Reggie the Royal Sleeps through Pandemic
St George Cat
A few years ago, the IDA Yearbook introduced Reggie, the resident cat at the Royal St George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland. Dun Laoghaire (looks unpronounceable we know) was host to the 2007 World Championship and boasts one of the largest manmade harbours in Europe, which is a remarkable facility for sheltered sailing. Reggie is quite the character and we knew that he would be laying on a big welcome for the visiting Worlds competitors. Reggie’s favourite activities in life are sleeping in the sun on the boat covers in the club’s boat park and eating the leftover prawn heads and tails from the club’s restaurant. Well, five years ago Reggie was sleeping on the cover of Irish Dragon sailor Martin Byrne’s boat, when Martin hitched up the trailer and headed for the motorway to Kinsale. He had gone some distance before passers-by alerted him to his unscheduled passenger. Fortunately, Reggie was safely returned to his home in the yacht club. The incident was expertly recorded by Kinsale Dragon sailor and cartoonist Rob Jacob. 2020 has been a tricky year for all of us so we thought we’d check on Reggie, because for much of the year there was very little sailing happening, and consequently not so many prawn tails and fish heads for Reggie. We need not have worried. Reggie was clearly still very well fed and quite happy with the huge choice of boat covers to sleep on – as you will see from these photos.
25
