The Dagger Variants

Dagger 40 - Sea Hawk, lying Turks and Caicos islands

The Fairey Dagger was Alan Burnard's development of the Swordsman 33.

In a similar fashion to the development of the Huntsman 31 from the Huntsman 28, the hull shape had a finer entry providing a drier, softer ride at the slight expense of top speed.

Although the specification for the Dagger was a length of 37 feet, Alan designed a 40 foot hull, the hull tooling for which could be dammed off at 37 feet or moulded the full length. This continued the tradition started with the original Huntress 23 buck which provided hulls from 23 to 29 feet in length and the Huntsman 31 and Spearfish at 31' 4" and 30' respectively.

The Dagger, built in GRP was intended at the outset to be a military boat only, due to the prevailing economic conditions of the time. However, at least one has had a career as a fishing vessel often powered by a couple of Ford Sabre 180 HP engines.

The Dagger styling was to reappear in the 80's as the Al Buraq 37 complete with flying bridge. It was built in Kuwait until Iraq's invasion of that country in 1991.

In the early 2000's a company was setup by several Fairey Owners (with the slogan "The Legend Re-kindled") to create a modern version of the Fairey sports cruiser using the original Dagger hull tooling. Wedded to a new deck and super-structure designed by Alan Burnard; the outcome was the Swordsman 37, built in both aft-cabin and aft-cockpit versions with various engine options and shaft drive.

Soon (as is traditional) a larger boat was required, so the hulls were moulded to full length; the deck moulding extended and the Swordsman 40 was created giving similar accommodation but a larger centre-cockpit. Quite a few Swordsman 40's were fitted with Rolls Royce water jet propulsion one achieving a credible 50 knots! The twin jet arrangement giving excellent close-quarters manoeuvring ability as the boat can be moved sideways!

A smaller model, the Swordsman 30 was later developed from the Tarrant Spearfish tooling. (see the Spear and Spearfish Page) These were fitted with various single engine installations and Hamilton Water Jet propulsion.

Swordsman Marine closed its doors in 2009 due to the latest recession, the tooling was sold to Broom Boats.

Dagger

New Swordsman 37 & 40