NEWS

DRAGONFLY 28 WINS ROUND THE ISLAND RACE 2023

Dragonfly 28 wins Round the Island Race 2023 (Multihull Overall), with sister ship ‘Ice Dragon’ in 3rd

Dragonfly trimarans achieved fantastic results in The Round the Island Race 2023, led by Tim Yetman, Kevin Sproul and Dan Primrose. They were overall winners of the Multihull (Grand Prix & MOCRA) class, after a fantastic sail aboard our new Dragonfly 28 Performance demonstrator. The winning crew reported:

“It was pretty wet and wild, 6hr 5min but very successful. The team worked really well, and the boat was brilliant, with no issues at all. Pretty wild conditions with 30+ knots.

We had a really exciting race round the back with the spinnaker up, then a beat to the finish, so we had a really good day”.

In another superb performance, Malcolm and Tristan Jaques finished 3rd overall on Dragonfly 28 Performance ‘Ice Dragon’. They also won the Multihull Double-handed class, to add another Dragonfly to that trophy too.

These two Dragonfly 28 were also 15th and 16th fastest out of all 1,100 entires. A remarkable result for standard production cruising boats.

Our Dragonfly 25 Sport was 8th on corrected time overall, and 3rd in Double-handed. We lost time reefing at the Needles when a big squall hit the fleet, just as we were about to bear away round the iconic lighthouse. We were then playing catch-up, gybing round the back of the Island. The little DF 25 was brilliant in these challenging conditions, and remarkably dry too. This is in marked contrast to some of the other trimaran crews we’ve spoken to!

Dragonfly royalty

We were also delighted to have Dragonfly ‘royalty’ with us this year. Peter Quorning (the 3rd generation of the Quorning family) sailed aboard Dragonfly 40 Ultimate ‘Harley’ with owner Mark Atkinson. This crew were racing the boat for the first time, and finished 16th out of 39 entries.

it was a fantastic experience to participate in this historic race, circumnavigating the Isle of Wight. Onboard Dragonfly 40 Ultimate we experienced winds up to 35 knots and was still able to carry full sails with speeds up to 19 knots, while enjoying to play and surf in the waves. A race I definitely will join again some day”.

You’re welcome back any time, Peter.

12 of the multihull entries included all the current range plus examples of the earlier Dragonfly 800 and 920. We congratulate all the crews for a great race in really challenging conditions.

This year’s race started in WNW breeze, giving a starboard biased beat to the Needles. We were then downwind all the way round to Bembridge Ledge buoy in winds gusting 30+ knots, before a long beat back to Cowes.

The full results are at this link: Round the Island Race 2023 Multihull overall