Contest Yachts

Contest Yachts has been building sailing yachts in Medemblik, on the IJsselmeer, since 1959, and is still run by the founding family: Ed Conijn started the yard, and his grandson Arjen Conijn runs it today. The first product was not a yacht at all but the Flying Dutchman racing dinghy, of which the yard built more than six hundred; those dinghies financed the move into cruising yachts under the Conyplex name.

The house style has never changed: semi-custom construction, vacuum-infused sandwich hulls, full teak decks, and a pace of a handful of hulls per model per year. The yard runs its own brokerage, through which most used Contests change hands, and its own annual regatta, the Contest Cup, where the current director can be found racing in person.