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 To simply say that Scout Boats is an innovative
company would be a gross understatement. Under the guiding vision of company President Steve Potts, Scout has earned a reputation for being on the cutting edge of
design and quality. Consider just a few of the unique design features that make a Scout a Scout. It all starts with the in-house design team headed by Steve Potts.
Through his thirty plus years of boat building experience, Steve has learned what works and what doesn't when it comes to boat design. What
may look good to a designer on a drawing board may not work when it comes to the real world rigors of the marine environment. When Steve set out to
design his Scout boats, he already had a firm knowledge base from which to draw upon. He paid special attention to what designs didn't work and why,
valuable knowledge when you're designing your own boats from scratch. One important lesson Steve learned was that the conventional way of bonding
the deck to the hull was poorly conceived from the beginning. Most manufacturers lay the deck over the hull and then screw the two parts
together. The flaw here is that in rough conditions, water is allowed to get between the joint and into the boat, the last place it should be. By
pioneering the industry's first reverse-shoebox hull/deck design, Steve not only increased the overall strength of his hulls, but made them safer at the same time.
 Another innovation that
Scout helped to pioneer was the eradication of all wood in boat construction. Wood rots, it's just that simple. No matter where wood is placed during the construction of a
boat, eventually it will rot and the resulting damage can be beyond repair. That's why, from the very beginning, Scout boats have had composite stringers and transoms. An additional
innovation unique to Scout is the Air-Assist hull. Steve designed this unique feature specifically to combat the problem of static stability, common on small boats.
With additional longitudinal buoyancy, the Air-Assist hull increases static floatation and decreases time to plane and also vastly improves overall
handling characteristics. An important advantage of this design is increased fuel economy.
Scout is always developing new and innovative construction methods. For
instance, the engine mounting system on the 210 Sportfish and larger models, called the "Scout Strata-Mount" is a fully factory molded bracket with one
very important feature: the two main longitudinal grid stringers pass through the transom and are integrated into the engine mount. This design allows the
natural stresses of the engines to be spread out over the entire hull, increasing strength, durability and performance. Scout's state-of-the-art 134
,000 square foot manufacturing facility is climate controlled and houses two 6,000 sq. ft. bridge cranes, a sophisticated 32' X 12' test tank for water
testing, a high-tech vacuum system, a quality control laboratory and an employee fitness center. A fifth phase of expansion, scheduled to begin in
2005, will add another 50,000 sq. ft. to the facility, which currently produces 1,500 high-quality boats a year.
CLICK HERE FOR SCOUT FACTORY TOUR.
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