Philip Tolhurst’s round-up of new ideas seen on Dragons in 1980. He describes the first composite boats (GRP hull with a wooden deck), John Boyce’s plan to extrude Dragon masts at Burnham, and Lewmar small winches with bottom-action handles at about £51.50 + VAT. He explains in detail the two-ended wire-and-rope runner system with a six-to-one fine adjustment used by European Champion “Donald Duck”, and surveys cockpit spinnaker launching, mainsail control lines led aft or through the coachroof, and through-deck spinnaker sheets. […]
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A short page of technical news from the 1982 season. It reports that Børresen built over 30 new Dragons in the year, describes attempts to adjust the genoa sheet from the weather side (shock-cord pumping systems, solid rods, and John Boyce’s cross-sheeting to the weather winch on the cabin top) and the spread of under-deck ‘Warlord II’ systems. It notes that sail prices were almost static, with McWilliams and Sunray spinnakers at £255 + VAT, and gives sailmaker news from McWilliams and North. […]
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Philip Tolhurst explains the 1984 package of Dragon class rule changes. The spinnaker pole maximum is raised to 2,250 mm from the front face of the mast (about 16 inches longer), and existing booms can be lengthened by inserting a tube; the mast weight is cut by 5 kg, normally by removing lead fitted below the spreaders. The changes also restrict reinforcement of fibreglass hulls (no adjustable struts), allow zips instead of hanks and two transparent panels in genoas, and ban toestraps, with no part of the crew’s body between mid-thigh and feet allowed outboard of the sheer line. […]
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Patrick Gifford explains what the IDA Technical Committee does: protecting the Dragon’s one-design principles while allowing suppliers of boats, sails and rigs legitimate improvement. He reports on its recent work – tighter policing of sail measurement after problems at the Douarnenez Gold Cup and the Pwllheli Europeans, new keel measurements and templates to close the gap left by epoxy- or glassfibre-sheathed keels, and approval of a Petticrows mould with its join at the turn of the bilge. He also sets out how a rule change passes from the Technical Committee to the class committee, then to ISAF, before entering the Class Rules. […]
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Journalist Abigail Butcher asked Europe’s leading Dragon builders how they have developed the boat within tightly enforced one-design rules. Petticrows (around 30 new boats a year) sealed the cockpit floor for buoyancy after the 2008 safety rules, adopted vacuum-assisted resin infusion in 2005 and added a wider, angled coaming for 2012; Vejle Yacht Service redesigned the hull from a 3D-milled mould, raised the cockpit floor around 20 cm and offers a tear-drop mast. Doomernik stresses quality and wooden decks (two and a half months for a GRP boat, five and a half with a wooden deck), and Markus Glas moved production to Poland with new moulds giving about 2,650 litres of buoyancy. All agree improvements are now a matter of “nibbling away”, so old boats can still race new. […]
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A practical (not official) guide to four Dragon class rules that crews often misunderstand. Under rule 13.20, half of each crew member’s thigh must stay inboard of the sheerline when hiking, so knees near the side of the boat almost certainly break the rule. Mobile phones must be switched fully off while racing (flight mode is not enough) and other GPS devices such as watches and tablets must be left ashore. Rule 6.103 limits mast movement at deck level to 50 mm fore and aft, with no more than 10 mm athwartships clearance each side, and the 285 kg crew-weight limit of rule 13.30 applies at all times unless the Notice of Race removes it or the crew has been officially weighed in. […]
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Poul Richard Høj-Jensen looks back on 50 years in the Dragon class, from breaking in sails for Danish champions as a teenager and sailing the last Olympic Dragon regatta in Kiel in 1972 to building Dragons at Petticrows from 1988. He describes how Børge Børresen’s GRP Dragon saved the class after it lost Olympic status, and why wooden boats were not allowed to be faster than GRP ones. A 1989 demonstration in Ireland, where pulling the runners on two masted boats showed one mast bending evenly and the other inverting in the middle, illustrates why he made his own masts and sails. He lists his six principles for building a true one-design, including a standardised rig that allows a mast change in no more than 20 minutes and identical fitting positions on every boat. […]
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