Build your own Scamp with John Welsford himself!

Big news in the SCAMP world. The Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding is launching a very special "Build a SCAMP" course this summer (August 6th) here in Port Townsend, WA.

What will make the two-week-long course especially notable is that the instructor is SCAMP designer, John Welsford, who is flying in from New Zealand especially to teach 12 students to build 12 SCAMPs.

If that wasnt enough, the NWSWBB has partnered with the Northwest Maritime Center on the course, so all 12 SCAMPs will be built at the NW Maritime facility down on the water in Port Townsend—the birthplace of SCAMP #1.

Students will spend two weeks with John Welsford and two shop assistants building their own SCAMP from the Small Craft Advisor kit made by Turnpoint Design. Students can trailer home their mostly completed SCAMP at the end of two weeks, or opt to extend their stay for as long as two additional weeks.

Details are just being finalized. For more information check the SCA magazine message board or contact the NWSWBB at: (360) 385-4948 or http://www.nwboatschool.org

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Have You Licensed Your Canoe or Kayak Yet

TheStar Boaters fear they’ll be up a creek without a $50 licence

The above article refers to an issue thats recently come up in the Canadian paddling community, Transport Canadas new regulations that seem to require the licensing of canoes & kayaks.

This item also appeared in todays CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/02/25/ottawa-canoe-rules.html

Ive been aware of the issue for well over a month now, and have resisted blogging about it, primarily because I was waiting to see what it all means, and hoping for clarification of several points. To that end I have been reading the information put out by Paddle Canada, and PaddlingInstructor.com, as well as following closely (but not getting mired into) the conversations at Canadian Canoe Routes and West Coast Paddler.

These rules are confusing, and there has been a great deal of confusion of how these rules will affect local paddling clubs (like the SCC), Guides, Scouts, schools, and other organisations that are important for introducing canoeing and kayaking to new paddlers.

As an instructor, its not not the end of the world for me. As someone who occasionally volunteers to take the less experienced out on the water in canoe and kayak, this could be a very big deal. Ive been hesitant to take a stance while Ive been trying to figure out what it all means. However, Im more and more of the opinion that this is a bad thing for individual paddlers, and for paddling culture in Canada.

During discussions of these new rules it gets brought up that it will be impossible to enforce. That may be, but they dont need to enforce it at all for it to be very important. It suddenly becomes important when something bad happens on a trip, course or minor excursion, and you are deemed to be a leader.

The good thing here is that they perhaps seem to be backtracking a bit, based on the comments from Chuck Strahl, Federal Transport Minister as reported in the above CBC article.

So, if you paddle, especially if you take others paddling, look into this and form an opinion for yourself. Keep an eye on how this is progressing and if your not satisfied or if this has you worried, consider writing a letter expressing your concern to your elected representatives. Also, spread the word. I think very few of us even know about these regulations at the moment, though the news is spreading.

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Obtaining Plans for Your S S Boat

All plans for boats designed by Sparkman & Stephens from design numbers 1 - 2,600 are in storage at Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. They are archived in a purpose built, museum quality building that protects them from fluctuations in temperature and humidity and from fire.

Designs generated after design number 2,600 were generally done using CAD (computer aided design) and are kept on our file server.

Plans for designs 1 - 2,600 must be obtained from Mystic Seaport Museum. To obtain plans for your boat please click here to access the Mystic Seaport webpage regarding the S&S plan collection which explains the process, the costs involved and contact information. You are welcome to email us to obtain a list of available plans for your boat. Please click here to email us.

We still maintain the intellectual property on all of the plans in the collection but Mystic Seaport handles any actual plan reproduction. For information on yacht construction using existing designs and royalty payments please click here.

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Sign Our Guest Book and or Register Your Yacht

We would like to hear from you. Please sign our new guest book, comment, discuss and/or register your Sparkman & Stephens Yacht. From this we will build a database of the yachts and their current locations.

Data will only be used to build our database. Numerous readers have introduced themselves as owners of S&S yachts through either the Comments field for a particular posting or through a direct email to us. We hope this is a simpler way to let us know where the S&S fleet is worldwide.

The database we will construct will be accessible by blog readers and will list yachts by LOA, design number, year, name and location. The database will not include the owners name nor contact information. For example:
Sailboats 40-60ft LOA
45-4", 125, Falcon, Castine, ME
47-9", 1976, Puffin, Thomaston, ME

And yachts that we know have been destroyed such as:
Sailboats 40-60ft LOA
50-3", 1534, Diogenes
55-8", 85, Avanti

Blog readers who wish to sign our guest book are welcome to do so. It is hoped this is a way blog readers can comment and respond to each other in a much easier format than using the Comments field within each blog posting.

All posts will be reviewed prior to going live. Please allow up to 24 hours to see your post. Thank you.

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