Hooray for Swallow!


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Posted by Claire on April 16, 2010 at 06:52:39 user Claire_Morgan.

Last night, I finally took time to do what many of us have probably been doing, and watched the 1974 Swallows and Amazons film to get a look at our boat.

The journey to the island showed her off perfectly! (It was a long journey too, considering it was filmed on 3 different lakes)! Seeing her move through the rougher water to the accompaniment of stirring music, was enough to even let me forgive the unlikely encounter with Tern. She looked perfect for the role, with the right degree of looking used and worn that one would expect of a boat used by holiday visitors.

I find it a little ironic that our Swallow is varnished, while Mavis/Amazon has always been painted. But I hope that she stays that way. She has a history, even if we know nothing of it before the film. But in the film, she looks a lot like now, supporting the idea that she has been in storage since 1974. If you look in the film, you can see the replaced chunk of wood on the transom, to starboard of the sculling notch. And the tell tale dark compression circle showing frequent mounting of an outboard motor is apparent too. I almost used "Hooray for Swallow 4" as the subject, since that is what she is. Swallow one was the boat that Arthur Ransome probably learned to sail in, when visiting the Collingwoods. The next Swallow, (named for the first one), is the one that AR and Ernest Altounyan bought along with Mavis, for the Altounyan children to sail. Swallow 3, sometimes known as Swallow II, was the 10 foot version that AR had built as a tender for Selina King, later restored by Roger Wardale. And our movie Swallow, is the 4th boat of that name to be closely associated with AR.


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