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World Champion already in Ireland……
The beautiful Southern Ireland town of Glandore held the 26th staging of the Glandore Inn Dragon Rosebowl over last weekend and it was won by “Our” current World Champion Lawrie Smith. The wonderful bay of Glandore is situated just 50km west of Kinsale where the 2012 Gold Cup will be held later in the year. Smith is a regular visitor to Glandore so it came as no surprise to the local sailors that he won 3 of the 4 races helming Paddy Bishop’s “Valkyrie” to victory with the lowest possible score after discard…
However, what did come as a big surprise to Lawrie at the prize giving was to learn that when he won his first of many Fireball World Championships back in 1978 in Thailand, the PRO for that World event was none other than Paddy Bishop the owner of “Valkyrie”. So he was delighted to receive Paddy’s “original” copy of the sailing programme from 1978!
The Rosebowl racing was held in Saturday’s North-Westerly breeze of around 20kts, that dropped a little to 12kts from the South on the Sunday. The courses were excellently well presented and organised by Race Officer “Olaf Sorensen” (who himself has won numerous International Dragon Titles), over the two days in the Atlantic waters of the outer bay.
Top 5 boats were: 1). L Smith, P Bishop, A Bendon. 2). S Kingston, T Kingston, J Kingston. 3). D Donovan, K O Donoghue, R Harrison. 4). R Bergin, C Bergin, L Davis. 5). Maeve Cotter, D Murphy, S Murphy.
Speaking after the event Lawrie complemented the organising committee and Class Captain Diarmuid Donovan of Glandore Harbour Yacht Club, suggesting that the high standard of race management and quality of the race area merited a wider exposure to the International Dragon Class. Responding, Don O Donoghue from the Glandore Inn said that as the event was now in it’s 26th year thus being one of the most longest standing events on the Dragon calendar, more would be done next year in order to promote this event to a wider Dragon audience. Smith closed by saying that the “Valkyrie” team would be back to defend the trophy….
Higher, Faster, Longer…. Stavros.