Review of Swordfish

Basic specs.

The Swordfish is a small sailing dinghy designed by the British maritime architect Uffa Fox in the mid forties. A few hundred boats have been produced. The Swordfish is built by the British yard Fairey Marine Ltd..

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Hull

The hull is made of plywood.

Rig

The boat equipped with a fractional rig. A fractional rig has smaller headsails which make tacking easier, which is an advantage for cruisers and racers, of course. The downside is that having the wind from behind often requires a genaker or a spinnaker for optimal speed.

Keel

CentreBoard

The Swordfish is equipped with a centreboard keel. A centreboard keel is a pivoting lifting keel, allowing to sail both coastal and inland waters.

The boat can sail close to the beach as the draft is just 0.23 - 0.33 meter (0.75 - 1.05 ft) dependent of the load. See immersion rate below.

Sailing characteristics

This section covers widely used rules of thumb to describe the sailing characteristics. Please note that even though the calculations are correct, the interpretation of the results might not be valid for extreme boats.

Immersion rate

The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level. The immersion rate for Swordfish is about 46 kg/cm, alternatively 260 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 46 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm. Alternatively, if you load 260 lbs cargo on the boat it will sink 1 inch.

Sailing statistics

This section is statistical comparison with similar boats of the same category. The basis of the following statistical computations is our unique database with more than 26,000 different boat types and 350,000 data points.

L/B (Length Beam Ratio)

What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?

The l/b ratio for Swordfish is 3.01.

Compared with other similar dinghies it is slimmer than 86% of all other designs. It seems that the designer has chosen a significantly more speedy hull design.

Maintenance

Boat owner's ideas

This section is reserved boat owner's modifications, improvements, etc. Here you might find (or contribute with) inspiration for your boat.

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Finally

We are always looking for new photos. If you can contribute with photos for Swordfish it would be a great help.

If you have any comments to the review, improvement suggestions, or the like, feel free to contact us. Criticism helps us to improve.

References

[Ref 1]: ISO 8666 Small craft — Principal data.
[Ref 3]: ISO 12215-5 Small craft — Hull construction and scantlings.