Do you sell plans?

[Tom]

Hello,
I was wondering if you sell plans for any of your boats?
Tom (in the USA)

[Matt Newland]

SwallowBoats do not curently sell plans. We are considering offering panel kits, especially for our bigger boats, which would be a halfway house between plans and a full kit. At minimum, they would comprise all the plywood parts CNC cut to shape with a set of plans and generic instructions. Maximum, they could include sails, hardwood cut to shape and perhaps epoxy. They would not include every screw, washer and length of rope like our full kits. They would be relatively cheaper than them though.
Email us if you are interested.
Many thanks.
Matt Newland

[Brian Pearson]

first of all, thanks Matt for the sail in both Bayraider and Trouper. very taken with Bayraider, very good looking in the flesh, and very nice to sail. Wind too light to tell with Trouper.

I have proposed a 15/16' version of Bayraider for singlhanding/two person cruising which fits my garage and dinghy park size limits. How about providing this version as a panel, rudder and centreboard component kit.

The Drascombe Lugger owners were your reference for the Bayraider. I would like to see if a group could also be formed for this smaller version. I see this design as an ideal purpose designed boat for members of the dinghy cruising association. I am not aware of a forum for them but the Open Boat Yahoo group may respond. I will post on there to see if anyone else might join in.

The objective is to have available for purchase a panel kit for a purpose designed cruising dinghy which is individually fitted out by owners using their local contacts, sailmakers, preferences.

Affordabilty would be good, the boat would be excellent. What do others think.

[Matt Newland]

Brian,
Thanks for your comments. At the moment we are snowed under trying to fulfill our BayRaider order book, and move into a new larger premises.
We are hoping to be in by Christmas 2007 (you heard it here first!) and once in we will have more scope to expand our range.
Ultimately I think the Raider range has a lot more milage in it. I would like to develop it in roughly 2 ft length decrements.
A LochRaider at around 17.5-18 ft and then a SomthingSmallerThanALoch-Raider at around 15-16 ft.
Any ideas for a class name?

Regards,
Matt

[Claus]

SeaRaider --> BayRaider --> LochRaider --> PondRaider --> BeachRaider --> PoolRaider .

Only joking.

How about ' FjordRaider ' ?
A bit vikingish.
Lookup the Etymology under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjord

Claus

[Brian Pearson]

Beachraider is good. Very relevent to the dinghy cruising aspect of the 15/16' design. Important to be able to pull up onto a beach for safety when bad weather coming, as per Frank Dye's dinghy cruising books.

Well done Claus!

Posted on the Openboats Yahoo site. Completely taken over by the Paradox owners trying to solve finding hatches which hold water in without leaking it out onto the interior floor.

[Matt Newland]

Thanks Brian,
I have had a quick look at the yahoo group. Its funny how conversations can wander right off course.
It would be good to have some other folk "on board" for the design spec for this boat, in the future. All they need is an email address and an opinion!
Best wishes,
Matt

[Tony]

SeaRaider --> BayRaider --> LochRaider --> PondRaider --> BeachRaider --> PoolRaider .

Only joking.

How about ' FjordRaider ' ?
A bit vikingish.
Lookup the Etymology under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjord

Claus

Hi, Claus. How are you doing?
Here's a few more class names for you.
In view of the flooded villages around here (Notts) a PostOffice Raider might be useful. We bus pass holders can't get out – and the High Street is littered with abandoned electric scooters.

Other possibilities include:-
BankRaider  - for nervous river users
EquityFundRaider - for the Henley Regatta
AirRaider – Sponsored by Nike
FridgeRaider – for obese sailors
DarthRaider – for Starwars fans.
Now it's getting silly. Sorry.     I don't get out much......

[Claus]

Hi Tony,
good to see you, you seem to be in great humour, sitting in your dry suit inside your snug cabin. May you enjoy it, while us openboaters stand outside in the open shivering in our wetsuits.

Excellent name proposals. Got two more: 'BankaccountRaider', self-explaining, or 'CoastRaider'. OK, the latter one is not very novel, it goes back to one 'CoastBuster' we passed by outside Inverness, I thought that was a cute one.

Keep'm commin!

Claus

[Tony]

Cheers, Claus.

I love "Coast Buster"! 
Will sound great on Channel 16...Who ya gonna call...?
Can afford to look smug, cabin or not. Just finishing off my work for the Exam board and booked a ferry to Greece for the summer. Paxos here we come! Six weeks to get the North Notts (and  Morbihan) damp out of my bones. I'll try not to roll Four Sister over this year - for the sake of appearances and to stop Matt getting mad at me again.

Wasn't this originally about selling plans or something? That's chat rooms for you.

P.S. Hey, Matt! What's with all the s?

[Jaap van der Heide]

SwallowBoats do not curently sell plans. We are considering offering panel kits, especially for our bigger boats, which would be a halfway house between plans and a full kit. ...

Dear Matt,

Would you considder selling plans for a Sandpiper?
You discontinued the model and I am hoping for a successor ever since your February 2008 post in reply to Brian Pearson, but I would like to start next winter and I am missing a sailing canoe in the *on the drawing board* section.

Kind regards,

Jaap van der Heide

[Matt Newland]

Dear Jaap,
Thanks for your post. The problem is that we do not actually have plans for our boats, in general. The Sandpiper was developed some years ago, with the help of an old computer program we had, to provide the first attempt, but with a lot of trial and error in the full size boat. We ended up with a set of full size plywood templates for the design, but never drew a formal set of plans. We were worried that selling plans would detract from kit sales, and since we had invested such a quantity of time to producing kits we needed to recoup that.

Starting with a small 8ft tender called Shelduck, we started using 3D computing about 6 years ago. This is much more accurate and saves huge amount of time and guess work when developing a new design. However, it still has the problem that producing 2D plans from the 3D model is still pretty time consuming. Not as bad as it would be to make plans from full size templates, as was originally the case, but still it involves quite a bit of work.

I don't want people to think that we have a huge stash of our old designs, neatly drawn on plans for home construction, but that we are too mean to sell them. I wish we did, but they simply don't exist. To produce reasonable plans of our old designs would require a huge amount of effort for very little return. I would not expect to sell more than 5 sets of Sandpiper plans a year for example.

We do have plans to introduce a mk2 sandpiper, but Im afraid I am too constrained with other new designs (the BayCruiser 20, 23 and BayRaider 17) to make this happen before Christmas.
I am sorry to disappoint but I hope you understand.
Best wishes,
Matt

[Julian Swindell]

Matt,
Do you produce a kit of the 8ft Shellduck?

[Jaap van der Heide]

Dear Jaap,
[snap]
I am sorry to disappoint but I hope you understand.
Best wishes,
Matt

Dear Matt,

I do, fully. I guess I will just keep a close eye on your site then and in case another fine opportunity comes up in the fall before Sandpiper mk2 is available I will go with that one.

Kind regards,

Jaap

[Brian Pearson]

Could you say a bit more about Bayraider 17?

Brian