Swallow Boats is a purveyor of boat kits in Wales. Their SeaRaider combines the best features of the fastest and most seaworthy Raid boats into one new boat. The boat originated in Scotland—one of the best places on Earth to put a small boat through its paces. In the space of a week on this country’s lochs and coast, one is likely to meet a wide range of weather conditions, from varied wind strengths, both upwind and downwind, to sudden rain squalls or katabatic gusts coming off the mountains. This drama is always complemented by enough soft breezes and sunshine highlighting the dramatic Scottish scenery to make one wish to stay longer.The week of competitive sailing and rowing originally called the Great Glen Raid, now Sail Caledonia, has given Claus Riepe from Hamburg, Germany, and many other sailors, builders, and designers a unique opportunity to watch small boats perform under sail and oar and against each other. Any design or building faults, any glitches or lapses, soon become obvious. Claus thoroughly enjoyed the Raid concept, a week of competition and camaraderie in cruising areas that can be deep sea, shallow lagoon, or narrow canal, and he enjoyed his present boat, but he’d never sailed it in company with other boats of similar appearance. All week he and his crew had sailed their best and rowed their hearts out but were effortlessly overtaken by one boat after the other, always ending up toward the rear of the fleet. The SeaRaider, a new design from the UK-based kit boat manufacturer Swallowboats, was purpose designed for point-to-point small-boat racing events called Raids.
Photo by Kathy Mansfield
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What a fantastic development story from the owner and Swallow Boats.
And the outcome is truly wonderful. Congratulations too to the journalist.
BUT, she is a very big boat for most of us single handers, and so it begs the question: Can she be downsized to 17 feet or so, and be as good or better than Swallow Boats’s existing fleet of great boats. Does she have advantages and points of difference worth having over the others that may now be incorporated?
John Shrapnel,
PERIWINKLE
I have sailed and rowed against this boat in Scotland and Cornwall and she is a cracker! My wooden Bayraider 20 PIPPIN is a foot wider and a couple of feet shorter so cannot quite keep up with her, but I will be back in Scotland in 2022 to try again.
The Bayraider 20, while gorgeous, always looks a little beamy to me. This hull looks just about perfect. It’s probably better for my pocketbook that they never turned it into production.
My epoxy ply wooden Bayraider 20 “Pippin”, weighing in at a mere 328lbs with 300kg of water ballast has proved fast, nipping at CRAIC’s heels on the final sea race of the Caledonia Raid.