Scamp

A January daysail in the Scamp #243 dinghy / pocket cruiser. I used a simple self-steering setup that finally worked perfectly -- but only after the sail was tuned in a simple way that I hadn’t tried before -- Details below, keep reading...

*For other Scamp sailors, and any similar "balanced lug rig" boats:*

Note that the Scamp is designed to sail flat. This requires balancing the sail properly.

The sail seems to balance best on the Scamp with *a very high percentage of the sail behind the mast.*

Before I did that, if the tiller was held straight, the boat tended to drift leeward FAST.

But after tuning the sail (deets below), a straight tiller produced straight sailing. It now holds a course. That means I can lash it using the simple old-school system in the vid above, and the Scamp will sail on its own.

*Here's the sail tuning plan that worked for me. (Btw, always experiment only in safe conditions.)*

1) Adjust the halyard attachment point very far forward. I located it just a few inches above where the leather wrap begins on the spar.

2) Adjust the downhaul attachment point correspondingly forward on the lower spar.

3) Rig the cordage that holds the lower spar snug against the mast so that it too holds the lower spar more aft than forward. (The official Scamp rigging tutorial doesn't accomplish this well at all.) *I'll show this in detail in a future video. It's a key point, and I've not seen any Scamps on YouTube that do it at all, let alone in the way I learned from some Goat Island Skiff rigging discussions online.*

Wind was about 5 to 8 knots. Full sail, no reefs. Works best sailing upwind. Sailing downwind, the Scamp is too beamy, I think, to hold a course without hand-steering.