BB - The name and legend

The founder of Borresen Boatyard, one of Danish sailings great old men and pioneer Borge Borresen died quiet and peacefully in his home in Vejle Sunday morning the 4th of March 2007 in the age of 87 years. As one of the few he achieved to become a living legend as a boat builder and Dragon sailor.

He built one of the first Dragons in Denmark in 1936, 16 years old together with his brother Albert, and even though in the next 65 years to come, he both constructed and built other boat types, it was the Dragon that remained his greatest interest.

In the Dragons highlights time from 1948 to 1972, there were Olympic races, where the first 10-12 boats in the result list were build at Borresen in Vejle, and when the Dragon class was taken off the Olympic Games, it was BB, who led the Dragon into the fibreglass age, and it was his achievement that the Dragon got its great international come back in the early 80ties, where it became one of the worlds most known keelboats.

At the same time he participated actively in the races, and won both the Dragons Gold Cup and European Championship several times. Borge Borresen has the world record in participating in s Gold Cup with 51 times in a row.

In his young years he sailed with Thorkild Warrer, later he became the helmsman and he topped as a sailor in the age of 74, where he won the Dragon World Championship together with Jesper Bank.

No Dragon sailor will ever forget, when the Borresen truck with the Dragon arrived at international races all over Europe, how the sailors (customers) gathered around the truck like bees, to get spare parts, as they just were missing. And everybody got what they wanted. How BB got room for all these spare parts on his truck remains a puzzle. 
 

Together with him in the front seat was often his wife Inge, who nearly was a mother for the Dragon sailors all over the world. Therefore it was a very painful loss, when Inge died several years ago. Together they had 3 sons Ole, Lars and Anders. Ole and Anders worked together with their father at the boatyard in Vejle from when they were quite young, and even after the time when they had taken over the boatyard, BB still came and gave good advice in his own quiet and calm way. He did so until his dead.

Artificial hips and knees did not stop him from sailing and he still managed to compete with the best. But when he was 83 years old he started to have problems with the balance and therefore did not any longer participate in international races. Driving car he continued until the day before died.

Borge Borresen was Knight of Dannebrog and he had the pleasure in the last sailing season to see two of his grandchildren achieve good results in international races. The new generation Borresen is on the way.

Borge Borresen was for several decades Chairman of the Danish Dragon Association and as H.R.H Prince Henrik of Denmark he was Vice President in the International Dragon Association in London. He was known for his dedication and long term struggle to keep the dragon as a one design class.
Borge Borresen was a legend already when he lived. The time to come after his dead will not make the legend about one of the pioneers in Danish and International sailing, the skilled boat builder and noble yachtsman less.