Howard wrote:

A great discussion... I'm enjoying ever bit of it!!   nobody pulling their punches, but no ill will.... I wish politics could be this civil ;-)

Howard

I guess tub was an imprecise description on the SCAMP. A Dutch wooden shoe would have been better. The reason for my reaction (..yes, I was way too blunt, sorry, sorry...) was that the article promised so much. Only afterwards did I realise that it was an article written by an enthusiast, not the designer’s description.

My fear was that such words may seduce a family of four, without too much experience, to step aboard and then suddenly find themselves in the water with the boat on its side. That may be good fun for people used to capsizing dinghies, and in temperate waters. In my waters at 59° N, such an incident would not call for laughter and smiles, except on particularly warm days.

Conclusion:
If I were given a SCAMP, I would be grateful and then go sailing in it  -  but before I did that, I would tie a generous ‘fender sausage’ around its gunwale. I hope that this would provide enough buoyancy up there to prevent the SCAMP from parking on its side. If it were still reluctant to self-right, I would add lead to the sides of that shallow keel (10-30kg) until the thing stopped misbehaving.

As for rig, I guess I would go for a gaff cat-rig.

Now I have poured a large dram of turbocharged potatoes (Lysholm Linie-Aquavit) to cure a possible cold (..prevention is the best cure...).

To your health!
Arne

A great discussion... I'm enjoying ever bit of it!!   nobody pulling their punches, but no ill will.... I wish politics could be this civil ;-)

I agree with Arne that Scamp looks like a tub.... it is an attractive  boat functionally if not aesthetically.   To expect a dinghy to self right with zero effort seems unrealistic to me.  I've flipped boats many times, and the boats I've flipped had to be brought to shore and bailed out........ off shore this is not practical.  Scamp looks like an excellent adventure dinghy.  Long Steps is far more attractive, but a LOT more boat.  Neither are light weight for their size.... but that apparently is what it takes.

    Realistically getting junk rig penetration into the dinghy world is a worthy goal.... assuming it is appropriate and beneficial.    Personally, I'd like to see a rig based on Paul's Aerojunk for the simple fact that the sail is ultra simple to build and yields a camber panel.  Making a few doubled battens looks like childs play.  On this scale they could be made from creek bottom willows, and probably serve as well as something more sophisticated, and the sail itself could be made from almost any material that was handy.

Mauro wrote:

 boat in action

https://www.lagazelledessables.fr

https://youtu.be/JFb9d-dMb2w

https://youtu.be/5ghwEApOqUE 

I'd be curious to hear your opinions on this...to my inexperienced eye it looks like the only thing it's missing is a nice junk sail!

Hi Mauro

Mauro,

Thanks for the link. I think that all those three Sable-models, ranging from 2.7 to 3.9m, look good. According to the specifications, they all self-right.
Now, you get some  and you give some with these small craft. The designer has managed to avoid the use of centre-boards. The downside is that the Sables draw 45 to 55cm at the heel, so will not fit everyone.
I don’t know how much they cost, but they are probably not that cheap, if fitted with rig and electric motor.
I bet these vessels would do fine with any (not too tall) sailing rig  -  including a junkrig.

Cheers,
Arne

It`s amazing how much can learn from the JRA forums!

I've been following the dinghy forums closely because I'd like to find a stable and safe one for day sailing with my family on Austrian lakes or near the North Adriatic coast. So I discovered (thanks to you!) the dinghy cruising association and the designs of John Welsford (whose SEI plans I purchased). In my research I found only one unsinkable dinghy, equipped with water ballast, able to right itself after a knock downand to face conditions difficult for other dinghies: the Gazelle des Sables.

These are the addresses of the manufacturer's home page and two videos of the boat in action

https://www.lagazelledessables.fr

https://youtu.be/JFb9d-dMb2w

https://youtu.be/5ghwEApOqUE 

I'd be curious to hear your opinions on this...to my inexperienced eye it looks like the only thing it's missing is a nice junk sail!

Hi Mauro

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The objective fact is that the Champ will not self-right after a knock-down, even after the builders have taken the trouble to build it with water ballast in it. This could give some users serious or even fatal trouble. (Champ = SCAMP).

Arne: That’s nonsense.

Who has claimed it is self-righting? Is this a feature one would expect of a 12’ dinghy?

To suggest it is unsafe or could cause “fatal trouble” is so far from being likely it can only be described as nonsense. Most people seem to think that safety is one of the features of SCAMP and it looks pretty safe to me.

Here is another equally subjective statement: The video presumably referred to, in which the boat appears to sail quite well in conditions which would challenge any small boat, shows that it is difficult to capsize even while sailing on its beam-end with an adult standing to leeward, and it is righted easily by merely pulling down on the off-centre board, from in the water.

(My main concern would be difficulty climbing back in, without a boarding ladder, over those high topsides.)

I know a little bit about righting a dinghy after a capsize, having learned to sail in a 7’ over-canvassed but fully buoyant boat called a “P class”. The sailing clubs used to stage “capsize races” for them, where it was compulsory to capsize, recover and continue at least once on each leg of the race. It was possible to do a 360 degree roll, recover by climbing over the bottom, and sail on without getting one’s feet wet (and sloping cockpit sides ensured no water in the boat when it was righted). If a dinghy has enough buoyancy to do that, it will be stable at 90 degrees and yes, a little effort is required to get that mast back up again out of the water – a small boy or girl in the water would need to climb up and put full weight onto the centreboard to get it to roll back upright. (But no need to call for the ambulance!)

I would surely like to see the design for a dinghy with 200mm of draft and self-righting by means of water ballast (a miracle). That will surely be a safe boat and hopefully will not look too much like a gumboot.

Edit: I just saw Arne's latest post and, of course, the idea of taking a boat like this around Cape Horn is equally nonsensical, and promotion of THAT is certainly questionable. Arne's respect for the sea, and aversion to capsize, is good. Still the implication that this little boat is in some way unsafe is not right, and does need to be countered. SCAMP is not quite "my cup of tea" either, but my evaluation is that it sails quite well and for its size it is exceptionally weatherly.

PS Welsford has also designed micro-cruisers for long distance voyaging, Swaggie for example: not quite my cup of tea either, but it has a ballasted keel and - surprise surprise -  a junk rig.