With the anniversary of the dragon class a book has been published which looks at the 75-year history of this unending success story of a three-man keelboat that was an Olympic class from 1948 to 1972 and that is also known as the King class. No wonder, after all, such men as King Juan Carlos of Spain, King Carl Gustaf of Sweden or the Greek King Constantine sailed in this boat. The latter even sailed it to Olympic Gold at the 1960 games!

With more than 150 photos or illustrations on over 200 pages, printed in a special technique to generate spatial depth, more than 30 historical black-and-white photographs, also printed in an especially sophisticated process in order to do justice to the high-quality photographs, the book is something rather special for sailing sport fans. One highlight is a photograph taken from a helicopter (with a rare 6x17cm camera) of the more than 250 boats long starting line for the anniversary regatta in St. Tropez. In the book, this photo appears on a so-called altar page, in other words covering three pages!

The historical photographs originate from the Norsk Sjofartsmuseum in Norway, from the photographer dynasty Beken from Cowes (already in the fourth generation) and from many private archives as well as from the boatyards. Especially the photographs and drawings from Norway are extremely rare and show the work and the results of the "inventor" of the Dragon, Johan Anker. The more recent photographs originate from internationally famous photographers, such as for example Jacques Vapillon and Francois Richard from France, Nico Martinez from Spain, KOS from England, or the Germans Bernt Hoffmann, F+G Köhler, Nico Krauss, Kurt Schubert and Heinrich Hecht.

Text-Author Jochen Halbe tells the story of the boat from a 20 qm keelboat, suitable for training for youth sailors, to the present version of a high-tech racing machine. It is a story which is affected by certainly very well known names and active and dedicated sailors of the Dragon and sailing world, which lead the Dragon with their enthusiasm and input to the "biggest keelboatclass " in the world!

The book in the format 26.5 x 33 cm comes in an elegant slipcase appropriate to the occasion and is limited to an edition of 1,500 copies.

The publisher of the book is the partner of the Dragon class, Hanseatic Lloyd AG, Switzerland.