Dinghy Sailors Hijack Dragon!

09 October 2009

Waldringfield Sailing Club, based on a narrow part of the Deben, better known for removing the finish on dinghy centreboards, and Ranelagh Sailing Club, where you have to avoid the Fulham FC crowds and  handle amazing wind variations, aren't usually considered ideal preparation for the Dragon Worlds. Undeterred, and perhaps unaware of the Olympian nature of the endeavour, Alan Krailing, helmsman, the current Lark class champion, his wife Helen, Harry Pynn, another top Lark sailor, and Michael John Gifford, the recent victor in Ranelagh's summer series in a Solo, decided to repeat their first Dragon effort at the 2009 Edinburgh Cup in Plymouth aboard Basilisk by borrowing Nereid from Mike Hayles and Michael John's father Patrick to go to the Worlds at Medemblik. Start at the top. It may be a long way down but it should be fun.

Winning a major championships is all about preparation and time spent in the boat.  We didn't do this! However, Alan and Harry had crewed for Patrick in Aldeburgh Week with Alan helming in the afternoons, acquiring an obviously transferable set of skills while Harry and Michael John had done Salcombe Merlin week together. More relevantly Harry had come to La Baule with Patrick and Michael John had crewed Dragons at major events since 1994. That covered preparation. Time in the boat -nil. Given that we hadn't managed to perfect the preparation the next item on the checklist is to make sure that your equipment is perfect.  We didn't exactly ensure this either.  In fact we weren't that clear what we had brought to Holland with us. A shrouded boat-like object under a cover and a middle-aged Audi seemed to cover it..  Luckily our support crew of Patrick and Mike had done their job on this point and as we unpacked we found we had a lot of sails, a boat and a variety of aluminium tubes to fit together.  We did appear to be missing a new Porsche Cayenne, a professional coach and a large speed boat but we continued undaunted.

The next item on the list was to make sure we were up to weight.  This we achieved with ease as we had remembered to pack an extra crew member.  Slightly harder was explaining to the organisers that we wanted extra dinner tickets, lunches, beers, T-shirts, etc... but to their credit they didn't bat an eyelid (clearly comfortable that we would still eat less, drink less and use less fabric than most of the 3-man crews!). 284 kilos-Yippee.

The final item on the list was to approach the event in a serious and professional manner.  Apparently this meant turning up in time for the practice race, showing some degree of commitment to the craning-in process and avoiding being texted, tannoyed and then physically rounded up to put the boat in.  Sadly we failed miserably on this as we got distracted by lunch at a critical moment. It did, however, help to conceal our lack of diligence that the practice race was called off due to the wind.

Once the racing started it became clear that unlike the dinghy fleets we were used to, this one had no slow boats, or to be more accurate no slow boats unless we decided to take that role. One blink and twenty Olympic medallists sailed past.  Harry had taken it upon himself to memorise the sailing CVs of all our competition and delighted in telling us how many and what type of medals each of our competitors had won at which Olympic Games.  We weren't sure that helped a lot but it did provide for conversation during the extremely long races.

Apart from the question of the quality of the competition it also seemed that there was just a lot of it.  Everywhere we tried to sail there were loads of other boats trying to sail in exactly the same direction.  We were just glad that with a few minor exceptions nobody actually got into the same bit of water as us at the same time.  We were next to Ron James when his regatta ended during a territorial dispute over occupation of a rather small area of the race-course.  Two into one just doesn't work with boats as the splintering noise testified.

I won't bother trying to describe the races themselves, except to say we rapidly found that we were quite happy with anything in the top half and reasonably relaxed as long as we had boats behind us. However, we did get a result in the top ten, which pleased Michael John who was recognised by the hotshots who were surprised to see us there. We also discovered that dinghy techniques did give us speed downwind.  Did we learn anything? It is true to say we realised beforehand that turning up late and unprepared for a fully professional regatta is not ideal.  Having said that, if you stick a bunch of talented dinghy sailors in a Dragon they won't disgrace themselves and there is something nice about going to events where they give you beer before you have packed up the boat.  Would we do it again??  Definitely, but you can do a lot of dinghy championships for the cost of a return trip to Melbourne....

Michael John Gifford.....

Owner's view: I think this is a self-effacing view of their result. I can remember many embarrassing moments in Dragon regattas when I was much younger and when the competition wasn't so strong right through the fleet. They are a talented bunch and represent exactly what the British Dragon class should be recruiting. They were fascinated by the discovery that the racing was unbelievably close with only a very few minutes separating first from last after two hours. What's more they didn't trash the boat, trailer or car and Mike and I are delighted to have provided the opportunity.

Patrick Gifford

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