Hi,
years ago I build the Aeronaut Pinguin, only 62 cm, my first sailing boat. She also had a cockpit, that I sealed completely, so no problems with water.
The servo for the rudder was in the rear and couldn't be reached anymore after completing the deck. The batteries were located in the bulb of the keel. Receiver and sail servo could be reached through the canopy. She was real fun to sail. Unfortunally I had no pictures made and after 20 years she was scrapped. Good luck with your project. It is always fun to have a small boat that you can take with you without effort and sail wherever you like.

Hi Tony,

Really, I cannot see any reason why it would not be possible to get all the RC gear inside a boat of this size.. I built an Aeronaut Bella, admittedly from a kit, a few years ago and she is quite fine lined, maybe not quite as much as a Dragon, but not that far off. She was roughly the same size as your Dragon will be. She had a cockpit, but it was deliberately kept shallow and I have never had any problems with her getting water in there, ok, some water, but not enough to worry about, and if it can be made watertight, all the better. However, I do agree with Ron and think if you can fit a transparent cover over the cockpit, it would be advantageous. Anyway, best of luck with the project and I'm sure I won't be the only one watching with interest.

Cheers, Nerys

Hi Nerys,
As you know I'm building a Dragon from a plan -it'll be a bit longer than the Billings boat at 35". I'm in the early stages of build at present, when the hull is planked I'll post a few photos and a narrative on how and with what I built it with. Interesting what Ron advises re covering the cockpit -the cockpit will be a real challenge as the yacht will be Genoa rigged and the sheet controls will be a bit more complicated in the cockpit area. Looking at the Billings boat -even given the bulkheads are cut away to make space internally I would think it would need to be lipo/mini receiver job -but then the major problem would still be there, i.e. the centre of buoyancy needs to be lower than the deepest part of the keel -which i'm fixing by having a lead keel extension that can be housed back to the main hull when not sailing.

Looks good on the water, well done shipmate.
Cheers Colin.

Interesting photos of a nice looking little boat, I like that high peaked gaff rig and the answer to an open cockpit with clear plastic is a good one.
Has anyone answered the original title of this post. Has anyone built the Billings Dragon and done an RC conversion.? I wouldn't mind building one if I ever recover from the trauma of building a Deans kit, but squashing the RC gear in to quite a slender hull might be difficult, which is why I'd like to know if anyone has already done it. I've always liked the Dragon class, there was a large fleet of them racing at the Medway Yacht Club when I sailed there in the 50's.

Cheers, Nerys

I noted that the biggest concern people had was the open cockpit holding water in choppy weather. I had the same thing with the Wianno Senior and to solve that, I used some clear packaging material found with food containers in the grocery store.

No more water in the cockpit or below deck.

Thanks Ron👍

Great bargain ,is it a Myford lathe next to the scroll saw ?
Cheers Marky👍

I'm sorry Doug, but I didn't have a camera for many years, unfortunate when I think of all the pics I could have taken, I have a large box of photos and slides which I will investigate one day, but they centre around dinghy sailing on the Medway few traditional boats all over the country and then mostly slides of barge and smack racing in the late 70s.
I sold 'Y Ddraig Goch' to someone from Brightlinsea, he sailed her over to the continent then down the coast , Brittany and Bay of Biscay, can't remember where, then back to the Colne. Lost touch with him as I moved to the Midlands.

Cheers, Nerys

Nice buy👍 Don't make a muck of it Ron!
Or run amok in the workshop😮
I have a table saw similar to yours, worth it's weight in balsa 😉
BTW; did you know that 'amok' came into English in the 1600s, earlier spelt 'amuck', from Malay, where it meant 'running around in a murderous frenzy'?
Keep taking the tablets🤔
😎