Sign Our Guest Book and or Register Your Yacht

We would like to hear from you. Please sign our new guest book, comment, discuss and/or register your Sparkman & Stephens Yacht. From this we will build a database of the yachts and their current locations.

Data will only be used to build our database. Numerous readers have introduced themselves as owners of S&S yachts through either the Comments field for a particular posting or through a direct email to us. We hope this is a simpler way to let us know where the S&S fleet is worldwide.

The database we will construct will be accessible by blog readers and will list yachts by LOA, design number, year, name and location. The database will not include the owners name nor contact information. For example:
Sailboats 40-60ft LOA
45-4", 125, Falcon, Castine, ME
47-9", 1976, Puffin, Thomaston, ME

And yachts that we know have been destroyed such as:
Sailboats 40-60ft LOA
50-3", 1534, Diogenes
55-8", 85, Avanti

Blog readers who wish to sign our guest book are welcome to do so. It is hoped this is a way blog readers can comment and respond to each other in a much easier format than using the Comments field within each blog posting.

All posts will be reviewed prior to going live. Please allow up to 24 hours to see your post. Thank you.

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Obtaining Plans for Your S S Boat

All plans for boats designed by Sparkman & Stephens from design numbers 1 - 2,600 are in storage at Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. They are archived in a purpose built, museum quality building that protects them from fluctuations in temperature and humidity and from fire.

Designs generated after design number 2,600 were generally done using CAD (computer aided design) and are kept on our file server.

Plans for designs 1 - 2,600 must be obtained from Mystic Seaport Museum. To obtain plans for your boat please click here to access the Mystic Seaport webpage regarding the S&S plan collection which explains the process, the costs involved and contact information. You are welcome to email us to obtain a list of available plans for your boat. Please click here to email us.

We still maintain the intellectual property on all of the plans in the collection but Mystic Seaport handles any actual plan reproduction. For information on yacht construction using existing designs and royalty payments please click here.

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Get your Orders to us Early

The end of 2013 is coming fast. We normally have a rush of orders around year-end but this year it is going to be different. Remember, I will be sailing in the Cape to Rio Race and that is going to create considerable disruption in delivery of orders. I will fly out on December 14th, via Istanbul in Turkey to Cape Town, South Africa. After sailing across the South Atlantic, I will return home from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, about the first week of February 2014.

Dehlia is the person who glues this operation together. She is my wife and she receives the orders, processes the payments, prints the drawings and magically sends them all over the world, allowing me to spend my time drawing pretty pictures of boats and backing up you, our builders. Normally Dehlia would continue unflustered while I am away playing boats. This time it will be different, Dehlia is also going to Cape Town, to wave goodbye tearfully from the dock. She will leave our home and office before I do, on 3rd December. She will not be back to resume business until 14th January 2014. For a month there will be nobody here to print drawings.

Please dont leave your order until the last minute, we may not be able to supply. This is even more important if you intend to order a plywood kit to build one of our boats. It takes more time to set up a kit order than only to supply plans.

We hope to set up systems to take orders while away, for items that can be supplied by email. That will be for our 3:1 dinghies, study packs and eBook "Shaped by Wind & Wave". Paper orders will have to wait until after Dehlia returns 14th January.

Please send your orders by 29th November. After Dehlia leaves I will be able to process and supply only limited orders.

Thank you for your support both past and future. I apologise for any convenience that this disruption may cause you, we will be back as soon as possible.

Go to http://dixdesign.com/ to see our full range of designs.

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Build your own Scamp with John Welsford himself!

Big news in the SCAMP world. The Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding is launching a very special "Build a SCAMP" course this summer (August 6th) here in Port Townsend, WA.

What will make the two-week-long course especially notable is that the instructor is SCAMP designer, John Welsford, who is flying in from New Zealand especially to teach 12 students to build 12 SCAMPs.

If that wasnt enough, the NWSWBB has partnered with the Northwest Maritime Center on the course, so all 12 SCAMPs will be built at the NW Maritime facility down on the water in Port Townsend—the birthplace of SCAMP #1.

Students will spend two weeks with John Welsford and two shop assistants building their own SCAMP from the Small Craft Advisor kit made by Turnpoint Design. Students can trailer home their mostly completed SCAMP at the end of two weeks, or opt to extend their stay for as long as two additional weeks.

Details are just being finalized. For more information check the SCA magazine message board or contact the NWSWBB at: (360) 385-4948 or http://www.nwboatschool.org

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