2010 REVIEW 2011 PREVIEW - International Dragon Association

More documents

Recommendations

Info

From the minister’s lover... to the Europeans on BalatonThe story of Dragon sailing in HungaryThe early yearsWe are in 1955, one year beforethe Hungarian revolution.Stalin is dead, the popularityof the communist party is decreasingday by day in Hungary.Yachting is seen as a heritageof the past, a sport made byenemies of the ‘people’s democracy’.Still: no matter whatthey say, the new rulers in thecommunist government knowexactly, how to enjoy life. Andthe Minister for Transport, LajosBebits, decides to have a sailingboat on Lake Balaton, the ‘Hungariansea’. However, he wouldbe despised by his comrades forowning a yacht himself. That is,why the newly built boat wasgiven to his girlfriend, Olga.This is the start of Dragonsailing in Hungary. Olga’s boatwith iron frames is being builtin Siófok, the biggest town onthe southern shoreline of the80 kilometre long lake. Whenowned by the Minister’s lover‘Gordius’, was called Vitu, meaning‘We two’. (Bebits used tolive in the USA as a leader ofthe communist party’s Hungariansection there in the 20s, sohe spoke English). The couplehad been sailing with the boatsix years long, and Bebits musthave been very proud of it, as atthe end of the 50s he was HungarianAmbassador to Sweden,Norway and Iceland – where hesaw a large bunch of Dragons atthat time.Gordius/Vitu is registeredPage 18with the Hungarian Dragon Associationas Nr. 2. Unfortunatelywe have not seen her lately butshe still exists. The Dragon fleetis, however, very proud of stillhaving its Nr. 1 – Triton. She wasbuilt earlier, some sources say1953, some others 1955 in Budapest.She has recently beenrefurbished again and sailsquite regularly with her proudowners, Balázs Barts and IstvánLukáts.The Golden EraBut the story did not stopwith the lover of the Minister.The sixties brought the GoldenEra of the Dragon class in Hungary.In Balatonfüred, the keyyachting centre at the Lake, andSiófok, about 25 boats had beenbuilt in the yards. The shipbuildersused all types of wood thatwas available these times, whenHungary was quite isolatedfrom ‘capitalist’ import sources.Mahogany, okume, oak, cedarand a series of other types oftimber were used for the construction.Unfortunately, in some years copper nails had been unavailable,so the builders used quite often iron nails. This resulted inan erosion of the wooden parts of the boats, forcing the owners tosell these boats at a very low-price in the 80s and 90s.The last wave of the development of wooden Dragons tookplace in the early 70s, when five new boats (Nr. 30 to 34) were builtfor competing in international regattas. They sailed in the Bavarianlakes and even at the Kiel Week. For one or another reason, however,a Hungarian Dragon never sailed at the Olympics, and these dreamsvanished with banning the class from the Olympics after 1972. Themost successful Hungarian Dragon, Yorikke, built in 1969, won theHungarian Championship 17 times and after her last refit in 2006even sailed in the European Championship in Balatonkenese, 2010.Rebirth and development until 2010From the late 70s until the mid 90s the Hungarian fleet did notchange much. The Dragon degraded to an ‘old sailor’s boat’, youngsailors tended to choose more interesting classes. A new developmentwas first heralded in when two Hungarian boatbuilders triedto build new GRP Dragons and some quality second-hand boatswere imported in the late 90s.Suddenly, Dragon gained an appeal for the sailors. As regattasbecame more and more interesting, talented sailors came into theclass again. Some enthusiasts started to go abroad and sailed inSwitzerland, Germany, Austria. After decades of being away fromthe international Dragon circuit, Hungary attended the Europeanson Lake Thun, Switzerland. This was the basis for building up an organizedassociation again.We received much support from Germany, where Sándor Kecskés,an exiled Hungarian, succeeded in persuading his fellow Dragonsailors to come and compete in the Hungarian Dragon Championshipson Balaton. Sailors from Germany, Switzerland and Austria,
as well as some others from the States and the UK regularly cameto the Hungarian Championship in Balatonfüred. The internationallinks made the class even more attractive which helped us reorganizingthe Hungarian Dragon Association from 2005 onwards. Weset the objectives that within five years we should have at least 30boats in the fleet of which 20 regularly participate in regattas.Some enthusiasts within the Dragon sailors’ circle saw a goodin 2010 was held in Balatonkenese, Hungary and we received muchapplause from the participants.The reasons behind our successIt was clear for us from the very beginning that Dragon is atwo-fold boat: competitive and social at the same time. We putmuch emphasis on both: created family-type events to makethe class attractive for passionate sailors who just did not wantchance to develop a modern, open and international class for Hungariansailors who wanted to enjoy one-design racing instead offighting against the clock in handicap-systems. They went to lookfor sponsors and decided to bring a grand international event toHungary. We were lucky to find Erste Private Banking, whose managementwas aware that the Dragon image is very similar to thatwhat they see to be important values. They supported us in our effortsto build our class. We ended up with Nr. 55 in 2010 – with 15to 20 participants in large Hungarian events and up to 3 to 4 boatsregularly attending events abroad.And, what we are really proud of: the European Championshipto leave their children at home. At the same time, ranking list regattaswere very competitive and we hired the best Hungariansailors to be Race Officers.We paid much attention to the classic fleet. As the most of themhave no real chance to be in the top 5 at the regattas, we usuallyhave extra prizes and an extra ranking list for them. Their enthusiasmis a core element of the success of the fleet.There is, of course, some set-back in Dragon popularity in Hungaryafter the Europeans. All in all we think that we have achieved aunique development in Hungarian sailing and the Dragon class hasa stable basis for the future.Article byVilmos NarayPage 19
Page 1: DragonOne Design Racing2010REVIEW20
Page 4: Index3 Chairman’s letter5 Current
Page 7 and 8: Anatoly Loginov, Andrey Kirlyukand
Page 9 and 10: all the other participants hadwhere
Page 11 and 12: 10 knots and persistent light rain.
Page 13 and 14: Page 13
Page 15 and 16: PROUDLY PRESENTSDragonEuropean Cham
Page 17: www.dmk-muc.deBe at the top …inst
Page 21: 2011 European Championshipin Bolten
Page 29 and 30: each Dragon country per year shall
Page 31 and 32: 4 New Identity must meet thefollowi
Page 33 and 34: spite their knowledge of thecurrent
Page 35 and 36: esults all in the top four includin
Page 37 and 38: Norwayahead and this way we mightev
Page 39 and 40: United KingdomThe optimism in last
Page 41 and 42: Regattas RL_F M Date_Start Date_End
Page 43 and 44: Page 43

2010 REVIEW 2011 PREVIEW - International Dragon Association

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?