Red Lantern Rally

The Red Lantern Rally had been scheduled since January 2014. It was intended to be the weekend between weeks of the camp.

We heard that there were going to be 11 scamps in the same place. That's pretty impressive considering that less than 300 kits have been sold and probably only about 1/3 of those have been built. Josh keeps a database of all the scamps.

The Red Lantern Rally happened at Mystery Bay, which is about a 15 minute drive from Port Townsend past Port Hadlock and the School of wooden boat building. It's a fabulous little bay with calm water and a small dock.

The big news of the day was the rescue system that has been worked out.

I got my Oru out and paddled that for a little while, but I also had my Pygmy boat and the Mariner kayak that I really like.

But for us, the best part of the day was just sailing the scamps.
Here is dad with Mike, and Tor. He's very happy.

Dad, Mike and Tor

And as a bonus, Quincy got some dubious credit. Howard started a silly little race. Everyone had to eat a saltine cracker, then whistle. When they were done with that, they could set sail. The course was out to a buoy, then over to the grocery store where we had to buy ice cream then back to the beach. I paired up with Dave of Gig Harbor Boatworks. We did very well, we actually landed first, but we had the wrong type of ice cream. Dad came in second (the photo above), but they were disqualified also.
The reason for the disqualification was Quincy; in a brilliant interpretation of the rules, he ran over to the store and threw us ice cream. Unfortunately Howard actually insisted that the ice cream be Snoqualmie ice cream.
Howard did give credit to Quincy. Scamp has built up a lexicon of terms that aren't necessarily used on other boats. He coined the term, "pulling a quince", which means everyone gets to bend the rules. It was a real honor for Quin and a lot of fun.

Joe (brown shirt) Welsford (striped blue), Howard and Quincy.

A good time was had by all and the weather was beautiful.
As a bonus, Nancy showed up and we got to spend some time together even if it was just a quick drive back into Port Townsend.

The next morning, the Rally was still happening, but we didn't spend a lot of time there. Dad and I went for a paddle in Port Townsend and we just generally had a relaxing day in the beautiful weather of Port Townsend.

Here's a shot of some of the scamps:

One more character I'd like to mention; I can't believe I forgot. Simeon built Noddy, hull #11 in the first Scamp camp. He's a really nice guy and he hung around quite a bit that first week. He'd walk over and look inside the boat and make a "Hmm" noise. That noise was very ambiguous, but usually I'd ask him about it and he'd say something encouraging. I think he approved. Later, during the Wooden Boat Festival, I spent 3 hours with him on his boat. Great guy and I wish him the best.

next: Week 2 and finishing camp.