Design Change Swan 371

[tsailone]

Can anyone tell me if there was a design change to the Ron Holland designed Swan 371. I have been told, and it's only heresay, that an extra 500 lbs was added to the keel from build number 7 onwards. I would like to know if this is true?

 

[tome]

Why not contact Ron Holland? My boat was designed by holman & Pye and they are very helpful

 

[michael_w]

The 371 I sailed, had a shoe added to the keel which put the draught up to about 8' IIRC; still fell over all the time. Not one of Nautor or Holland's best efforts. There are better boats.

 

[tsailone]

Thank you for that. Yours fell over. The one I was bringing from the States rolled through 360. The story was in Yachting World in 1996. I only heard of the keel change some months after we were ashore. Now I'm being asked to do a retrospective re-write on the story and just trying to establish some facts.

 

[Sailfree]

Out of curiosity what was the AVS before the design change?

Is there a feature about this yacht that makes it more prone to 360's or were they just caught out in conditions that would have caused any yacht to flip her keel at the sky?

 

[tsailone]

I don't know the answer to your question. All I know is that as soon as word got around and it did get around via the BBC and the front page of the London Times that we had rolled, I was told these stories about how there was a known stability problem with the early build numbers. I never found out because she subsequently sank but I presumed it was one of the first six. It was an older yacht and prior to my attempt to bring it to Southampton had only been used to race around the buoys in Narragansett Bay.

 

[tsailone]

With regard to the weather conditions. It was horrendous blowing severe gale 9 with 20 foot swells with breaking seas over the top. It had been blowing a gale for at least a week prior to our roll. Story is coming out again soon. I've been in bad conditions with other yachts but never had anything approaching the behaviour of this one. Four days in Cyclone Kina in the south Pacific was enough to make anyone grip the sphincter but the yacht never put us in trouble.