The Swallowboats waterballast system in the Sea- and BayRaiders, how do you use it in practice? Do you use it often? When? Any flaws?

In the SeaRaider, we use it all the time. It has been interesting to figure out what works better for a given course and strength of wind, reefing or unreefing, and/or ballast water in or out. Quite a lot of entirely new options.
The only situation when I always have the tank full as a rule, is when my wife is aboard, or when we have children or newbies with us. In all other cases it greatly depends on the course we sail. Tacking up in a stiff breeze we rather use one reef first, and if that is not enough, we also fill the tank, through the scooping inlet bailer, takes about three minutes. Going reaching and to downwind, we empty the tank through opening the self-bailers, emptying takes about 5 minutes with a good wind and speed.
With the tank empty we raise the c/board and with good wind (F4-5) she then planes or surfs.
Before we come to the end of the downwind journey, we fill up again and she just sinks in and calms down. Jybing in high winds is not an issue with the tank full.
I must say it is a huge comfort to know that at any time it just takes opening the starboard round hatch by the helmsmans seat and flipping the scooping bailer open to make the boat calm down and uncapsizable.

Flaws.
At first we often experienced problems with the round hatches that came with the new boat, they were too stiff or even blocked. Matt has changed the supplier since, and now we have no more problems there.
Pumping a full tank out with the bailing pump also provided is tiring, we rather use the 2.5 HP engine to let the water be sucked out in about five minutes.
We experimented with the \\\'Supersuck\\\' bailers, they really suck best, but they do not have a non-return flap. Today we have all Elvstrom style wedge bailers (Andersen brand) and they work without problems from around 4 knots up.

All in all, I would not want to miss the water ballast system again. Much greater versatility of the boat, peace of mind in all situations, and it has been the entry ticket for my wife to come along and totally enjoy the sail.

Claus