Richard Blickman

Age 55, married with three daughters.

Dragons have been part of my whole life. My first experience was crewing before birth!

Shortly thereafter as a little boy my first memory was of my Dad's Dragon(NED 24).

Actually I am a third generation Dragon sailor since my Grandfather built a Dragon (NED 21) in 1937.

My first real experience was crewing on a Dragon at the Gold Cup in 1971 in Medemblik and in 1974 on a Swiss Dragon on the Thunersee.

I have sailed all my life from the age of 6, first in little dinghy's both in the Netherlands and US East Coast and thereafter in a Flying Junior all over Europe.

Then came a break of many years from serious racing in order to build our family with my lovely wife Mereline and three beautiful daughters.

The eldest Frederike has become my crew and best sailing teacher.

Also I was fortunate to work my way up creating a world leading company providing machines for semiconductor manufacturing.

Because serious racing was not an option I spent many years in assisting race management with Hollandia in Medemblik.

Thanks to my brother I decided to start racing again in 2003 and bought my first Dragon.

We really started to learn from scratch!

The first two years were hard, but progress was made every year.

In this way we got to know many Dragon sailors and all are great people!

I am now sailing a 2001 Cold moulded Petticrows, which is our pride and joy - NED 393, Cobweb.

Many have asked me about the name

Cobweb, which originates from an 8 meter sailed by Johan Anker in 1908 and also the true meaning of the word Cobweb often applies to us for various reasons.

Since 2003 I have developed an interest in all technical aspects of the Dragon, visiting all builders and practically all sailmakers.

Also, the history about one design keel boats and builders is fascinating.

My reason for accepting the honour to serve the IDA as a Vice Chairman for two years is to contribute to the continuation of the success of our Class and in particular to promote the Dragon to young sailors.

Also to help navigate the Dragon Class to an even greater future by on the one hand maintaining Class Rules which attract top class amateur yachtsmen and on the other hand carefully introducing new technology developments which solidify the long term success of the Dragon .

So far the IDA has been very successful! The challenge is to keep it this way.

51A Koningslaan
1406 KG Bussum

Telephone 31653357789 or 31356911270
Email : rwblickmanhotmailcom