Charles and Margaret Renold were friends of Arthur Ransome. They discussed with him the plot of Coot Club; but he rejected as "too much like the Swan" Margaret’s idea that the children hunting the Loch Ness monster in the Broads on a homemade raft should find a sunken poacher’s bundle on the riverbed. The Swan and Her Crew was an 1876 book by George Christopher Davies; three boys Frank, Jimmy and Dick spend three weeks cruising the Broads on their distinctive boat the Swan that they have built themselves (CFT p134).