Re: response to an importan question from Bob Lewis regarding alternative composites

[Bill Green <bill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

Great discussion and very interesting for someone like me who plans to 
have a Swift one day but is not there yet.  I have three 
points/concerns about the boat in general -- one: although it is less 
expensive than current competing boats of similar performance, it is 
not by any stretch of the imagination an inexpensive boat (it either 
costs a fair amount of money and a lot of time or just a lot of money 
to get in the class); two: wood boats are beautiful and can last a long 
time as the Lindsay 505s have shown, but they are a lot more 
maintenance than a plastic boat even if they last longer; three: as the 
hull shape becomes optimized through experimentation, all current 
Swifts will be obsolete regardless of how strong they still are. Along 
these lines, Greg and Christian made two comments that really ring true 
for me.

Greg Ryan: "The Swift is still the same price as the 49er and cheaper 
than a new 5o5 or an I14. "

I sail 505s and have been in the class since 1996. In that time I have 
watched the price of competing in the class go from high, but 
reasonable (good, used, race ready boat $6000, new sails about $1200) 
to getting stupid (competitive used boat $15,000 - $18,000 -- new don't 
ask -- and sails min. $2,000 for a set that will last about one season, 
maybe two). I have a 505 in my garage that needs to be totally rebuilt, 
but I can't quite justify the time and cost based on where the class is 
and where it is going. Still, if you want great racing in big fleets 
and a fast boat, the 505 is one of the best classes in North America, 
just don't kid yourself about what it costs to campaign one of these -- 
you could build a new Swift hull every year for the same price! I know 
the 49er is more expensive to sail and maintain than a 505, but no one 
tries to hide that fact.

 Christian:  "PS: An hour sanding, could have been an hour sailing.  
:-) "

Ooh, and there is the rub. For me, I would expect building a Swift to 
be a two year commitment where I would get little time on the water. I 
mostly crew (although I am way too light and too short to crew on a 
505) with little helming experience, so I would expect it would 
probably take at least three years sailing a Swift to be generally safe 
on the water -- during which I will have lots of time spent "in the 
water" rather than on it, and probably another several years before I 
am competitive (meaning I have a chance of finishing in the middle 
third of the fleet). Also, during the initial "learning to sail a 
skiff" period I expect that the gear toll would be high ($$$) and the 
boat would spend a lot of time in the shop getting repaired. While a 
49er costs about $100/hr in maintenance, I wonder what the Swift costs 
an new sailor in repair time? And if I had the money to just buy a new 
hull, I would not be complaining about the cost of sailing a 505.

Finally, there is the one little detail that no one wants to talk about 
and I will probably get flamed, nay, incinerated for mentioning: hull 
shape optimization. Anyone who has experience with skiffs and planing 
sailboats in general (i.e. all of us) knows that minor differences in 
hull shape can equate to major differences in speed on the race course. 
With the exception of boats like the Jolly 18 that had to be built from 
one mould, all sailboat designs have a +/- tolerance at each measuring 
station. And while the tolerances can be quite tight, building to one 
end or the other can make a boat faster or slower than the class design 
average.

What does this have to do with the Swift and someone like me who is 
trying to get his ducks in line (raise cash and find time to build 
one)? It means that while Bram has set up guidelines to build a fast, 
solid boat that, with care (read: constant woodwork and maintenance), 
will last for years to come, there is no guarantee that it will still 
be competitive with newly design tweaked boats in three or five years, 
or that I will not accidentally build my boat to the wrong end of the 
tolerances and have a dog out of the box. I don't doubt that when 
someone in this class figures out (either intentionally or 
accidentally) how to make a faster hull, s/he will tell everyone else 
how to do it, but that still leaves me with an old, slow boat and 
needing to upgrade -- which is exactly where I am with my 505.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Swift Solo is without peer and without 
question the best new boat to come along in many years, but the fact 
remains that getting involved with a new class that is still in its 
infancy has some risks when basic hull shapes and construction is being 
sorted out. I also have to admit that having a wood boat in Colorado is 
a bit of a guaranty for shop time. Pretty much each sail the boat has 
top be carefully inspected for dings through to the wood and repaired. 
Leaving a boat exposed to UV and snow is pretty disastrous.

Respectfully,
Bill Green
Hopeful Swift Solo owner


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