Swallow Boats has a new website

[Lara]

Hi everyone

I haven't been on the forum enough recently, sorry, but wanted to let you all know that Swallow Boats have a brand new website!

www.swallowboats.com

Having listened to owners' and customers' comments about what you would like to see on the Swallow Boats website we have been working very hard over the last few months on this - it's the same address, but it's not just a brand new look, it's a whole new site that gives you so much more information about our boats and our company. 

I hope that you enjoy looking through the site, and have a happy Christmas!

BR
Laura

[Andy Dingle]

Hello Laura et al..

Is there a link from the new Swallow Boats web site to the Association? Or have I missed something?

It would be nice to feel that the association website - which is the association - is still close and integral with Swallow Boats?

Regards

Andy
Baycruiser 23 No.25 'Equinox'

[Lara]

Hello the site has just gone live today, the omission of the link to the association has been flagged to the web team and we should have a link up and going shortly.

[Andy Dingle]

Thanks Laura .. That's reassuring.

[Peter Taylor]

Hi Laura, looks good! Was worried that the BC20 was missing but then found it under "bespoke" which makes me feel posh! However it has not had it's specifications filled in. I didn't find any specs for the BR20 either. Still, there's bound to be a few glitches at first and the site really makes the boats look good!
Peter

[Michael Rogers]

The mugshots are fun: what a steely-eyed band of buccaneers!

Swallow Boats has changed a lot, as it was bound to, and there has been a streamlining of the range, which I think many felt was overdue. Gone are the Storms (except the new 23) and CBLs, and the Trouper. Apparently vanished, too, appears to be epoxy-ply (except, again, the new Storm 23), including kits.

I go back, via two kits, to the days when 'Swallow Boats' WAS kits - unless you asked to have the boat built for you. The kit for the hull of my Trouper cost about £2 grand four years ago, and because I rigged her myself I probably spent another £1500. With trailer that's about £4200 for a super little boat, with all the satisfaction of 'I did that!'. Even allowing for price increases, that's a big gap up to the cost of a BR or whatever as of today (which are, of course, much bigger boats). Of course it's all commercial considerations and what people will/can pay, as they clearly will/can.

I'm not the slightest envious, and my personal customer satisfaction rating is sky-high. I am just a bit nostalgic for something-or-other, I'm not sure what. Times change, and so must 'we' (there's some posh Latin for this, from Horace or some such, which Sir Humphrey Appleby quoted at James Hacker to prove the superiority of a classical education. Can anyone remember?). I wish Swallowboats every success in the world of (largely) GRP, and years of happy sailing to all past, present and future customers.

Michael

[Michael Rogers]

Errata
1) I think the Latin phrase must be 'mutatis mutandis', but I'm not sure it's appropriate here. Sir Humph gave it the meaning 'times change and we must change with the times', which is sort of what I meant.

2)Having perused the new SB website again, I think I've overdone the near-demise of epoxy ply, though it's likely to be 80+% GRP in future.

M

[Lara]

Right well most importantly there is now a link on our website to the Swallow Boats Association site, top right of the screen on any page you click onto on our website!

Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback via the forum or emailing me, the specs should be on the BC20 shortly and a picture will be up on the Storm 23 page so you can have an idea of what we are blathering on about, to be followed by a photo of the real thing when the first one is completed in the Spring.

Michael, may I say thank you for your appreciation of our mugshots - all good fun and about the only time you'll find us looking even remotely coooool! 

[Michael Rogers]

Dear Laura

I was actually referring to the 'Owners' Perspective' pictures (and they aren't strictly mugshots I suppose), not having discovered the 'About' photo portraits until you sort of mentioned them. Rogues Gallery might have been more apt for the owners. How could I possibly (said he sycophantically) have described The Team, least of all your good self, as 'steely-eyed  buccaneers' (except the dog)? 'Cooool' probably does cover it.

Michael

[Matt Newland]

Hello Michael,
Thanks for your thoughtful post which I enjoyed reading. You almost got me nostalgic there for a minute too! We have very much changed from the days when we only did kits but for us it was a matter of survival. When I decided to join Swallow Boats back in 2004 we soon decided that to keep me in beer money we would need to produce finished boats (this was before I was married, so I could drink at least 4 pints a night back then). The kit market was simply too small in this country to make a living from. Our kits were never cheap, and possibly one mistake we made was including everything you needed, which made them seem expensive when compared to the competition. Strangely enough I think the financial crisis hit kit sales harder than completes - by 2012 were selling 3-4 kits per year.  Unfortunately it was not financially viable on this sort of scale. Even 5 a year would have been ok alongside complete builds, but 3, across a range of 4 boats was just a huge disruption in the workshop as we could never make for stock.
We have neglected the small boat side of the business in recent years, something I hope to change over the next few years. I drew up a sailing canoe a year or two ago and showed it in Watercraft, but predictably the uptake was too small to make kit production viable. I went ahead and built one for myself which I finished a few months ago (thanks to a fair bit of work experience help!). For me its the best form of sailing but I've given up trying to convince others.
As for GRP, again it comes down to money. Its at least 20% more expensive to build in epoxy ply, even with some of my best lads. And because it takes so much longer in the workshop we are much more limited on throughput.
All stuff I am sure you are aware of, and I don't mean this post to come across as defensive. I would love to just design and build the boats I was interested in, unconstrained by pesky customers or the need to turn a profit, but perhaps fortunately, that's not the case. Grudgingly I'll admit that collaboration with customers and attention to market demands nearly always makes a better boat.

[Tony]

The new website?
 Very smart and professional  - as  befits a growing business.
 I’ve had a good wander around it, drooling over "Fathead" rigs, making myself dizzy with the 360 deg views of the BC26 and, like Michael, have to mourn the passing of the earlier and (it has to be said), less popular boats.
But, and it’s a big “but”, is there anyone out there who really wouldn’t prefer a BR17 to a Storm 17? (present owners of S17s excepted, of course.)
I might even be tempted to swap my CBL for a BC20 – I loved the nice white one I reviewed for “Watercraft” magazine –if it were not for the fact that, like  Patrick O’Brian’s  foremast-hands, I like what I’m used to.   

If I were a new customer, the boat that would most suit my kind of sailing would probably be the BREx , anything larger might be difficult to handle in a hotel car park, anything smaller wouldn’t cope with the seas so well.
If money were no object  I’d have a BC23 or 26 for Island hopping in the Ionian; a BREx for raids; a Trouper (A little smasher. Can’t think why it didn’t fill its corner of the dinghy market) for the local lake; a sailing canoe ( Matt’s Aircraft Carrier ) for ditch crawling and last but not least; my dear old Cardigan Bay Lugger  for the sheer pleasure of such a comfortable, easily handled pocket cruiser.
However, I think the range promoted on the website is probably a good commercial choice, covering most bases for most people.

To pick up on Matt’s post, though - “I would love to just design and build the boats I was interested in, unconstrained by .............. the need to turn a profit,”
Might it not be a good idea to display at least a rough draft of  the new boats he would LIKE to build, given a customer or three? Having a set range of boats is all well and good, but where does the innovation come from?

I can’t imagine that your  ideas would be THAT unpopular or uncommercial, Matt. You (and Nick) have done pretty well at pleasing an awful lot of customers so far!

[Michael Rogers]

Hi Matt
There is nothing defensive about your comments, compared with which mine are drivelish. I really do wish the ever evolving Swallowboats every success for the future.

Tony, you wouldn't half be busy fettling, let alone sailing, your wish-fleet! However, if money really were no object *, presumably a sort of nautical Jeeves would be at hand to do the fettling, and crewing when needed? With regard to your point about Matt airing 'rough drafts' etc, a) give the poor man a chance, he leads a busy life; b) do you read 'Water Craft'? - in recent years they have given Matt a fair amount of space for his ideas, as befits one of our leading small boat designers.

Michael

*For the dose of pedantry readers may have come to expect from yours truly, the phrase 'something being no object', which I use myself sometimes, is not so much bad grammar as non-sense. We all know what it means, but what does it actually MEAN?!

[Tony]

Michael.
1.Do I read "Watercraft" magazine?

[Michael Rogers]

Tony, old fruit
Baldrick was once asked if he knew what irony was: he thought it was like coppery, or woody, but different.....I am aware you are unofficial associate editor, or summat, of WC. Hence my comment.
(Thinks - it doesn't half take the sparkle off attempted wit when you have to explain.....sigh.)

[EDWIN DAVIES]

I got it right away Michael.