Finishing scamp camp

While we were living in our little house, I was the unofficial cook. I really enjoyed coming up with a simple menu for 3 dudes living in the woods. We ate very well; the menu included philly sandwiches, turkey reubens on sweet dark bread. Of course we did easy stuff too, a few days we just had grilled brats.

On Sunday evening, we even had salmon. I bought one big steak and a jar of honey mustard salad dressing and some grilling planks.

Salmon is required in the Pacific NW

Wednesday morning, dad ran down to Gig Harbor with my Jetta to pick up the trailer. The trailer was something I was sweating. Just one of the details I freak out over. In the end, it all worked out well and I thank Dave at GHBoatWorks for his help. I had even purchased the right size ball. I even had a trailer light tester that worked. I remember my dad messing with trailer lights for hours when I was a kid. Those testers are great.

Here is dad painting epoxy on the interior

After Wednesday's steaming then clamping, Thursday morning the carlins had the right shape. When they cooled, they stayed in the curved shape. Now they just needed to be glued in place. And we were out of glue in tubes. So we mixed up some epoxy thickened with colloidal silica (it add strength to the epoxy, but makes it really hard to sand. I think I need a primer post on working with epoxy someday) and glued in the carlins, one on the outside (gunwale) and one on the inside (inwhale). This was sticky messy work. Epoxy is always sticky and messy, but this one I thought was especially bad.

Here she is with the carlins glued in place.

This is a blurry picture, but you can see better what has been done.

closer

The deck will sit directly on top of the carlins. I may add some strengtheners under there, but I'll worry about that later.
And another shot from the stern.

The sole is in the bottom.

Once we got that done, we knew we wanted to load her on the trailer tomorrow, so we scrambled to put a coat of epoxy on the exterior, just for protection. She was going to be driven for a couple hours and we didn't want any rock chips or other unmentionables against the soft wood.

Friday morning, our only job was to get the boats loaded on the trailers. Wow, after an intense 2 weeks, we were done. I took lots of pictures here, as did everyone. I think we were all proud parents.

Our boat and Peter's boat, Silver Bars (great name)

Quincy

Loading her onto the trailer didn't take very long. 4 people could easily lift a boat with a pair of 2x4s slung underneath. The hard part was that the trailer we had was meant for a boat with skegs. We didn't have skegs yet, so we had to prop her up at the stern. But once we got that done, she was travel worthy.

I couldn't resist the star shots below. A couple years ago, I had admired a scamp sitting on the mariner star at NWMC. Now my own boat was setting there. Granted, she wasn't seaworthy yet, but there she was.
I'll have to go back and get the same shot when she is done. Whenever that might be.

NMWC star

Dad and Peter

And with that, our camp was over. It was sad. I felt like boot camp was over; these people with whom I just spent 2 weeks were going to scatter and probably not see each other again. I liked everyone at camp and it was sad to head out. It had actually been a draining morning getting her loaded and saying goodbyes.

Quincy was able to run with Howard and Melissa to Melissa's home so he got to spend some extra time with Howard and he quite enjoyed it. I was glad he was able to go.

He got back to PT just in time to meet dad and I at a japanese place for lunch.

Dad had a great time with his chopsticks.

joy and chopsticks

I have only heard from a couple people at that camp on the SCAMP message board. I was able to see Melissa and John Welsford at the Wooden Boat Festival a few weeks later, but that's another story.

Week 2 of Scamp Camp

Week 2 of the scamp camp was a bit hectic. We had only 4 more days plus some time on Friday to load the boat onto trailers and get out of the NWMC. The Wooden Boat festival was 3 weeks away and they needed the space.

Monday we added on the 2nd plank. Adding the planks was actually quite tricky and required quite a few people. The planks stretch around the boat and have to touch each rib. Normally you'd use small screws into the bulkhead ribs, but we had an 18ga pin nailer (battery operated) that was nearly perfect. Just be sure to use stainless steel nails in case one ever is accidentally exposed.

Quincy

Tuesday we had a special treat. We went up to the CNC place that had cut our kits. Computer numerically controlled machines are essentially a decently large rotary router head mounted on a really big 3 (or 5) axis machine. The router head moves in the x & y direction, and it can also move up and down on the z axis. Since it's all computer controlled, the operator just has to tell it how fine to make each cut; if you use a 1/16" router bit, then you'll have very fine control over all your cuts but large pieces will take awhile. If you use 1/2" bit you'll chow through material faster. Some machines even have auto-chucks to chuck different size bits. We spent some time there in the afternoon and it was really neat. We also picked up our rudder and centerboard halves. They were mirror images of each other and roughly cut.
Unfortunately, I didn't get raw pictures of the rudder and centerboard. I'll have a post on those later. (As of this writing, I'm still trying to catch up with this blog - I feel I need to write up what we've done, before I go into what we're doing currently.)

By the end of Tuesday, we had placed the third and final plank.
We still have a lot to do though, including putting on gunwhales and inwhales.

Quincy

Wednesday, we got out the steamer. The gunwales and inwhales are made of yellow cedar 20mm x 30mm. Scott bought a big 13 foot chunk about 4"x5" or so and ripped it down. The yellow cedar piece was clear and beautiful so the resultant beams were very nice. It even smelled nice.

3/4 view

The standard view before the gunwales

And another view.

In between planking, we spent a lot of time cutting and installing cleats. The cleats hold up the seats and generally provide structure. In the picture below you can see all the cleats attached. They're also 20x30mm yellow cedar. You can also see some fillets in various places.

Cleats.

Scott fired up the steamer after lunch. It was a modified 15 gallon water heater. (I'm sure the safety mechanism was completely left in place and the thing was perfectly safe. Uh huh.)
It took a long time to get up it's steam up. Scott would race in with a carlin in gloved hands (though they weren't really that hot) and place it on the boat. We'd screw in the aft end and clamp it up along the sides of the boat. We did two per each side of the boat. But we didn't fix them permanently. That came on Thursday when we moved one of the pairs to the inwhale.
In the below picture, you can see the 2 carlins clamped to the boat.

carlins clamped at the gunwale

To be continued.

Scamp Camp - The rest of week 1

Unfortunately, I'm writing this a few weeks on from camp.
I've forgotten a lot of the day-to-day details, so we'll cover the rest of week 1 of the camp in 1 post. Week 2 of the camp will probably be another post. Then we'll get down to the build steps I'm doing, which is why I really started the blog.

On day 2, we had more pieces to fiberglass for the centerboard trunk. We also did some cleanup of the interior of the hull.

End of Day 2

 I think we also did our first fillet. A fillet is a small u-shaped bead of thickened epoxy that runs between 2 pieces of wood. They are a real trick to get correct. You need clean up your mess before it sets up, otherwise you have to sand it.

On Wednesday, we really started to make her look like a boat. In the below picture, you can see that we've put in the interior structure. The seat tops are on top of the seats but not glued in. The interior structure was compared to an egg carton by the designer. I think it's more like an old-time wooden coke flat; all the pieces interlock and make a very rigid structure. In the below picture, we had a lot of glue to wrangle into the right places.

Structure

Thursday of the first week was more enhancements to the internal structure. We glued on the stern and the bow. You can't see the bow in the below picture. You can see the struts that are used to keep the front pieces straight. You can also see the newly added bulkhead 3 with the vertical slot. That is the mast box. The mast goes far enough down into the structure of the boat that stays are not needed.

Stern and bow glued.

In case you are wondering, no, I don't have a mast, nor do I have any of the rigging. I'll have to purchase all of that.

Somewhere in these days, we talked about the ballast tank and the storage wells under the sole. The ballast tank is a small area just aft of bulkhead 5 (which is aft of bulkhead 4). You seal it very well and put a drain plug in the bottom of the boat. Then when you put her in the water, you take the drain plug out and let that tank fill up with water. The water will weigh about 180 lbs. When you put her on the trailer, you drain it out.
I'm going to add 2 or 3 AGM batteries instead of water ballast. I'll also add a small trolling motor off the stern. Dave at Gig Harbor Boatworks has one that I'd like to buy.

Friday, we put on the garboard, which is the lowest of the planks for the side. The above picture was actually from Friday.
Here's a picture of me with her.
You can clearly see bulkhead 1 (the flat pram bow), B2, then me, then B4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 is the transom. The seats will eventually go on top of the bulkheads and the center area will be a foot well. I'll likely make some changes to the foot well to make it deeper in one area.

Proud

Since we are boat number 2 in the maritime center, you can see our boat along with 4 others being worked. There is 1 more not visible.

The weekend turned out to be a blast. We spent quite a bit of time on the water with 11 scamps in Mystery Bay. It was called the Red Lantern Rally because of the lantern logo for the scamp.

Before I go into that, I want to talk about how much fun we had this week. We'd work from 0800 to around 1730 or so, then we'd reluctantly pack up and head for home. We'd have a nice supper and discuss what we were going to do tomorrow or talk about how the day went. The evenings were very relaxing and a lot of fun. We had a few more grocery runs, but nothing like that first night. We ate out a few times, but mostly just had nice evenings at home.
In the mornings, dad would get up first and make sandwiches for the day. That meant we could enjoy the view from Port Townsend and have lunch and discuss. That was a nice perk.
And Quincy discovered a cache of Nicholas Cage movies in our rental house. I think he watched 3 of them. He also found a new love for the B-52's Rock Lobster.

Scamp Camp - first day and cast of characters

We knew we'd be in the NW Maritime Center. And we knew that our base jig would be set up for us.
That's about it.

We arrived at 8:00AM ready to go. We found our jig and discovered there were 6 boats to be built in the NWMC for the next 2 weeks.

We also got the plans printed out on large plotter paper. Our hull number was 284, hence the name of the blog.

We were under the tutelage of:

• Howard Rice - Experienced small boat sailor
• John Welsford - The designer of the Scamp and small boat builder.
• Scott Jones - the master builder at The NW School of Wooden Boat Building.

I had met Howard a couple years before; I remembered him. He shook his head like he remembered me from that short conversation.
These were the people with whom we'd spend the next 2 weeks.

• Peter; Texas
• Vinny; Cape Cod, MA
• Sergei and his son, OR
• Melissa; local Port Townsend
• John; Wyoming
• Joe; CA

We had a quick meet & greet, but everyone was excited to start the build. The first day, we were fiberglassing up some pieces.
We also talked a bit about safety in the shop. Important.

Dad in front of our jig

Dad and Quincy glassing up part of the centerboard trunk.

The hull is on the jig and epoxied

I resolved to take a picture each day from the same perspective in the hope that I could build a time lapse. I have all those pictures, we'll see if I can get the time lapse done.

For lunch that day, Quincy and I walked over to the local thai joint and had good food, but we should have gotten the special. Dad had peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. Howard and John had some chalk talks during lunch time. In the coming days, we'd get into a nice routine of sandwiches looking out over the PT harbor.

Scamp Camp - preparations

I knew August was going to be hectic.

I had spent July preparing; I added a trailer hitch and light harness to my Jetta. I added a light harness to the other vehicle because I really didn't know which one we'd take to Port Townsend. I bought as many boat building tools and supplies as I reasonably could. The camp attendees all got a list of tools to bring and everyone who has ever seen my garage knows that I don't mind buying tools.

I had a big pile of boxes full of tools, rubber gloves, brushes, rollers, etc. in my garage ready to be packed into the car.

I had some business travel in early August that always takes me away for a week. Quincy was going to join me for a few days and fly home with me on Sunday 10.aug. We'd have to pick up my dad at the airport. Then we could actually make it to scamp camp, which started at 8:00AM Monday.

Quincy and my flight was scheduled to  arrive Sunday at 12:30PM. Dad had arrived around 9:30 and was waiting for us at the airport.

We went home where Nancy had made us a nice lunch.

I was fussing about our trip up to Port Townsend. I had to repack my clothing and gear, then I had to fit 3 full size humans, 3 kayaks (2 17 foot kayaks and an Oru), a tent and sleeping bag, and all the boat building supplies that I had collected into my little Jetta.

Tight fit.

I wish I had a picture of the Jetta totally loaded down. The 17 foot kayaks on top of the 13 foot car look funny anyway, now put 500lbs of dude and 100lbs of tool in it and it was riding low.

But we shoved it all in there. Luckily we had the kayaks; we  put a lot of supplies in the hatches. We knew we needed groceries, but didn't have much extra room and decided we'd deal with it later. Once it was all together, we gave hugs and finally took off mid afternoon.

The drive up was uneventful but very pretty, as is the pacific northwest is during summer. And ferry rides are always fun. Good company and good discussions on the ride.

The biggest problem was that we all got hungry about 6:30. We ended up taking a slightly slower backroad in to Port Townsend and since it was a Sunday night, many places were closed in the small towns on the way. We were getting grumpy when we finally spied a local pizza joint. Perfect!

We unfolded out out of the Jetta (man, that car hasn't gotten any bigger in the 11 years I've owed it) and demolished a very good pizza.

Then, since I was a bit gruntled from the food, I said "Hey, there's a QFC just back there. Let's stop in there for 5 minutes and get some supplies. We'll need breakfast cereal, milk, peanut butter, bread, bagels, cream cheese. No more than 5 minutes."

Quincy took that as a challenge.

We all raced into the grocery store, and banged through the aisles to get everything we needed. For some reason, they hid the cream cheese from us, but we powered through and found it. We really were back out of that store after 5 minutes. It was the best kind of power shopping. I think dad was a bit bewildered; he's racing around in a completely new store along with a pair of wild-eyed nerds cracking jokes (as Quincy and I are wont to do). And to top it all off, in the parking lot was a fortune teller's wagon, brightly colored and gaudy. 

Curiously enough, the epic 5 minute shopping trip story was one of the first stories Quincy unleashed when we got back. It really was hilarious.

We arrived at our little house in the forest a bit before 8:00. It was perfect. Not big, but it had everything we needed and it was in a nice area. (Although we were occasionally downwind of the pulp plant settling ponds. Let's just say sometimes Port Townsend can be odiferous.)

We did some unpacking and repacking of the car because we really didn't know what to expect the next day.

Then we crashed. It had been an exciting and stressful day. Tomorrow we were going to start something completely new and we didn't know what to expect. Challenge accepted.

Beginnings

This whole mess started a few years ago.

We had a family reunion of sorts and spent some time in Port Townsend. We walked past the Northwest Maritime Center and there were some busy people in there hammering and sanding.
That's always interesting to me since I love working with my hands, but out back, setting on the maritime star was a beautiful sight.

She was a chubby, cute little microcruiser of a sailboat. I fell in love instantly.

I went back inside and spoke to someone. I told the man I thought that was a cute little boat.
He was polite, but clearly somewhat put out that I just called a boat merely "cute" when it was clearly functional, shapely and elegant. He told me indeed the folks hammering away were building that little boat and gave me a flyer. It was a Scamp.
We chatted a bit more and I moved on, but that little boat sat in my head for a long time.

A year later, my wife bought me a membership to the NW Maritime Center. She's always looking for projects for me. I think she underestimates my OCD and thinks that when I have a project, she'll still be able to interact with me. Or maybe she actually has a good gauge on my OCD and planned it to her advantage.

Spring 2014 happened and I still had that NWMC membership and no project on my hands. My earlier attempt at converting a car to battery electric power had been dropped due to an ineffective cost structure.

While perusing the NWMaritime Center site, I saw that there would be a SCAMP camp in August. I immediately started looking into it. An opportunity to build my own sailboat, start a long term project, take some time off from work, and most importantly to have my own sailboat; that was all pretty tempting.

I'm not exactly a stranger to the water or to boat building; I built a Pygmy kayak in 2007. It was a fabulous experience and it's been a solid boat that I find under my ass on most weekends in the summer. My dad had a 16' Snipe while I was growing up and I quite enjoyed the time I spent with her.

The flyer said that during scamp camp, we would build the boat with the designer of the boat and an experienced sailor. That experienced sailor was, of course, the man with whom I spoke that first day, Howard Rice. He had even pointed to a gentleman and said he was the designer, John Welsford.

All the facts added up. I could build a boat. I really could. I'd have quite the experience and get a boat out of the deal.

I just needed some help.

So I called my dad and invited him out to Port Townsend in August. I also invited my 18 year old son to the build.

After some wrangling, we got it set up. We paid our tuition, purchased the boat kit and rented a house in Port Townsend.

We were all set; three generations ready to take on a major project that we most assuredly did not understand as well we should.

This blog will tell the story.