Classics Review
Titan The Dragon may be a one design class but that doesn’t mean the boats are all characterless clones. Just occasionally a Dragon comes along that becomes a personality in her own right. Titan was built in 1969 by Børresens as DK450. She won the 1974 Gold Cup in Le Harve in the hands of Nick Truman under the sail number K450. Gerry Owens brought her to Ireland in 1975 where she became IR45 - this was in the days when control of sail numbers was more relaxed so they simply dropped the 0 to save money! She raced regularly around Ireland and further afield for a quarter of a century, including winning the Irish National Championship in 1983. Over the years she became something of a legend on the Irish Dragon circuit and was a much-loved member of the fleet. The boat was sold by Gerry around 2000 and then re-decked in cedar by Rui Ferreira of West Cork Boats in 2012 after being bought by Rui’s father-in-law to use for cruising around West Cork. She was then laid up for several years until Ben Cooke purchased her in August 2020. Ben’s love affair with Dragons is longstanding and he was looking for a classic restoration project that he both could race seriously and cruise with his family. The opportunity to purchase the legendary Titan was too good to resist and in late August 2020 Ben took ownership and moved her once again to Rui Ferreira’s yard for restoration to begin. For Ben this project needed to be completed to a strict and relatively limited budget. Fortunately, he has good connections within the fleet and the sailing industry, so he put out feelers for help. The responses were extraordinarily generous with many people donating both expertise and equipment. Ben’s original plan to keep costs down had been to not only project manage the restoration himself, but to also work with Rui in the yard. Unfortunately, the Covid restrictions put paid to that plan and Rui brought in an assistant, Jaap, to help him while Ben supervised remotely. The goal was to bring Titan back to a competitive racing standard without losing her patina or history. Rotten plank ends, the stem and transom, plus 24 ribs had to be replaced. Her deck was recoverable, so the old GRP spinnaker chute was removed, and the deck restored. Her cockpit floor was raised to make her more comfortable to sail, and the original teak floorboards re-laid. In raising the floor Ben had one very specific instruction for Rui – that the space between the bottom of the bilge and the underside of the floorboards be high enough to stand bottles of wine on the keel to chill them down while sailing! An idea given to him by the legendary Don Street who cools his beer the same way. The outside of the hull was taken back to bare wood, epoxy sealed and faired. The late Simon
