SeaRaider “Craic” wins Sail Caledonia 2017

Well done to Andrew, Graham and John, who sailed Andrew’s SeaRaider, “Craic”, to overall victory in this year’s Sail Caledonia. It was another fantastic week with generally good weather as the boats sailed and rowed from Fort William to Inverness along the Caledonian Canal and the Great Glen’s lochs.

There were 4 Swallows entered – in addition to Craic there was a BayRaider 20 (Augusta Thomasina), a Storm 17 (Peewit) and a BayRaider Expedition (Mallory). Craic dominated the Swallow class but had stiff competition from “Jack”, a Swampsott Dory, in the overall competition. Jack is a great alrounder but Craic’s superior sailing ability combined with Andrew and his crew’s excellent sailing gave them the advantage when the wind blew.

Full results and photo galleries will be available on the Sail Caledonia website shortly.

Colour Codes – Gel Coat and Paint

These are the colours Swallow Boats use on their boats.

The standard colours on the GRP boats are as follows:

RAL 9001 Cream (used for deck and under the waterline/boot-top)
RAL 5011 Steel blue
RAL 7015 Slate Grey
RAL 6007 Bottle Green
RAL 9005 Jet Black

For Wood-Epoxy painted boats it is likely to be a product from the International Perfection range. They do not have many colours so it is easy to find yours – probably Jade Mist Green or Mauritius Blue.

On the wood work, Swallow Boats usually uses Sikkens Cetol Filter 7. Colour TEAK for the hardwood and Colour PINE for the softwood (wooden masts and booms).

On the interior of cabin boats they use a RAL9001 paint, single pack. If any boat owners wants some, please get in touch with Swallow Boats and they can provide a small pot.

Interior varnish is usually International Goldspar satin.

BRe Cockpit Tent Launched

Swallow Boats has just launched a new cockpit tent for the BayRaider Expedition. See below for a description and photos.

There is a side door each side, with a window and curtain. Swallow Boats are confident there will be good ventilation because the bottom of the tent does not meet the deck exactly yet there is a generous overlap with the coaming, so no rain should get in.

The tent extends back from the aft end of the sprayhood and attaches to a 4mm rope spread round the outside of the coaming, on the deck, and pulled very tight. This rope is left permanently in place and the bottom of the tent has velcro tabs which loop around this. This makes it very quick and easy to assemble because even in a strong wind the velcro will stay put during assembly, when bungee loops can come un-hooked.

The tent is supported by a lightweight flexible pole that attaches to two deck clip fittings screwed to the outside of the coaming.

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Stbd-Deck Layout

Website updated

There have been lots of small changes made to the web site over the past few weeks. These are mostly aimed at making it easier to find content – especially new content – and use the website in general. In particular, the search function (using the menu bar’s search box) has been updated so that it now searches the forum as well as the website. Previously it didn’t include the forum. Note that the search link on the forum is still specific to the forum. The full list of changes is included below. Please add a comment to this post or start a forum topic if you find any issues with the site.

  • Search updated to include the forum in addition to the web site.
  • Menu search box no longer causes the other menu items to wrap to a second line so early.
  • The search box now expands when used so that it can be smaller (and consume less menu space) when not in use.
  • Top admin menu removed and all functions moved to main menu.
  • The summary of recent posts/pages on the home page now includes post excerpts.
  • The summary of recent forum posts on the home page now includes post excerpts.
  • Login/logout link added to menu.
  • Margins & white space reduced on the home page to allow more content to be included.
  • Logging in through the homepage now keeps users logged in for 24 hours rather than previous default of 1.
  • Pages can be assigned to the Library as well as a menu if they are assigned to the “Library” category. Previously, a page only appeared in the Library if it wasn’t accessible via a menu. Now a page is in the Library if it isn’t assigned to a menu or the page has the “Library” category.

Rutland Rally, 6th & 7th April 2013

The bitter northerly winds died down just in time for the Swallow Boats rally at Rutland Water and even the sun came out. But there was enough wind left for sailing on both days, although it was rather light and flukey on Sunday. Seven boats were on the water over the weekend – 2 BayCruiser 23s, 3 BayRaider 20s, a BayRaider 17, a BayRaider Expedition and a Storm 15 – and they made a great sight. Most owners and crew managed to get to the pub on Saturday night where we had a really good dinner and managed to find plenty to talk about other than boats! Thanks to Peter Cockerton for organising this event. Photos can be found in the following gallery album:

http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/?page_id=449&album=1&gallery=10

New SwallowBoats Register

A boat register has been added to the web site. Owners can add their boat details such that we build up a register of the many boats SwallowBoats have built and we can record the details of each boat along with it’s owner and location, etc. The register can be accessed via the following link: SwallowBoats Register. Take a look and if you’re an owner then please add your details.

Finally, the forum has moved…

It took a while, but the Swallow Boats forum has finally moved to this new site. The forum was upgraded as part of the move so that should bring some improvements too. Of course, things rarely run to plan and, despite this move having been practiced twice before this “live” run, we found a data issue after the move that meant about 200 posts were truncated.

However, problem fixed and the data re-imported and I think the forum has now been successfully moved and upgraded without any data loss. But if you see anything wrong with the forum or the web site or have any suggestions then please post a topic on the forum. If you can’t logon to the forum after the upgrade then read the topmost post on the General Discussion board and that should help you fix the problem.

I hope you like the new forum and web site!