The vessel which portrayed the boat "Swallow" was sold at auction in April of 2010 to a group of fans. It went under restoration and is now fit for sailing again and is available for boating trips.
This children's picture was financed by presenter and executive producer Nat Cohen of English production house EMI Films who had previously produced another family film, The Railway Children (1970), and were hoping to repeat that picture's box-office success with this movie.
The scenes on and of the train were filmed on the "Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway" - a heritage rail reopened in 1973, the same year that filming took place.
The body of water seen in the movie where the sailboats go sailing is in the famous Lake District in the Lake District National Park of English county Cumbria. This is the same setting and location that feature in Arthur Ransome's source 1930 novel.
According to Sophie Neville, Ronald Fraser was drunk while making the film and a crew member pretended to be the producer to seduce women.