Scout 14

In 2023 I spent some time rowing and sailing the Scout 10, a sailing dinghy that is the result of a collaboration between Brandon Davis of Turn Point Design and Scott Jones of Duckworks, both based in Port Townsend, Washington. Their goal was to create the “ultimate mini cruiser,” small and light enough to be cartopped yet able to accommodate a solo sailor sleeping aboard. On land the diminutive Scout 10 certainly has some noteworthy advantages, but a longer boat will be faster on the water. While Scott and Brandon were pleased with the performance of the Scout 10, they wanted to shift the design toward better speed under sail and oars and greater carrying capacity. The answer was the Scout 14.

Scout 14 Construction and Layout

The Scout 14 is available as a kit, which includes CNC-cut pieces of marine plywood and closed-cell sheet foam. The planks, transom, and bulkheads are of 4mm BS 1088 plywood, and the bottom and laminated skeg are of 6mm plywood. The recessed deck, which serves as seating, is of weight-saving 1⁄4″ marine-grade foam. The gunwale has a 1″ foam core boxed in with plywood. Where the full length of a component—plywood or foam—demands the use of more than one piece, the sections are connected with puzzle joints and epoxy. After assembling the full-length pieces, both foam and plywood are fiberglass-and-epoxy coated on one or both sides.

Photographs by the author

The recessed deck, made of foam reinforced with fiberglass and epoxy, encloses the storage areas and provides generous seating and flotation. The holes in the gunwale caps are lined with phenolic tubes and serve as oarlock sockets and attachment points for sheet blocks, fenders, and other items.

The hull is built without molds or strongback. Mating tabs and slots assure that adjoining pieces are properly aligned. Support jigs holding the hull right-side up and a spreader spanning the sheer amidships help to keep the hull straight and without twist. The seams between the bottom, the garboard strake, and the lone broadstrake are butted edge-to-edge, which aids in ’glassing the bottom of the hull and reduces abrasion. The sheerstrake overlaps the broadstrake, and in the finished hull casts a shadow to accentuate the hull’s curves. A foam daggerboard and rudder blade are included in the kit and are both CNC-shaped as NACA 0012 foils; all they require is sanding, ’glassing, and finishing.

At around 100 lbs, the Scout 14 is about at the limit for cartopping, lifting one end at a time, and I would use a cart to get the boat to and from the water. During my time with the boat, Brandon helped me to carry the boat across the beach. The transom has two oval handholds, and the breasthook provides a good hold at the bow.

In the cockpit, the side benches and bow and stern seating areas surround a footwell that is 8′ 3″ long by 21 1⁄4″ wide by approximately 9″ deep. Sealed compartments beneath the benches provide storage and flotation and are accessed from above via three 10″ × 14″ Sealect Triple-Latch hinged hatches as well as three optional 6″ deck plates. For gear that needs to be accessed quickly, there are two open-sided compartments at the forward end of the footwell.

The thwarts, made of carbon-fiber and plywood, can be located anywhere along the parallel-sided decks. The two holes relieve the pressure on the rower’s sit bones. The daggerboard slot can be seen in the starboard sidedeck.

The inside edges of the side benches are straight and parallel so that two removable rowing thwarts—made of plywood and carbon fiber—can be located anywhere over the footwell and locked in place with thumbnuts that clamp to a flange that extends from the side bench edges. The thwarts hang about 2″ at center below the level of the side benches, providing more clearance between the oar handles and tops of the thighs while rowing. Each thwart has two holes in its surface, a feature common in racing-shell sliding seats for relieving backside pressure points. I’ve used seat pads with such holes, but they result in a higher sitting position.

I lay down in the footwell to try it for size for sleeping aboard the Scout 14. It has more than enough length and is wide enough for me to rest on my side with my knees drawn up and my elbows out. Lying on my back was more cramped: my shoulders filled the width of the footwell, and I could set only one arm alongside my torso; the other had to rest on a side bench or across my chest. Because the tops of the side benches have flanges extending over the footwell, a pair of floorboard panels with transverse slats could be built to serve as a sleeping platform at night. Alternatively, a long single panel with slats parallel to the centerline could rest on the thwarts. Either way, the Scout 14 has more than enough stability to support a good-sized sleeping platform at bench level.

The top of each gunwale has 14 holes lined with phenolic tubes that can be used for oarlock placement, attachment points for sheet blocks, and even hoops to support a camping canopy. The holes are spaced about 12″ apart with an extra one amidships to allow for a finer adjustment of the boat trim for a solo rower.

A solo rower can use the unoccupied thwart as a foot brace. The ready adjustability of the seat and oarlock positions makes it easy to trim the boat to accommodate load carried and conditions encountered. Here rowing the Scout 14 is its designer, Brandon Davis.

Rowing Performance

The Scout has good stability and is easy to get aboard. To test the secondary stability, I sat amidships with my seat planted on a side bench and both legs hanging well over the side. With my mid-thighs resting on the gunwale, the outwale was still an inch or more above water level.

Rowing solo, I found the Scout 14 tracked well and was easily maneuvered. From a standing start I could spin the boat through 360° with eight strokes—two and a half more than the Scout 10 but still a quick spin and a good indication of easy maneuverability.

While I didn’t have a second pair of oars to try tandem rowing, the cockpit is long enough to accommodate a rower in each end. While there are no dedicated foot braces, the aft rower can use the aft bench as a brace; there is no such brace point for the forward rower.

The daggerboard trunk is offset to starboard to leave the cockpit unobstructed. A bungee cord, anchored forward of the trunk, holds the board in any position; here it is raised high while the boat is on the beach. At the forward end of the cockpit are open storage compartments with easy access.

During GPS-measured speed trials, with the boat empty and one rower, the Scout 14 averaged 3.7 knots at a relaxed pace, maintained 4.3 knots with an aerobic exercise pace, and averaged 5 knots in short sprints. The speeds are an average of 17 percent faster than those of the Scout 10.

To row with a passenger seated in the stern, I moved the thwart to the forward end of the footwell and placed the oarlocks in one of the many holes built into the gunwale. Then the speeds, respectively, were 3.6, 3.9, and 4.4 knots, averaging 35 percent faster than the Scout 10.

Sailing Performance

The daggerboard trunk is housed within the starboard storage compartment, leaving the footwell unobstructed. Its opening is in the side bench where a loop of bungee cord, anchored in the side bench forward of the trunk and stretched around the back of the board, keeps the board at any depth. The rudder also has bungee looped around its blade that will hold it down but still lets it kick up if it hits an obstruction. For beaching, a lifting line runs from the blade’s trailing edge, through the rudderhead, and is secured by a jam cleat on the underside of the tiller.

The arrangement of the sheet brings it readily to hand without obstructing the tiller or interfering with the sailor.

The 70-sq-ft square-top boomless sail has four full battens. A single row of reefpoints will gather up the sail and the bottom batten beneath the second batten. The two-part mast is made of carbon fiber and fiberglass and can be easily pulled apart to stow aboard. The sheet has an unusual arrangement: It runs through a block tethered to one of the holes in the gunwale, then aft to a block mounted close to the transom, up to a block at the sail’s clew, down to the transom on the other side of the boat, and forward to a final gunwale-mounted block. There is a stopper knot at each end of the sheet so that the line can be managed from either side of the boat. For handling the sail, the windward end of the sheet is pulled through until the leeward end is prevented from running through its forward block by the stopper knot. Now the sail can be trimmed from the windward end. With the sheet running around the perimeter of the stern, it was never in the way when coming about, and with its ends led forward, they were within view and accessible while I was keeping watch over the bow.

Thanks to its full-length battens, the Scout 14’s 70-sq-ft square-topped sail holds its shape and provides good power even in light air.

Under sail, the Scout 14’s well-balanced rig required only a light touch on the tiller. The boat pointed well and was exceptionally quick to tack. I suspect the NACA-foil rudder and daggerboard get the credit for the Scout 14 carrying so much speed through tacks. The bow would swing through the eye of the wind so quickly that I had to change sides swiftly before the sail filled on the new tack. In the light winds I had for the sailing trials, the full battens usually popped on their own to push the belly of the sail out to leeward. If they didn’t take care of themselves, a tug on the sheet did the job. When jibing, the battens absorbed much of the impact when the sail snapped the slack out of the sheet.

The Scout 10 was designed as the smallest camp-cruising sailboat, and the Scout 14 incorporates all the features of the 10 with the benefits of greater speed, stability, and capacity that come with the additional length. It was a pleasure to row and sail. In 1980, I did my first Inside Passage cruise in a traditionally built dory skiff very similar in size to the Scout 14—if I’d had the Scout, I could have traveled not only faster but also in greater comfort and safety.

Christopher Cunningham is Small Boat’s editor-at-large.

Scout 14 Particulars

Length:   14′
Beam:   4′ 3″
Draft:   4″ board up, 38″ board down
Estimated hull weight:   95 lbs
Sail area:   70 sq ft

Kits for the Scout 14 range from CNC-cut parts for the boat alone priced at $3,399, to a complete package including sailing rig priced at $4,999; all are available from Duckworks Boat Builders Supply.

Matt Steverson built a Scout 14 as a tender for the DURACELL racing yacht he has been converting and shows the process on his YouTube channel, The Duracell Project, episodes 123 through 126.

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