12' Welsford SCAMP (2014) - LUNA

I didn’t really plan on building a boat quite yet… I thought it would be a fun thing to occupy myself once retired. And, I certainly didn’t think a SCAMP was going to be my driving desire!

I’d spent many entertaining hours researching my ideal design(s), planning the workshop, building the wish list of tools, etc, all just good late-night dreaming… Living in a town-house, nothing but a single-car garage and a rudimentary home-handyman toolkit, and about 5 more years of employment required to get a small pension.

In the summer of 2012 I was lurking on the Wooden Boat forum, reading about beach-cruising designs, and, taking in the threads by Howard Rice about a new design by John Welsford. The SCAMP, acronym of Small Craft Advisor Magazine Project and commissioned by the magazine’s editors, was conceived to be the smallest possible boat capable of cruising inshore waters, able go into estuaries and shallows and sit upright when dried out, light and easily powered by sail or oar, and seaworthy enough to withstand challenging conditions.

I’d actually seen hull number one at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival the previous year, chatted with Josh Colvin, editor of Small Craft Advisor, and climbed aboard her. When I first spied the SCAMP I thought it was the ugliest thing ever, but as I got closer I started to understand her shape and suitability to purpose. But it wasn’t for me. Not long and lean and pretty enough.

Late one evening I saw a post about Scamp Camp, a two-week workshop featuring four instructors, including Howard Rice and John Welsford, about to start in a few days at the Northwest Maritime Centre in Port Townsend. I realized this might be a good way of getting into building something, even if it wasn’t my dream boat. I called up and got the last spot in the 10-boat group build, scrounged together some hand tools, loaded a tent and sleeping gear into the car, and changed my life.

In those two weeks I joined a community of wonderful people, made life-long friends, learned how to put together a plywood epoxy boat, and came home with a project that would occupy another 20 months of joyful labour (and a little too much sanding).

LUNA was launched in 2014 and has taken my wife and I on many adventures throughout the length of the Salish Sea, and down the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. She’s taken us on five Barefoot Raids, the first Salish 100, and through huge standing waves, triple-reefed and steadfast, in the Columbia Gorge. During the covid years I logged over 100 days per year aboard her… a twelve foot boat! She’s a pleasure to sail, comfortable at anchor, and an amazing little escape pod that can take a pounding and come up smiling.