Over 90 Years of History at your Fingertips
Bjarne Aas (1886-1969) was a Norwegian engineer, sailor, yacht designer and shipbuilder who designed approximately 615 boats during his career Wikipedia. He became internationally renowned for his yacht designs and traditional wooden boat construction. Born in Kristiania (now Oslo) on February 28, 1886, Aas studied ship construction at the Karljohansvern technical college in Horten Wikipedia. After graduation, … Read more
O.E. Schuppe of Rochester NY, built 9 fibreglass Dragons in the early 1980s. The Spocé Dragons were part of an ongoing attempt to build Dragons in North America that would be less expensive than importing from Europe. The hulls were manufactured by John Westerhof in Bloomfield ON in a fibreglass shop previously owned by Nye … Read more
The brothers Børge and Albert Børresen built their first Dragon in the winter of 1935-36. Borge was 16 years old and had just begun as an apprentice in a boatbuilder’s yard. Albert was 21 and a skilled carpenter. Their father Peter Børresen had had a boatbuilder’s yard in Vejle. He died in 1920 and nothing … Read more
João M. Brites built Stars and Dragons in the 1960s. His great-grandson is part of the new Petticrows operation in Cascais, Portugal. Brites Dragons can be identified by a B inside a star on many custom hardware pieces. These photos are from USA312 Spitfire. Country Portugal Locations Lisbon (Santos) Years in Operation 1949-1963 Boats Built … Read more
Prior to the advent of GRP Dragons, Kelvin Savell of San Diego CA was the largest Dragon builder in North America. Whereas most builders had made one or two, Kelvin had built 10 wooden Dragons by the end of the 1960s, including several very sucessful ones. USA219, Aphrodite was built in 1964 for Lowell North who won … Read more
The Abeking & Rasmussen Dragon GER 138 Gustel XI has made it to a museum in Australia (Wanneroo Art Gallery) after winning the Gold Cup with Theordor Thomson in 1955 and being sold there in 1956 after the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. Photo: John Low/Jeff Sinton Rasmussen already had experience in the construction of 6-Metre-R … Read more
From Wikipedia: In 1905 Johan Anker bought into a small boat building yard named Jensens Yard. It became the famous Anker & Jensen Yard. Most of the boat designing was done by Anker and the boat building was done mostly by Jensen. Johan Anker became an internationally recognized yacht designer after entering the 1908 Olympics, … Read more