The Handover process is something to look forward to. You get to feel very connected to the friendly team that built your boat. Lola does an excellent job of explaining everything, showing, training and passing on top tips. For example, we learned an easy peasy way of lowering the mast into your forearms using the jib halyard in the left hand as a brake – which Anna loved. We drove away with complete confidence in our boat and believing we were already two or three launches and recoveries up the learning curve. We’d recommend you don’t treat your handover as a hit-and-run mission. (At 20mph it’s not exactly a run anyway.)
We spent the previous night in the superb Albion Hotel, a former nautical warehouse on the river with a great pizza pub next door. Cardigan is a very characterful historic market town, well worth a walkabout with many independent (in all senses) shops and places to eat and drink. Small is beautiful here – and you might feel, as we did, that Swallow seem to have captured and bottled some of the Celtic charm of Cardigan and the Teifi in their wonderful boats. Sorry Matt, yachts. – Chris & Anna Forrest


















































