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View Full Version : New plank-on-frame Dragons!


bamamick
08-16-2007, 09:31 PM
I have been needing some Dragon talk anyway so I will throw this out there.

I have recieved e-mails from two different boatyards here recently that they have begun building plank-on-frame Dragons and would like me to advertise the fact. One of the yards is in St.Petersburg (the one in Russia :)) and the other is in the Ukraine (sorry but I seem to have forgotten where exactly).

The Russian yard is an older, well established yard where they have been busy restoring and bringing the Russian fleet up to speed. Russia has the fastest growing fleet of Dragons in the world and Russian Dragon sailors are making some serious noise on the international circuit.

The other yard is a joint venture between an Italian company and a Ukranian yard and they are just getting started. I do not know anything about costs and such but if anyone was interested I could supply the contacts.

I think that this is interesting, to say the least. The Dragon class is one of the most competitive racing classes in the world with fleets of 70-80 boats not uncommon at European regattas. We have several well established builders (Petticrows-UK, Royal Denship-Denmark, the builders of the Borresen Dragon, and others) but these folks seem to think that there is a market for traditionally built wooden boats and that they can produce them at competitive prices.

As I say, if you are interested let me know. And I will share anything that I find out about these hulls.

Mickey Lake

Figment
08-16-2007, 09:33 PM
Buy an ad ya friggin freeloader!

Figment
08-16-2007, 09:34 PM
(just kidding, if anything WB should be paying YOU)

bamamick
08-16-2007, 09:40 PM
blahblahblahblahblahblah' :).

So what do you think? Why would anyone buy one of these over the now-traditional grp version? Is the eastern European labor market such that these things can come in waaay under the cost of their western European sisters? As a yardstick, a new completely-grp hull from the UK is about 75K euro with all the stuff you have to have. Anything resembling wood that you put on the boat drives up the cost appreciably. Add 100K euro to that if you want cold moulded.

Enquiring minds want to know 'why?'

Mickey Lake