I thought it would be interesting to get some input on these boats. Sounds like at least some were not too pleased with them and if that is the case, then it would probably NOT be a great thing to have them around locally.

I wasn't at the event, but I would love to hear some impressions. The good, the bad and how it could be improved in your opinion.

Even just from the video of the Woman's 500m, you could see that every boat was VERY stern heavy and looked like they were all paddling on an uphill angle towards the bow wave. With the heavier mixed and Men's I can see how this would just be even worse. No wonder lighter teams had an advantage.

These are experienced crews and they would surely have adjusted the seating in practice to try and compensate for this. The fact that it was so pronounced can really only mean that the boats were so badly weighted or rode so badly that it could not be compensated for with the movement of paddlers which is huge.

Add to that the fact that the boats actually taper in from the gunnel rather than drop straight (angled sides rather than flat straight down as I think Dr. Canoe described) and you can just imagine how the deeper any boat sat in the water the wider and larger the drag footprint would have been. If I were a conspiracy theorist (and I am) I would at least be slightly tempted to think that the boats were designed to favor lighter teams.

The specs look pretty much identical to the BUK's.

Swift:http://www.swiftinternational.biz/dragonboats/20man.html

BUK:http://www.dragon.de/184-International-Racing-Boat.html

complain much?

I think it's a design flaw in the boat.

If you look at the front deck where the drum is placed, it's actually a lot lower than most boats. This means that there's a smaller air chamber at the front of the boat, which can then make a boat sit lower in the water.

Also, I've heard from a few people that the owner of Swift is very good friends with Mike Haslam, so Mike pushes Swift boats whenever he can.

LOL, a smaller buoyancy compartment will make the boat sit lower? I don't think so, its the shape of the hull and the weight of boat + crew that will determine that. The hull shape wil be nearly the same as BUKs as both are built to IDBF specs to within certain small tolerances so the Swift may suit smaller crews but it wil only be marginal if at all.
The owner of Swift is friends with Mike Haslam, so you like to make up romours to here others comment, proof please.
The fact is they are perfectly good boats that are a lot cheaper than BUK which can only be a good thing for the sport to get more participants.
I predict a lot of rubbish and very little truth backed up with fact will be posted on this subject!!!

Didn't seem like there was much complaint there.

Just some observations and request for feedback from folks who paddled the boats.

Maybe you don't give a crap about the next boat you race in or buy, but I'm sure some do. This is realistically the most reasonable thread that's been started here in a while.

So if once we get feeback from folks who have actually raced in these boats like Dr. Canoe and "if" they didn't like them then we should all just ignore that as some form of sht-disturbing or something?

What motivations does anyone other than interest in the subject at hand have to trash the boats?

I can pretty much guarentee you that if the paddlers thought they were great they would say so regardless of what was politically correct or not. You actually think anyone would trash them just because the owner know the IDBF Pres?

Your already defending the boats and no one has even said anything other than one observation from a watched video and some speculation about boyancy?

What is your interest in these boats I wonder?

It will be great to get good reasoned feedback on these new boats, don't get me wrong. All manuacturers need good and bad feedback as long as it is constructive so bring it on! I think the red ones are faster than the green ones!

I wasn't defending the boats just stating that all IDBF boats are pretty much the same shape, which a lot of people don't realise, and that buoyancy compartments don't affect how the boat sits, until it is swamped of course!!! It will be great to hear from the swamped crews why/how it happened.

"Didn't seem like there was much complaint there.

Just some observations and request for feedback from folks who paddled the boats.

Maybe you don't give a crap about the next boat you race in or buy, but I'm sure some do. This is realistically the most reasonable thread that's been started here in a while."

While you made some observations, you apparently also came to the conclusion that this boat favors a lighter crew and "so badly weighted", without any first hand knowledge. Its simple enough to ask for opinions and observations from people who actually were in the boat, but the rest of the original post was simple bad-mouthing.

Now you could very well be right, but I hate it when people take an opinion and provide it as a fact. Hey maybe its the conspiracy theorist in you regarding lighter crews. Maybe if I was the same I could say BUK boats unfairly favor heavier crews lol. Point is as long as these boats were fair and built to IDBF specs, then the fastest crews won in these boats, lane bias aside of course.

These boats could be the second coming of the SRS boats, i.e. pretty bad, but lets wait and see if the product really is bad or just different to what we have here.

Agreed September 2 2009, 1:32 PM "Wind" which is why I included links to both the BUK and Swift boats specs pages.

The specs are almost identical so I was trying to elicit feedback to understand why it appears, based on comments on other threads, that they have much different performance characteristics.

SRS boats were bad because they were badly made and fell apart, not because they didn't ride/race well.

My comments are based on comments on other threads here. I drew my initial observations from what I have read and what I saw in the video. I then asked for additional first hand opinions.

Go watch the 500m video and tell me you don't notice the same thing. Maybe you won't and then you can provide your thoughts and we can continue the discussion.

I really think your getting all bent for no apparent reason.

so windydays' email is blair@rowingcenter.com.

Let's look up rowingcenter.com, shall we?

"Rowing Center (UK) Ltd, is the sole importing agent for Swift Racing Boats in the UK and Ireland. Boats are produced by Swift International in China."


And for the record, I believe that Grayson Bourne (a great british former olympian) is the manager for Swift dragonboats.....and I'm not saying the boats aren't good, since I've never tried them.

What happens if you ask for feedback and get a can of worms instead.

Usually when someone goes on the forum to defend a certain product it's because they have a vested interest in it. Witness all the Outrigger boat blow-ups we've had here. All the defenders are usually the area reps.

Look, it's a little silly to speculate on any one person's interest in a particular boat although the rowing center rep can't really provide an unbiased opinion at this point. I'm a Canadian paddler in canoe, OC and dragon boat and part-time corporate coach and have trained and raced in BuK's, Champions, SRS's, PEL's and a whole bunch of non-IDBF licensed boats for 15 years. It is true that the IDBF spec is quite precise so we can make an assumption here that each licensed boat is basically the same exterior shape. What's left is quality and distribution of materials used in construction, methods of construction and finally the design of the interior of the boat which provides a level of comfort and lends itself to strengthen the hull laterally, longitudinally and torsionally. Rigidity is an extremely important contributing element to boat speed and long term durability of the product. A boat that "flexes" allot in all one or all three directions will be slower through the water than a boat with excellent rigidity. This is especially true with a heavy crew which may transfer more stress to the hull structure. Prague was my first time in a Swift boat and I made a practical observation doing something I do in almost every boat I step into for the first time. I won't get into it just yet but I wanted to know if anyone noticed anything related to the structural rigidity of the Swift boat.

Steered them at worlds this year and it was my first time, they are slow ride different then BUK steer well but lacking the rocker. Just my opinion, I would never buy one. They problay paid off the IDBF can be the only way and they wanted to set fast times, face it it is a slow boat

"Even just from the video of the Woman's 500m, you could see that every boat was VERY stern heavy and looked like they were all paddling on an uphill angle towards the bow wave. With the heavier mixed and Men's I can see how this would just be even worse. No wonder lighter teams had an advantage. "

Most of this effect was from the shallow water not the boat itself. Swift boats have turned in faster times on deep water like at the European Club Crews where apparently they used the exact same boats as they did in Prague, by exact I mean the same physical boats.

The Swift boats i'd say have to be slower than the BUK's. They are massively wider than the BUK's, have very flexible hulls and as a result of how wide they are, simple physics should reason that the extra surface area has to create more friction and therefore travel slower through the water.

Paddling in them felt awful, although i'd accept that part of the awful feeling could be attributed to the ridiculously shallow course.

They are the same boats as were raced in Budapest at the ECCC this summer. I heard some say they flexed more than the Buks. Compare the Buk and the Swift gunnels: Buk's are much wider than Swift's. Perhaps the use of a wider piece of wood in the gunnel adds stiffness to the boat. Plus, the wider gunnel may result in water from the bow wave being diverted away whereas the Swift's gunnels had no lip on the outside, which meant that the bow wave could just flow over the gunnel and into the boat - especially with a heavier team riding lower in the water. If Swift is smart, they will take the experience in Budapest and Racice and make some modifications to the boat. If not, then many teams will probably avoid their boats.

Oh, and a girlie comment - the Swift heads are pretty with their long, elegant necks. (But in this sport looks don't count.)

I am in the process of posting up the pictures from the Worlds.
Not an engineer by any means but based upon what I saw and felt (got to Marshall and see and feel the boats) the comment about the lip of the gunnel not being there was true. I saw a few of them swamp and many teams brought out bailers (even though they were not allowed to bring them) and bailed during the 1000 and 2000 meter pieces to keep afloat..lol (see pics when they are posted)
Most teams went out with 18 paddlers and some had 16/4 Ratio to try to lighten the boat
U can see in the pics that water from the bow comes into not only seat one but two as well (makes the timing look worse when the front 2 rows have to sky their recoveries to get over the wake)
There was a lot of water in the boats even coming in from the 500m races but the women and junior boats has signicantly less or no water in them compared to the bigger teams when they returned.
Funny thing is that BUK reps were there showing their boat and when one of the Swifts had problems they went down to the dock to watch the repairs.


http://lethalweaponphoto.smugmug.com

I don't understand how they can be wider than the BUK's unless they do not conform to their own spec's.

If you check the links in the first post they should be within 0.01 (if I remember correctly) width of each other.

Cheers

"I don't understand how they can be wider than the BUK's unless they do not conform to their own spec's. "
Reading comprehension FAIL!
Now go back and read what's wider on BUK.

We paddle in BUK's in Australia all the time and when i'm in row 2 or even row 3 in an Opens boat its pretty squashy. In the Swifts, row 2 is like business class and Row 3 is like sitting in row 5 of a BUK...there is just so much space there.

The comment about the lip of the gunnel not being there i'd 100% agree with, we sat down for our first training session in those boats and realised how low the gunnels were and how tippy the boats were as well.

Been there paddled that. Swifts swamp easy but seem well made otherwise. Not a Buk but what is? Seem better made than Simon River or Pel but who knows long term? SR was quick in the water.

There seems to be a consensus on this thread that the Swift boats are not as swift as the BUK boats for, at least, the average non Asian team. The question is why?

Paddling them we noticed that they sent up a bigger bow wave than the BUKs (even when we tried to run the boat stern heavy) and they were more tippy. I don't think either of these two attributes are due to less rigidity of the hulls - and I think it is unlikely that these new boats would not be rigid - hulls of boats usually become more flexible with age (unlike paddlers).

They apparently have to conform to the IDBF specs - but I could not find on the IDBF website anything more specific than a diagram showing overall length, depth, and spacing of seats. From the BUK and Swift web sites, the length and depth are the same, and the BUK is slightly (9 cm) longer. However, those specs leave a lot of room for variation in hull design.

I know from marathon racing canoes (all of which conform to the USCA specs in regards to length, minimum width at the gunwale, minimum width at the 3" waterline, minimum depth in bow, midship, and stern) that there is tremendous difference in the handling of the boat (including tippiness, and amount of wash produced) based on hull design - and the boat makers are always tweaking their designs (usually in reponse to feedback from paddlers) to get the fastest and best handling boat - some hull designs go better in shallows, some track better, some favour light teams and some favour heavy teams.

So, I think Swift will need to adjust their hull design if they want to compete with BUK in terms of speed (they apparently have them beat in terms of price).

BUKs do compete with bargain dragon boats in price from the factory. But in North America, GWN as the sole distributor of BUKS, take a huge commission on each dragon boat. This results in nearly double the price of cheaper dragonboats like SWIFT, CHAMPION and PEL.

That's true acutally if you look at the price on the Buk web site which is about C$8500 and compare that with the price GWN charges which is like $13k or thereabouts. But if you wanted one or two boats you'd need to factor in the shipping cost which is probably outrageous not to mention the hassle.

"favoured lighter crews" = bs

The Swift boats themselves may not favour lighter crews, but the course the way it was scientifically and factually favoured lighter crews.

The IDBF has more comprehensive boat plans than what appear on the website that are provided to bona fide db manufacturers if they are going to build IDBF-licensed boats. Yes, there is some variation possible in the boats but the hull shape, weight, etc. are carefully detailed.

Are they using the swift boats for 2010 Macau?

That's a good question.

In Vancouver, we have just purchased 4 of the 10 seater Swift boats and they all are stern heavy.

To make it worth racing teams have started putting heavier people in front to try and even out the boat. Otherwise it looks like the front of the boats are going to take off (like an airplane). If the 20 seaters are the same then they will be stern heavy. In addition, the amount of room in the 10 seater is huge compared to a BuK. I am sure you can have 400lb people and still have room leftover.

Definitely they are different than a BuK from my experience. I still prefer BuKs any day except for the price.

The basic hull shape may be to spec but there is a manufacturing material weight distribution issue and a structural rigidity issue with these boats. You only get one chance to make a first immpression with these things (Canada's Simon River really blew it in '06) and I don't think it was 100% bust in Prague but Swift didn't do itself any favors that's for sure.

I can't believe people actually try to trim a boat nose heavy. Certain countries paid the price for it in Prague when they tried to load their boats with heavier guys.

Certain countries paid the price for it in Prague when they tried to load their boats with heavier guys.

Certain countries only had heavier guys, did you get a look at some of the European teams?

Swift boats are much lower volume that a BUK. You need a shorter paddle because the boats sit lower , especially in the men's crews , and the bow wave is noticably different. Any waves on the course and the bow will easily bury into the wave taking on water. Huge problem in the 2K where a number of boats sunk , including Jim's senior men's crew. In addition , the boats wobble much more easily , noticable in the starts.I didn't measure , of course , but the bottom panel seemed narrower than a BUK , and the boats looked like they had a lot more rocker.

I didn't mean load their boat with heavier guys. I meant load it relatively nose heavy with their heavier guys in rows 2 - 5 as opposed to row 5 - 9.

Most people were saying the swift boats stick their noses in the air but I'm sure they are only basing that on looking at the boats when they are under acceleration. Any dragon boat under acceleration will stick its nose in the air. Once they hit race pace 30 - 40 seconds into a race you can see the boat trim out even (so long as you weighted your boat correctly)

Go watch the video's. Even the Women's 500 the boats look like they are going uphill on the bow wave for the ENTIRE race.

These crews aren't stupid. they obviously tried to compensate for that and it still didn't work. Every boat in every video I have seen so far has had it's nose in the air and it's tail in the water.

The bow high thing is the boat trying to climb the huge wave created by the bow wave draggint the bottom in shallow water. That why shallow water is slow unless you pop the boat. Watch the video of the premier mens 200m race. The Chinese and Philipines appear to be running level , they have the their boats popped , which how they did 40sec. for the 200m and why the time difference is 7 or 8 sec. from 1st to 6th instead of the ussual 2sec difference.

So this really is not a suitable boat for club or community teams and festival events where no teams are not able to "pop" the boat. Most festivals are on pretty shallow water.

I wouldn't suggest the swift boats get used even by novice newbies thats how awful they are. IDBF should just mandate all international race meets use BUK's.