Having virtually finished the drawings for a future build, the Bruce Campbell Christina 25, and enjoying a bit of drawing associated with the hobby when not building or painting, I thought I'd make a start on this project which I know Bob/Zooma is keen to build. I won't be building one myself as it is bigger than I like to go with my builds, have too many other builds on the go and planned and I tend to prefer the earlier timber Faireys, though I do like the look of some of the post Fairey Marine inspired revivals which were built in fibreglass. Some of these were mentioned in the Future Fairey Projects thread and it's there that Bob first mentioned his wish to build a Swordsman 37, the full rear cockpit version rather than the aft cabin version.

The Swordsman 37 and 40 version were produced by Swordsman Marine between 2000 and 2008 and were one of a number of companies who revived the Fairey Marine style of boats, often with input from the original Fairey designer Alan Burnard, and usually disappeared after a few short years.

Early days at the moment as I'm drawing the superstructure and plan so that I can compare it with the drawings for the timber Fairey Marine Swordsman 33 which was produced as a kit by Aerokits in the 1960s. Plan is to use those drawings as the basis for the hull - I've already determined that the extra 4 feet was added at the stern, so a case of adding another frame and then modifying to produce the full open cockpit. The bow seems to be more sleek than the original Swordsman 33 so that will need looking at as well.

Chris

I've drawn up the outlines and compared with the Aerokits kit drawings for the Swordsman 33 (S33). The plans sit exactly on top of each other with the extra 4 foot of the Swordsman 37 (S37) extending rearwards from that of the 33. I reckon the extra length makes the hull look nicer as it is longer for the same beam and narrows a bit more at the stern, so has echoes of the Huntsman 31 about it, especially with the sleeker bow. The side view is a different story though.

We know that the hull of the S37 was derived from the Fairey Marine Dagger commercial/military boat built in 37 and 40 foot lengths and that that hull was based on the S33 but it seems that in its progression to fibreglass and its use for the Dagger a number of changes were made. Certainly for the S37 the freeboard has been increased to maintain headroom with the lower and streamlined cabin and the bow has a sharper look to it, as I said similar to the H31.

The superstructure could be grafted onto an extended S33 hull but I think it might look a bit of a dog's dinner though altering the bow would help. The S37 has a more rakish chine rail as well.

Thoughts?

Bit more progress. Decided on the number and position of the frames, going for 8, can't believe that the Aerokits Swordsman 33 only had 5! Did the job though.

As you can see from the side view in the previous post I had the line of the chine but don't have it for the plan view, I need both to be able to draw up the frames. But from looking at photos and experience of other Fairey hulls I've drawn the chine on plan which I think will work. Not as extreme as the Huntsman 31 but much sleeker than the Swordsman 33 (performs well though!) - see the green/purple dotted lines. So now I can progress with drawing up the frames.

Bob, I assume you are sticking with a single motor?

Chris

Bob, making progress on the frames but need your thoughts. The cabins and cockpit sides on the full-size aft cockpit version which I assume is the same for the full cockpit version, angle in at approx. 9 degrees. From the photo of the open cockpit it looks as though the inside of the cockpit/coaming sides are vertical so I'm assuming in the full-sized boat they slope on the outside and are vertical on the inside which is easy enough in fibreglass for full-size. But for a model using ply I think having the coamings angled in would look a bit odd?

So my thoughts were to angle the sides in at 9 degrees at the front of the cabin and then 6 and 3 degrees at the frames going backwards to end up with 0 degrees/vertical at the rear of the cabin so that the cockpit sides/coamings would then be vertical. But when looking at a fibreglass model and even the full-size it is not obvious that the sides are angled, so they could be vertical I suppose. In my builds I have most of mine vertical because with lift-off superstructures it's difficult to build angled and you don't notice anyway. But with the S37 having rounded lines to the cabin I thought it might be better if the sides were angled?

No problem doing either way.

Chris