SCAMP SAILBOAT
& The Red Lantern Fleet

Our own youthful dreams often featured small boats in starring roles. Aboard these simple, stalwart little vessels we'd venture across nebulous bodies of water in search of distant wild shorelines or uncharted islands. We'd land, hike into the interior, and make camp. But always our boats offered refuge from any threat, including summer storms, which we'd wait out beneath our boom tents. At night we'd read sea stories by oil lantern and sleep under a blanket of stars.

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Curiously, never once did these visions include negative images of wrestling with a heavy mast and complex rigging, fussing with a smelly, recalcitrant outboard, or being held off shore by our boat's draft. And even when we pictured the afternoon breeze kicking up whitecaps, never once did the vision include a chilly capsize.

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It was the dream of returning to those simple pleasures that inspired thoughts of S.C.A.M.P. (Small Craft Advisor Magazine Project). That and a persistent desire to go over "there"—that place we often see but are unable to reach. It seems to happen on every cruise. Never mind that we're usually sailing the smallest boat around for miles, we always come upon some ultra-shallow lagoon or serpentine tidal stream that disappears into the reeds, trees and rushes. To get in there—to really commune with nature—a boat needs to be light, shallow and easily propelled—and preferably flat-bottomed in case we decide to stay right though the ebb. —Josh Colvin

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Features: Water Ballast Tank • Offset centerboard • Massive Flotation Stowage Cabin • "Veranda" Overhanging Cabintop • Kickup Rudder Flat Bottom and Skegs for Beaching • Voluminous Stowage Lockers 8' 3" Cockpit Sole Single Berth • Convert Cockpit Seats to Double Berth

Designer: John Welsford

Additional Development: Kees Prins, Brandon Davis, Howard Rice