Swiftcraft, Honour Marine and Marlin International boats

General chat of non-technical subjects related to sailing
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postcaptain1801
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Swiftcraft, Honour Marine and Marlin International boats

Post by postcaptain1801 » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:43 am

Hello. The home page says: "Only a small number of the 400 series boats were built (perhaps 10 or so)."

No there were more than that, though certainly not hundreds.

And it says:

"The 400 series had black toerails (we think)."

No, those with black toerails were/are Honnor Marine boats. Honnor Marine started, on taking the production and ownership over from Swiftcraft, with natural aluminium, then evidently bought a job-lot of black, then produced a new top mould with a moulded-in toerail – a sound move, since that row of toerail fixing bolts was always a series of leaks looking to start if not very well fitted. Marlin International 400-Series boats continued with this last feature, the moulded-in toerail.

Swiftcraft boats sported tapered masts; Honour Marine ones had cheaper (and non-flexing) straight masts; Marlin International 400-Series reverted back to the better tapered masts (you can bend them by tightening the backstay, so flattening the mainsail for windward work).

400-Series boats reverted to the original as-designed weight of hull layup too, rather than Honnor Marine's heavier hulls (Honnor Marine didn't know where the missing fibre and resin had disappeared to in production!)

So, in brief: the 400-Series boats (18s and 20s) had tapered masts and moulded-in toerails, also an outboard well lid which had also previously been suppressed by Honour Marine. All were white with two-tone blue trim divided by a white band, 'Swift 18' or 'Swift 20' marked prominently and a smaller white '400-series' superimposed on the trim aft.

Of course, some of those features (though not the toerails) may have been changed or replaced by owners in surviving 400-Series boats.

postcaptain1801
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Re: Swiftcraft, Honour Marine and Marlin International boats

Post by postcaptain1801 » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:52 am

Its that dreddid spellechequerre strykynge agayne in the title!

noodle
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Re: Swiftcraft, Honour Marine and Marlin International boats

Post by noodle » Wed Mar 15, 2017 9:21 pm

Thanks for the additional info!

I will update the website once I get it back up and running (it was badly hacked :( )

bob clarkson
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Re: Swiftcraft, Honour Marine and Marlin International boats

Post by bob clarkson » Fri May 03, 2019 8:35 pm

Up date?

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