a memory close to my heart..

So let’s see if we can have a superb turnout in August for our 3rd Grand Prix in this exciting program of 2020.

In addition the Coup de Bretagne will run for 3 days 15th to 17th (lay day 18th).  This will give teams an ideal warm up before the French Grand Prix. For those boats then wishing to proceed onto Kinsale in Ireland for the Gold Cup during early September, there are ferries from Brittany over to Ireland which will make life easy… So why not plan your program from enjoying Vin Rouge in Douarnenez to Guinness in Kinsale… that works for me. 🙂

Finally, the 2020 Grand Prix Circuit will finish down on the Portuguese Algarve in Vilamoura… November 2nd to 7th.. This includes the 2 day Finals to see who lift the Grand Prix European Cup (the Sami Saloma “Flow”) and the “Standfast” Trophy (donated by Grant Gordon & Klaus Diederichs) for the overall Grand Prix Winner, after discarding one event.

Vilamoura Sailing will host the Portuguese Grand Prix & Finals Nov 2-7.

Vilamoura is a perfect place to round off the 2020 season offering excellent weather and sailing conditions all year round..  So even in November all the teams who make the long journey south west will experience some excellent racing and warm sunny conditions….

We hope many teams both Corinthian and non Corinthian will plan to compete in at least 3 of these 4 superb Grand Prix locations. This is the 2nd season of the Grand Prix European Cup and we thank our Ex -Chairman Vasily Senatorov (RUS 34) for all his hard work getting the ball rolling and organising amazing media coverage of this series throughout 2019 and wish Jens Rathsack (MON 2) the best of luck as he takes over as IDA Chairman for the next 4 years…..

Higher, Faster, Longer……..   Stavros.   GBR 789.