swordfish on ebay

chris · Post by **chris** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:06 pm

don't see a lot of these. only a few hours to go though.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SWORDFISH-SAILING ... dZViewItem

Post by Ed » Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:20 pm

Gosh very nice....

always wanted one of those...

They just look to me so much better than the Albacore. It's just like someone took the Swordfish and grafted a bit of GP14 mentality and got the albacore.

this one looks really very nice.

just a pity really that it can't stay with the rest of the fleet up north....or maybe it will ....who knows.

Anyway....will make a very nice boat for someone......lets hope it turns up to some CVRDA events some time in the future.

cheers

eib

Trevor C · Post by **Trevor C** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:13 pm

How could you be so rude about the Albacore? We all have our idea of loveliness - but my Alb hardly looks like anything has been stuck on - let alone a GP14!

Post by Ed » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:36 am

The Albacore was designed as a direct copy of the Swordfish, but with added freeboard towards the transom to make it a bit safer when capsized, their underwater shapes are identical. I think they added about 6in to the transom to lift it out of water when flooded, if I remember right (sure others will remind me). The sheerline is still straightish...so a slice was added, which in my extrordinaly humble opinion did very little for the looks or the speed of the boat. It simply made is safer in a time when boats tended to have very limited bouyancy and wetsuites hadn't been invented. Of course they also dropped the kite....all done to make the boat more 'user-friendly'

If you ever get the chance to look at all of the Uffa Fox Fairey boats in a row, the family resemblance is of course obvious. But also the slight differences. The main one is the height of the transom. Some, like the Firefly and Albacore have a rather 'bath' like appearance with quite high transoms, whilst others like the Jollyboat and Swordfish have much lower transoms which gives them a much more racy look. Think e-type jag rather than morris minor.

I may be biased, but I have just always thought that the Albacore was a step backwards from the Swordfish. Uffa got it right first time, the swordfish just looks much better. Of course the Albacore went on to become far more sucsessful....but there may well of been other reasons for that.

It's kind of interesting to see that builders were playing the "lets design a new version...and stop the old one" long before RS started playing the game.

So....given the choice, I would have a Swordfish over an Albacore any day.

cheers

eib

Post by Ed » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:38 am

Chris,

strangely enough....you say you don't see many Swordfish....which is true as the few that are still surviving are up in Yorkshire....however there is a guy with 2 in Trowbridge....at least there was...

One built and one in the barn.

cheers

eib

Post by **Rupert** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:24 am

I rebuilt a swordfish for Andrew Thornhill many years ago, which will now be whereever the MDL collection is. I think the reason that the Swordfish, Jollyboat and other longer Uffa designs had the small transom was that he had a habit of reusing designs. The longer boats had the aft sections "stretched" compared to the shorter ones, which then reduced comparative transom heights. I expect you'll find the Firefly transom and Swordfish transom are about the same height, rather than being scaled up with the length of the boat. The fairey 14's have a very similar look.
Back in the 50's Faireys must have been a cross between RS and Sunseeker, producing dinghies and powerboats. I hope the lessons shown by Fairey's in its demise have been learned by Laser and the rest, but I doubt it...

Trevor C · Post by **Trevor C** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:06 pm

I always thought the E type was rather over rated. If the swordfish is the convertible E type then the Alb is the Coupe maybe the later more refined model. However, I would prefer a swordfish.

Post by **Rupert** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:14 pm

We may be a little too upmarket here...To me, it is more like MGB with Chrome bumpers and decent suspension V's one with plastic bumpers and raised suspension to suit the American health and safety rules...It looks fine till you see it next to the original!

davidh · Post by **davidh** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:49 pm

An interesting thought here: The Swordfish is one of those classes that seem to survive, just, bumping along against the final drop into extinction and history. They are there with the Pacer, Bosun, Wineglass.......FD! - and a host of others that just have the makings of a bare bones fleet. We've already had a number of strings on boats that have slipped away ( the Marauder being a prime example) and those who look set to follow (the Hornet maybe) but as yet no clear understanding as to the 'why'......when the 'why' is the reason for a small number of people working against the odds to keep an outmoded, outclassed dinghy afloat.

Heretical words here I know but...wouldn't they be better off just joining in with the CVRDA?????

D

chris · Post by **chris** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 2:07 pm

Yes Ed . I had found the swordgfish site and notice yorkshire was one of the last strongholds. Didn't know about the outpost in Trowbridge though.

I still have my Albacore awaiting a time to restore her and when I look into the hull compared to a merlin 'victorian bathtub' is exactly what comes to mind.

I need some Agba for a new transom and last time I phoned Robins they only had it in veneer, no solid. Any one know of another source?

Post by Ed » Tue Jul 18, 2006 4:02 pm

chris,

Well I found a source down here recently....but didn't follow it up.

Will do so if you want and see if it is still viable.

Surely an Albacore transom should be a real mahogony though.....?

Rupert, good observation re transom height remaining constant - you may well be right. Certainly the Jollyboat looks very drawn out....and the swordfish has the same longish leanish look, whereas the Firefly and the Albacore look significantly rotund by comparison, the 14s fall somewhere between the two with a slightly leaner look. I like the look on the Firefly, but somehow it doesn't look right on the Albacore, which just looks like there is just too much boat, especially when you look into it from above/behind. The swordfish just looks a better balanced shape than does the Albacore.

Anyway the point was that the 'group' of people who modified the original Uffa Fox design raised the transom by 6in....and personally I think Uffa had it right in the first place.

ed (UffaFan)

Trevor C · Post by **Trevor C** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 4:32 pm

Yes Ed, but a design is not just about the aesthetic, in fact judging by modern performance standards the aesthetic, subjective as it is, is well down the list for the designer.

JimC · Post by **JimC** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 5:52 pm

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Rupert</i>
he had a habit of reusing designs. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Like every other designer [grin]

Post by **Rupert** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 6:00 pm

If I'd designed Avenger, I'd have been tempted to keep the best bits, too!

Post by Ed » Tue Jul 18, 2006 6:16 pm

mmmmmm......no....you are right...only 99.9999999% of what is important!

Mind you .....a good subject for a debate that!

For me, personally, the aesthetic is the overriding part of what makes design work for me. The aesthetic or the beauty is simply what makes me interested in a boat, a car, a bike, a painting, a sculpture, a musical instrument, a pot or the majority of the other material things that we surround ourselves with. I have driven Italian bikes and cars, not because they had the best electrics, the best chrome, the best welding, but because when I looked at them, I thought 'wow....that is really beautiful'.

I would sail any Morrison boat, happy knowing I was sitting on some of the best shaped buttocks in the boating world. But have immense problems with many hard chine boats simply due to the fact they are just plain ugly. I have never sailed a GP14 and I never will. It might well be a great boat, but I simply would prefer to go and stand next to almost any merlin in the hope that someone might think that I knew someone related to the owner rather than have anybody think that I chose something as ugly as a GP14 to own. It's not completely a performance thing either....I think some of the coffins now sailing in the I14 and Cherub fleet are pretty ugly also (sorry Jim - both yours very pretty though).

As a matter of interest, when I first saw my new Holt chine IC, I thought that pretty ugly and it wasn't till I found an angle at which it worked for me visually that I started to rather like the thing.

But stil you may well say that good design is not dependent on good aesthetics and to look around the world I can see that you may well be right. Every time I see a new and UGLY bridge being built through a beauty spot, I simply wonder how much money would it of cost to build a beautiful bridge to go in a beautiful landscape amd wouldn't it of been worth it?

Beauty is what seperates the mundane design in our lives from the exciting, the vibrant, the things that make you glad to be alive. Good designers ignore it at their peril.

Design for performance may not need beauty, subjective evaluation of design might be out-of-date, but still the best designs nearly always look beautiful anyway. Beauty in design can only be evaluated within its purpose and so often the cutting edge of design provides its own beauty. It is in the areas of rehashing and reworking designs that so little care for aesthetics takes place.

Again and again I come back to thinking....."if it looks right....it most probably is" and that means it looks aesthetically right for me.

Was that a rant?

hope not....what do others think?

Do you want to sail a beautiful boat? or would you put up with anything as long as it was fast?

cheers

eib