New Mrk II Scamp Kit

[Editors]

Hi All,

We're quite pleased with the MKII changes, but part of the decision to make them was that none of them fundamentally changes performance, the hull, or the rig. And most of the changes would be relatively easy to ignore if you prefer the original layout—bulkhead 4 will have a scribe line of the original shape on the forward side, for example.

As far as the manual, we won't be doing a complete rewrite anytime soon, but we are working on some additional addenda pages and will post the release of 1.6 fairly soon. Again, no huge changes, but some good updates.

Thank you to Howard (and other Scampers) for pushing the evolution of the design, and thanks to Brent for pushing us to integrate some changes into the kit.

—Eds

[Timo]

Thanks, eds, Howard, Brent and jhippe. Looking forward to get the updated build manual. It's going to be interesting to see how the experience gained has improved it.

In case of the narrower opening the beauty is in the eye of the sailor, but the safety and convenience reasons and the larger surface for a bulkhead-mounted compass shouldn't be ignored. Still, I think I'll need some time to make the decision between the old and new style bulkheads. Brent, I'm curious to see how your second Scamp with the revised BH4 will look as Shackleton was a beautiful boat already.

Timo

[Brent65]

Timo,

I've chronicled the changes I plan to make here, if you care to read them:

https://buildingshackelton.wordpress.co ... ild-again/

This is at least a good starting point to what I imagine the boat will look like. I'm really striving to make a very seaworthy boat even more seaworthy. I'm also attempting to minimize water ingress upon capsize. This is one of the reasons I'm also going to build a lazarette. Narrowing BH4 and building a lazarette will significantly minimize the amount of water coming into the boat during capsize. Mix this with the benefits of the foot well and I start to get goose bumps. Just my 2 cents.

[Timo]

Brent, I read your great blog post many weeks ago and analysed every single point on it carefully.

Lazarette is an interesting modification as it increases buoyancy and storage space. However, I would like to have the cockpit as spacey as possible. Although humans don't benefit from the space under the tiller, dogs do.



I think I'll adopt most of the mods you have suggested, including the narrower BH4 opening.

You wrote that you are going to make the footwell smaller. If you are four in the boat and there can be eight feet in the footwell, isn't it better to have maximal space there?

[Brent65]

Timo, I wondered about this same question. Why not make the foot well bigger not smaller? Like most things in life, there is a disadvantage of overdoing a good thing. The disadvantages of a larger footwell are:

1- it increases the amount of shippable water during a capsize, exactly opposite of what you want to happen.
2- a larger footwell allows for the free flow of water. Think large amounts of sloshing water disrupting the stability of the small boat.

Howard recommends not making the footwell longer (fore to aft) than about 18" - 18.5". At first this seems too small to me, but after thinking through the negatives of a large footwell, I think Howard's number makes good sense. It's plenty of room for 1-2 sailers, which the boat seems optimized to handle in all conditions. If you sail with 3-4, which the boat can certainly do under milder conditions, two sailers can utilize the footwell while two other sailers sit in front or behind the footwell.

For these reasons, I plan to build Hagoth with a small 18.5" long, yet full width (longitudinal to longitudinal) footwell. I'm not planning to install any pumps or bailers. I'm keeping it uber simple by using a bailing bucket and sponge for all water management issues.

I may build a teak grate to sit in the bottom of my footwell to keep all residual water and sand below the grate. I may use this grate back as a filler board to fit between the seats when sleeping two on the boat and to fill in the footwell when sleeping one on the boat. Still noodling with this design...

Finally, the footwell in Shackleton increased my comfort level more than anything else I did to the boat. I loved the footwell and wouldn't build a Scamp without one.

Just my 2 cents.

[GENE L]

Ok, this is what I was looking for as far as what a Scamp MK II 2.0 would entail. Still reading posts/threads from 2017 forward on the msg board.