Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on August 18, 2005 at 15:49:34 from 82.7.160.98 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: Swallow anew? posted by Peter H on August 18, 2005 at 12:15:53:
Quite apart from moral issues I can think of practical ones.
We know that the original Swallow carried a substantial amount of ballast, and the fictional one sank like a stone when holed.
My friends and I taught ourselves to sail as teenagers, on the sea, in clapped out boats which certainly would have sunk in the same way, and we couldn't (and didn't want to) afford lifejackets. We are still all about. So I feel as laid back as AR evidently did about "if not duffers won't drown" although with hindsight we were in fact duffers quite regularly.
But in today's Health and Safety dominated world I suspect it could well be illegal for a professional boatbuilder to build an exact replica of Swallow with the object of selling her to be sailed. Even my Hebe - which would float - is fitted with buoyancy bags (I am getting soft) but the volume of bags to float Swallow's ballast would just about fill her, completely destroying the character. And what would be the reaction of an Insurance Company?
If an exact replica is to be built it might have to be an amateur effort - happily as individuals we are not (yet) bound by the same rules.