Swanson 40 Pilothouse

And between these two boat designers, many Australians have done exactly that - bought a Swanson yacht and sailed and sailed and sailed off into the sunset.

What makes a Swanson yacht so dependable is something which, try as you may, you can't easily pin down.

Perhaps it has something to do with its seaworthiness, solid construction, good amount of ballast and moderate to high displacement.

There's also a pilothouse, a cutter rig and, of course, that signature canoe-stern which makes the boat surf before giant Pacific rollers with all the poise of Nat Young.

Thus, sift through the pages of a good boat-buying bible such as this and you will find a good many of Ron and Jim's honest cruising yachts calling from betwixt the pages.

Some may be 20 years young and still going strong.  Others, mere pups eager to cover as many miles as their forebears.

Nothing much has changed with the Swanson 40.

It's a cruising classic bearing all the hallmarks of its designer.  It still promises a path to adventure for those who have the time and the inclination to take a look-see at what's hiding over the horizon, who plan to come back home in one piece one day.

Indeed, there is a strong argument against making change for change's sake.  Why alter a proven design when the ocean's surface is still as it has always been?  Why change for the sake of a few more knots and a lot more risk?  Why race around the world when, after all, this is the cruising life?

The Swanson 40 is a refined fibreglass interpretation of the early timber Mermaid class yachts.

Foam, one of the best-known Mermaid boats, was set up for single-handed sailing and, in the late-1960s, cruised extensively throughout the Pacific with an intrepid Aussie called Keith Newland aboard.  Foam met its end in Hawaii, after a salvage effort went awry and the boat was sculldragged over a coral reef.

I guess it takes that much to keep a good Swanson down.

As 'father' Jim puts it, the Swanson 40 is "a classic pilothouse cutter - sort of the ideal size for a couple or a small family to cruise on. It has a moderate displacement - not really that heavy - and a couple on their own would find it perfect".

"In this boat, you could sail around the world, comfortable and dry - I hate being wet.

"The only real changes we made have been a skeg-hung rudder, whereas the old boat had a rudder post. And we have also increased the ballast a bit," he explains.

Because of the three-quarter-sized rather than full keel, the hull now tracks better and is less inclined to round-up than the original.

The owner of this Swanson 40, Silver Swan, bought it because he said the pilothouse offered good protection, the boat is Australian-made, and it isn't too big for he and his wife to handle.

Which is exactly what the designer intended it to be.

And so it is, with the ambition of sailing around the world but none of the time to do it, that I board the Swanson 40 in Pittwater.

The clouds are rolling in from the south, the sky heavy as lead, a few spits of rain bring out the wet-weather gear, but who's worried?

Silver Swan was set up for a couple to cruise merrily and safely and perhaps reach further afield than the owner's current limit of Bundaberg.

All lines and sheets lead aft to the winches within arm's reach of the deep cockpit.
Both the yankee and the staysail (what good cruising boat hasn't a cutter rig?) had tried-and-tested Profurl roller-furling systems, as did the main.

None of the winches were hydraulic push-button models though, the owner preferring to keep the boat as simple as possible.  However, I felt the furling system for the main could be better handled by a push-button winch.

The manual one on the mast caught the staysail during tacks, not that you are meant to tack as often with staysail as we did about the calms of the estuary.  Future Marine, the boat's builder in Gosford, makes a strong boat.  This was the second Swanson 40, with number three in the factory about to receive a different deck plan.

Each boat takes up to seven months to build, during which time the factory actually encourages the owners to visit, get involved, watch their baby (if not their waterborne home) being born.

Construction is glass with a balsa core, with solid glass bearers, internal lead ballast and integrity which you won't see, such as the way the bulkheads are fitted.  Each one has a series of holes drilled through it, so the glass oozes through and it is pinned in place forever more.  Amen.

The hull is, says its builders, ready to go into survey.  There's nothing more required - it's tough as nails.

But every layout is different and, they will tell you, customised to suit the owner's tastes.
Our Swanson 40 had a nice big open-plan lay-out and very few silly frilly bits for show.  The glasswork was solid, the mouldings fair, the teak-laid floor and the joinery traditional, and everywhere headroom was a high point.

The forepeak featured a double V-shaped berth, two hanging lockers, a fluffy front-runner on the walls, lots of space above the bed (and beside it a hatch for light), a none-too-pretentious patterned fabric for the cushion covers, shelves for personal effects, and a nice ship's door which locks without rattling.

That's important when you're on the watch system and sleep counts more than the football scores.

The saloon isn't glitzy, with teak and holey flooring and plenty of elbow space.  On the starboard side is a dinette - a teak table with an inlaid wooden swan insignia - which can seat four people and has high-backed upholstery that forces only a suck of the tummy to get around the keel-stepped mast base.

Again, the walls are lined with front-runner and there's some teak panelling, while the headliner is made from white panels of fibreglass.

Underfloor, the water tank is on the centreline - drinking water aft, with both electric and foot pumps - and the fuel is portside.

The engine was a good, strong, four-cylinder 50hp Volvo.

Opposite the dinette is a lounge which would make a useful pipe-cot berth.

The one and only separate head is aft of it.

It has just enough room to sit on the loo, a sink and hand-held hot and cold shower.
It's nothing to rave about, but the views are good.

The galley opposite is not so big that you'll be thrown around in a seaway.

There are ample U-shaped benches, a two-burner metho stove, a big pantry, a deep 12V fridge, pressured hot and cold water - in other words, enough stuff to whip-up a decent fresh fish curry, I surmised.

Of course, the beauty about a pilothouse is the fact you can steer and sit inside without getting wet.

Silver Swan had headroom and seating for four, plus a helm station with a wooden wheel linked to hydraulic steering, and even a double berth.

The nav station to port was huge, big enough to sprawl out one of those jumbo weekend crosswords which run the depth of a broadsheet newspaper and still read all the clues -
and all the time the control panel, radios, speed and temp gauges could still be read!  Light and fresh air flooded through the safety-glass windows and especially through the centre-opening section which gave a bracing degree of airflow.

Two benches flank the pilothouse, and the one to port converts to a double berth by accessing the space which hides beneath the bulwarks.  Storage space was a bit light on.

Though it exists beneath and behind each berth and lounge, the recesses aren't exactly huge.
Similarly, the few lockers in the cockpit - one taken up as an icebox - aren't that big.  The outboard for the tender was stowed in a bow locker beside the anchor locker where perhaps saltwater intrusion could be a problem in a big headsea.

The rain eased and suddenly the outside world became a much better place to be.
The boat has high stanchions, pushpit rails and safety lines, deck rails and wide bulwarks so you can easily skip around to the bow in a sea in safety.

Only the shrouds take some ducking and weaving to get past.

The cockpit is a deep well, but you can see okay to the bow through the open companionway and the pilothouse windows or along the gunwales if you're steering and standing.

The fact that there were four drink-holders built into the steering binnacle didn't go unnoticed.

Nor did the fact that it was a nice big steering wheel and that there were places to lock your feet into when the boat heels over.

Much to my delight, this traditional 40-footer was livelier than I expected.  In 15kts (28kmh) of wind, we cruised at 6kts (11kmh), which isn't far off boat-speed.  Someone took over and got it to 7.7kts (14kmh) - exactly the kind of speed which will swiftly carry you across oceans without machines.

The main was reasonably powerful and the yankee, too.

The latter helps drive the boat around in the tacks, while we set the staysail for the photos.
A heavily-staid, twin-spreader rig, the mast looks as defiant as a lone tree on a windswept headland.

The two-speed winches (60s and 35s) seemed easy enough for a sailor's wife to grind.
And with a preventer to stop dangerous gybing, you won't mind moving out of the tubby cockpit to go forward to search for land ahoy.

Come rain, hail or shine, the Swanson 40 will get you there safely.

It took little effort to discover the wilds of Pittwater.  Given a few more hours I would have been halfway up the coast.  It's that kind of yacht - inciting a dangerous dose of wanderlust.