80
SVN Solovelanet Global
1952 by Dutch architects Conrad Gülcher and Uus
van Essen. Conijn produced more than 600 units of
this fast dinghy, and its success led to its debut as
an Olympic class in the 1960 Rome Olympic Games,
where the Flying Dutchmans raced in the enchan
-
ting waters of the Gulf of Naples, remaining an Olym-
pic class up to the 1992 olympics .
Ed Conijn (1916-2005) remained firmly at the helm of
the shipyard (that was the first name of the company)
until 1970. In 1959, he began building the Contest 25
, his first 8-metre long cruising boat, equipped with
inboard engine, four berths and a two-burner stove;
a boat designed for coastal pleasure, but perfectly
capable of sailing with the pace and stability of
bigger hulls. Those were the early years of fibreglass
construction, and the boat was so successful that
more that three hundred units were sold.
From the start, the shipyard adopted the tulip as the
yard's logo, proudly foregrounding the national tradi
-
tion of Dutch shipbuilding. In the first ten years of
business, the visionary Conjin gradually increased
the length of his largest model to 48 feet, at the time
the largest series production sailboat model.
From 1970 to 2003, Contest Yachts was held by Ed's
Above, in the big photo, the shipyard
in the Seventies. Here we can see the
Contest 25 and Contest 33 in produc-
tion. Here above, we are now in the era
of Contest fibreglass and foil with the
infusion technique
