Lively discussions ashore, nice events on Balaton and some very sad losses featured 2024 for the Hungarian Dragon Fleet.
A the General Assembly of the HDA we discussed, apart from some usual topics, the future of Dragon sailing on Balaton, how to attract younger sailors into the class, to stop stagnation of the recent years. It was decided that communication has to get stronger, be more focused on the advantages of the Dragon, and involve new platforms, just like Instagram. As a result, our website dragonclass.hu was renewed by August, and has a lot of fresh content. We are introducing a Clinic ahead of our Johan Anker Cup in May 2025, to attract some interested sailors to test the class, and went into a cooperation with the German, Swiss and Austrian fleet to be present in the German-language Dragon Journal 2025.
The fleet was quite active in the season. 10 boat went to the start of the Johan Anker Cup in Csopak (Lake Balaton) in May. The event was won by Freyja with Vilmos Náray at the helm. The Hungarian banner at international events have been raised high by Carpe Diem (Istvan and Peter Szűcs with Gábor Gyulai) who went to the Europeans in Pärnu and to the German Championship, too. The „great returner” of the year was 4-time Hungarian champion, Ferenc Kis-Szölgyémi who after an injury, that prevented him from sailing for two years, went 2024 to the start of the Hungarian Championship again.
The Championship took place in Hungaria Yacht Club in Balatonfüred, thanks to the generous support from its club president, Lóránd Gömbös. We sailed 6 races on two days, before a low-pressure weather with some 40 knots swept the final two days of the Championship away. However, it was a success, with 11 boats at the start. Champion was Ferenc Kis-Szölgyémi with the same score but more first places than 2nd placed Lóránd Gömbös.
In 2024 we sadly took last farewell to some long-time friends. András Simon, László Kozma sen. and Zoltán Kőszegi, who are now sailing their Dragons on heavenly waters.
This piece of news war originally written for the IDA Magazine 2025.