they construct their own version of the boat. These can
be a weekend to build a coracle to 2 weeks to construct
most of a SCAMP. Following preliminary discussions
with Josh Colvin of Small Craft Advisor Magazine and
designer, John Welsford we are considering holding a
SCAMP camp in the UK at some point in 2017 (probably in the UK summer). John and Howard Rice have
carried out several SCAMP Camps in the United States
and they have been highly successful. They are great opportunities to build this wonderful and increasingly
popular boat under the watchful eye of its designer, John
and the vastly experienced Howard who will have completed his trip through the Drake Passage in a modified
SCAMP by then. By all accounts its an opportunity to
build life long friendships and feedback from some of
the American course builders has been that it is a life
changing experience in many ways that you may not realise at this point.
We will need at least 8 boats to justify the organisation
and the shipping of John from new Zealand and Howard from the USA (those of us who make our living
in boats are a jetsetting bunch!). I am inviting readers
who might be interested to indicate this by email me at
[email protected] The location will probably be
somewhere where we can not only get affordable workshop space and digs but somewhere easily accessible to
ferry ports for mainland Europe, somewhere between
the Humber and the Thames will be most likely. So if
you are based in the UK or in Europe and you fancy
building a SCAMP but haven’t built a boat before, this
could be the ideal opportunity to build your dream and
what’s more, complete it to such a stage that it will be
a doddle finishing it off. We will be publishing further
information on this including how to sell the idea to the
‘Financial Advisor’ in your life!
SEB COULTHARD JOINS BBM
We are delighted to announce that Seb Coulthard
will be becoming a regular contributor to Barnacle
Bill Magazine. For those of you who don’t know him,
Seb is a serving Royal Navy Engineer, Explorer, Boat
Builder and world expert on Shackleton and the voyage of the James Caird. Seb was a member of Tim Jarvis’s 2013 expedition to sail a replica of the Caird, in
period sledging gear, with period food, from Elephant
Island to south Georgia. Seb is currently completing the
J.Caird, the most accurate reproducton of the Caird to
date. Seb’s column will review maritime books, he has
an extensive collection of seamanship manuals, fiction
and non-fiction published over the last 200 years and is
a wellspring of the sort of facts we get all wobbly about
at BBM Towers. Welcome aboard Seb!
Right: Explorer Seb
Coulthard in his 1912
polar exploration
gear (pipe mandatory)
SCAMP CAMP UK 2017?
We’re working with Small Craft
Advisor Magazine, John Welsford and Howard Rice to bring
the highly successful SCAMP
CAMP to the UK in the summer
of 2017. If you are interested
in joining us in building one of
these wonderful we boats (my
mother calls them the West
Highland Terrier of the Seven
seas) then let us know asap.
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