At times it seemed to be a Swallow Boats Owners club meeting. Hardly an hour passed without a current owner of Bay Raider or Bay Cruiser turning up and chatting with Matt Newland (the boss) to find out what's new. (The real one is called the Swallow Boats Association and it has it's own web site and forum http://www.swallowboatsassociation.com/).
The visitors seemed really interested in our exploits and, judging by the "hits" on the blog in the last couple of days, many of them (you?) have found us on the web!
Several urged me to call into see them up on my way round the rest of the UK next summer, including Ian Richardson, of Stromness, the designer and builder of this delightful wooden boat based on a traditional Orkeny working boat.
The sun shone, the breeze wafted past and several potential new owners were shown over the Swallow Boats on display.
I discovered that I had withdrawal symptoms and went to have a look at Vagabond today.
Despite being in a barn, Vagabond has become very dusty. I have now covered her with a large tarpaulin that I happened to have available. I've also made an A frame out of a couple of aluminium tubes from my old hang glider.* The theory is that this should make it even easier to lift and lower the mast by giving a better mechanical advantage** when hauling the mast up from the horizontal "derigged" position. I'll let you know next spring if it works!
* Airwave Magic 4, built in 1988 and scrapped in 2003 with about 100 hours on the airframe.
**technical term - the intention is that the rope used to hoist the mast will be led round a pulley on the top of A frame, thus pulling the mast UP rather than sideways.
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