whats up with dragon???
 

whats up, its been quiet in here????

I guess no new buyers??

I talked to Scott this morning they are currently sending #7 to Dubai, #8 # 9 going to Holland to a F-1 Driver their a new dealer. Also working on 2 to Belgium. It appears the Europeans who are buying the boats due to the Composite construction first not the logo.

Keep up the good work.

That's good to hear.....

interesting.....

...not sure the logo means anything. Boat 7.... they had made 7 boats in 3 plus years... There must be more to it.

The people behind the brand certainly have the pedigree so I don't know if it's logo. I know a guy like Bob Saccenti has a rabid following within the Apache faithful and his venture has only turned out one hull so far.

Who knows?

They might sell a few more if they did the open concept version that they had talked about.

There is not to many 525 performance boats that are 39' and that can run 100+ stock without cutting down the decks and making changes from there pleasure design to what some manufactures have to do to there race boats.....

My next V will be a Dragon.
I think a 30 would be good for Craigs biz also.

Are you saying that the Dragon does 100 mph with stock 525 power?

We are running stock 525's staggered and can run over 100...plus the Dragon over in Europe with #6's can run over 100.....both of us are running stock 525's.... we are also running a stock boat.....the deck has not been cut down....

the rest of the Dragons are not staggered....that I know of....

But where the big differance comes in are in the big sea's,
We are running against boats with twin 1000's and that weight over 10k lbs and still can out run them in the big water....we have been out in small craft advisory's in 5 footers and still seen 93+

I'm no expert by no means.....but I have been in stock 525 boats that could not even hit 90.....plus compair the handling at 95mph in 2 to 3 footers....

Take the major manufactures that have 39 foot boats...
How close can they come to 100 mph in a stock 525 boat...

38 Cig
42 Fountain
42 Outerlimits
38 Baja

I have seen a lot of these boats that they have tested and only seen speeds from 88 to 94 mph.....

Take the boats I have mentioned above.....and put in a Mercury power plant to get them to 100.....and then take the cost of the boat and the reliablity of the engines and drives for the higher HP
Now compair them to the price of a Dragon.......

The thing is.....untill you take a ride in a dragon....you will not know of the ride I'm speaking of....

Well, isnt your Dragon a race boat running stock stag. 525's? Then it should be compared to all the other race boats. OL SV 40 runs well over 100, so does the 42 Fountain. For pleasure boats a Donzi ZRC run's almost 100 and im sure with the new bottom in race trim it would run 100 no problem. I see what your saying about cutting down the deck and making mods, but the ZRC is the same either way and you can buy the SV40 in a GTX form and it would still do 100. The Fountain not so sure. No offense to Dragon they are a sweet boat and run very well just putting this info out there.

Mine is a race boat but nothing was done to the deck or freeboard and we are not running ours with a high x dim. we run ours lower and the handling is so much better and we still can hit over 100.....

All the SV race boats are cut down they are nothing like there pleasure versions.....ours is the plesure version with the back half closed off....the Dragon in Europe is the full plesure version....

We are talking about going and buying a pleasure version boat with staggered 525's and doing 100....alot of boats that I have seen tested were staggered.....and did not do 100....even the Donzi.....

Also I have been in a ZRC....and ask them how it runs in 5 footers and can it run over 90 in them.....and I have not seen one run 100...

Most performance boaters want to hit that 100mph mark....
But very few can do it with stock power....without investing more money...and then you start to give up reliabilty....
But also...what is so great about hitting 95 mph and be completley out of control....the ride at 95 in 2 to 3 should also come into play....or even at 90 in 2 to 3's and still be a good ride and be easy to handle....

As for the Donzi in the rough i think OSG finished ahead of the dragon in every race. Yes they are in different classes and they did have more power but if the Donzi didnt run good it would have been behind. The ZRC with 525's ran 99.?? on GPS. Im pretty sure the new OL GTX which is the SV with basically the top chopped off would run over 100 with 525's, It ran 110 in race trim. And that boat can run fast in 2-3's all day long. I wonder why Dragon never really took off then??

The OSG ran in front becasue of the rules....
If you take the OSG boat with the bigger HP and you take the Dragon with the same HP and ran the Dragon whats she can is capible to run....you will see the differance...these boats are set up for bracket racing....also the Dragon had to put in over 2500 lbs to make weight....

I have not seen a pleasure version of the GTX cut down as much as the O/L supervee, the new Lucas Oil O/L Super Vee was cut down a lot...I did not know the GTX was cut down that much.....or a plesure version of the GTX with 525's to see what speeds it would run....

But I will take you word for it....also what is the cost of the GTX? i think Joe S. told me $650k for his Super Vee....

As for why the Dragon has not taken off.....Well we can say the same for a lot of good 39 footers that are not selling good.....take the 39 Skater V....it donimatede in SV and how many have they sold....and its been out since what 03....and Peter has one of the biggest names in the boating industry

Another thing to think about.....is I'm talking about your adverage performance boater...
running a boat at 90 to 95 in 2 to 3 footers....so handling is very important....there are racers out there that can run a boat to most will be out of control but to them have complete control....

I see what your saying about the handling in 2-3 or larger at speed. Yea the newer GTX will pretty much be the race boat with the top choped off it, maybe a little higher hull sides, im not quite sure yet. Yea i wonder why no one has bought the Skater vee yet or more of these Dragons, strange. I mean the OL GTX's sell pretty well and the 39 Cigarette's. The Cigarette wont run the speeds with stock power though. I think the sit down market has gone down the drain for some reason. I dont know why. The Dragon is a large boat as you well know. I saw the blue one being built years ago and it was sweet!! Craig should build a new pleasure one with staggered 700's and sixes!! That would be quite a ride!!

I agree....with ya....and yes the GTX will be a bad ass boat if its cut down to the race version....but also it will be in the 650 to 750k price range....

We were going to put 750's in my dragon for this year....I have the #6's already here...but we are going to have 9 to 10 boats in class 3 this year so I told them I will race it the way it sit's right now....

I think the boat will put up some big numbers with 700's in her...I'm already working on the big HP for next year...we are running numbers from the 750's to the 1050's....

I would love to see a test done with the:

39 Cig
39 Dragon
38 Donzi
42 Fountain
40 O/L

with either staggered 525's or 700's and test them for top end speed mid range acceleration and in 6 footers and then post there prices as tested.

Powerboat mag. should already have some of the numbers since most were already tested

I would even let them drop in the 700's into my boat and let them run it and put in the wieght that the cabin lay out weights.....

Just a thought.. is it a must to wear a seat belt on the dragon in these 6' waves? with out it I think you will have one hell of a headake?

We do because we have a full crash cage in ours and I don't want to smack my head on the cross bars...

Please help me out here. When the Dragon first came out, all reports said that it was a high 80,s low 90,s boat for top speed. I know 100 was the goal, but at the time, with a stock 525 boat, it was unattainable. What has changed?

From what I was told....the first one seen 94 and there was still more prop....the 2 that hit 100 with stock 525's are staggered....we have found some changes that made it faster and handle better....we had to change the X a number of times....and then we found a sweet spot....the boat dose not need any stern lift from propping...when we first rigged the boat our slip was at 18%....and even after making a number of changes we only got it down to 14%....we made more changes to our curent set up and its down to 9%....we can get it even lower but with the current class we are running in....we are right were we need to be.....
We played with the CG for 2 years....and now have it balanced....even with 40 lbs to far foward and we will loose 2 to 3 mph...

Thats why we are being very carefull when we drop the bigger HP in......with the weigth of the #6's and the eninges we want to keep the balance we have now....

i really want to drop in 1050's to see what she is capible of but its working on sponsorship to get the money to get them....

The 2 newest Dragons, I have not heard what type of power thats being put in and if they will be staggered....

From talking to Craig, one of the new Dragon's will have 700's.

I do remember that when the boats were initally set up at Lake X by Mercury, they considered the Dragon hull to be one of the most efficient hulls that they had ever tested. And, at that time, Mercury claimed more effiecient than Fountain, OL or Cig.

Its pretty amazing......I wounder if the 700's will be stagered...either way she will be well over 100.....

From the numbers we have run.....we are thinking with the 850's we should see 125+.....
With the 1050's....we have no idea....we don't know how much running surface we will have....plus we don't know how she will track at those speeds.....

I wounder if Mercury wants to do a test with there 1050's in her.....

what is a 1050 motor

Sorry.....1075's.....I'm doing 3 things at once.....I was looking at the 1050's from Potters Engine Performance.....

Do you ever bump your head on that roof?.. is that why they have seat-belts.. being strapped into a boat just don't seem safe to me..am I missing something?

We have the 5 point seatbelts as required for racing in a closed cockpit.....the roof sits up pretty high.....if we were not seat belt in....for us to hit the top we would have to come completely out of the seat to hit it.....in there pleasure version they also have seats belts....personally even in there pleasure version I would feel very good in that boat in a seat belt.....If you were to go over in any performance boat....there is nothig to that boat to get out....

In the Elizabeth City race in 2006 we went into a hair pin turn at 96 mph....in the appex of the turn I crancked down on her becasue we did not know at what speed she would brake away....the last speed we seen was 94 and she spon-out....she slid completely flat...we did not even lean to the starboard side at all in a left hand turn.....if we were not seat belt in we would have been thrown so vilently it would not have had a good result in any performance boat....I have seen Vee bottoms role at 50 mph in a turn.....
In Point Pleasent we had the boat completely on its side to aviod a accident....its the furthest I have ever had the boat on its side and she righted out of it.....if done in any other pleasure boat with out a seat belt there would be no way we could have stayed in.....

Plus you are seeing more and more performance boats have seat belts in them....in the 42 Fountain Poker Run edition it has seat belts and along with a number of Cats now have optional seat belts in them....

At the speeds that adverage guy is running there peformance boats today....I would not want to be thrown out if a boat hooks or stuffs at 90 to 120 mph.....

And again...I'm not trashing any other boat manufacture......I'm just saying take a ride in a dragon in 3 to 5 footers....the boat has the ride of a 12,000 to 14,000 lbs boat but with only 525's she can still run with boats with that weight and has to have twin 1000's or bigger to run the same speed....

There were pics of our spin out in the E.C. race....I will try to find them and post them.....

Maybe its somew hat quiet cause Craig Barrie went to Donzi....just got this in the email....

http://www.ibinews.com/ibinews/newsd...32ibinews.html

so much for dragon?

I know at least one of the boats had the floor raised about 4" to accomidate the owners wife seeing over the dash (accoring to Craig)

I wounder if he will sell the mold to Donzi.....
or will Doug Wright get it.....

Talked to Craig this morning at Donzi. He is very excited about his new position at Donzi. To quell any rumors that the Dragon is dead, Craig said they are still building boats at the Melbourne (Doug Wright) facility, one going to Hungary with Diesels and one to Dubai with a second in the works. All rigging will be done in Sarasota. Look for, as Craig called it a DD in the near future.

He said to feel free to call him at Donzi anytime.

So will Donzi get the mold and call it something differant......maybe called the Donzi Dragon.....

Sounds like they will be built in Melbourne then shipped to Donzi for rigging. Remember they hulls are all epoxy and post cured.

So why are these great boats not selling ?

Are people that afraid to buy something there friends don't have ???

I think if there was an open version with a little more bling, it would be a little more popular. All the right stuff is there. I looked at one and did not like the lack of headroom when getting in and out of the drivers seat. Too bad, because it is a very special boat.

is this what is next for you???

Gotta go to rehab, NO,NO NO.