Dragon Boats
Maintanence free for life
The Wooden Boat Centre has for some years built, maintained and repaired Dragon Boats.
There are in excess of 30 wooden dragon boats currently in use in Melbourne, others in regional areas. Some of these boats are at least 20 years old, a testament to lightweight wood construction.
In recent years there has been an increase in interest in Dragon Boat racing since the adoption of the sport by the international breast cancer support group “Dragons Abreast”.
A number of these groups, situated in regional centers, have sought assistance in obtaining boats to take part in training and competition activities.
Consequently we have produced a detailed construction manual with drawings, to enable local groups to build their own boats.
The Australian Dragon - **NEW**
The release of our newly designed "Bunyip", a 10-paddler boat that we created after many requests for a small boat, light and easy to launch and recover, stable and particularly suited to young people has triggered a surprising response. As well as responding to the new boat, both in plan and kit form, a great many enquiries have been received for plans for a full size, 20-paddler boat.
Consequently we have commissioned our naval architect, Tom Watson, to draw up a boat based on our years of experience with Dragon Boats. The boat needed to be robust, light weight, stable and maneuverable and, as many people have requested, capable of built by amateur groups.
Designed on the same lines as the Bunyip, the new Australian Dragon is available for stitch-and-glue construction, a simple and foolproof of method of building a boat that ensures an accurate result. With stitch-and-glue the panels are prepared from dimensions on the drawings and are simply stitched together and glued. Painting the built boat takes more time than actually building it.
So, in answer to those queries, the new Australian Dragon is available as plans or as a kit.
Click here for more information.