Longcraig Scout Centre

South East Scotland Region

Longcraig Scout Centre

Situated at the heart of the Forth Bridge UNESCO World Heritage Site

Book Now (Disabled)

Bookings are now closed for the 2024 Season


The 2025 season will run from May to September.  Following a succesful trial run, we will be offering groups who can commit to a minimum 20 places the opportunity to book early on their preferred day. We will then try to match our volunteers to your booking requirements. This way we hope to meet the expectations of as many of our customers as possible and ensure that we utilise available resource in the most effective way

Please note bookings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday pm are most likely to be supported by our staff. 
Exact water activities provided will depend on staff and conditions on the day 

Advance Booking will open in Febuary 2025

If you have a Scout Water Activity permit you really should ensure you regularly test your skills in a practical way. The only way to do that is to staff at Longcraig
Interested - see our recruitment page for details. 




Scout Logo

Longcraig is a water sports centre owned and operated by the Scout Association and run entirely by volunteer staff.  The  centre operates from a purpose built building situated in the corner of the Dalmeny Estate by Longcraig pier, South Queensferry.  Our purpose is to provide adventurous activities based around the water for Scouts and Guides living in the South East of Scotland and for those visiting from other regions . Longcraig is also a recognised RYA training centre and all our activity staff hold RYA and BCU qualifications as well as Scout activity permits. We take activity session bookings from Scout and Guide groups and can offer activities for Cubs to Explorers and Leaders.  Book one of our sessions to try sailing, kayaking or rafting.




Providing water activities for Scouting since  1969

Latest News

24 Season Comes to an end

We are done for the season, all that remains are a few final bookings and the end of season maintenance to get the boats off the water by end of October. Then it all begins again in 2025. Many thanks to the few dedicated souls who kept the center running this year.  If you would like to make our job easier then why not volunteer to help at Longcraig. You dont need to be a sailor or kayaker, you dont even nned to be in Scouting. Just have enthusiasm for brinigning water sports to our young people and some time to spare.

Interested ? - see our recruitment pages.

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24 season Availability

There are still many booking slots available on Saturdays and Sundays in May and June, plus Friday evenings in August.  Its not too late to make your booking.

We also have lots of availability for our Activity Base sessions for any day or evening from  April to October.

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New for the 24 season

Our new Changing rooms and showers are now fully open , This much anticipated upgrade to our facilities brings our changing faciliteis in-line with modern provision and represents a major investment by the Region and other funders in Longcraigs future.

This year we are making some minor tweaks to our offerings which we hope you will find more straight forward and improve your booking experience. 

Our normal activity session remains unchanged. As last year, on any particular evening we will offer activities that match the available staff. Participants should come prepared to Kayak, Raft or Sail. To reflect this change and simplify the booking process you will no longer be able to specify your activity preference on the booking form. We aim to accomodate  12 sailing 12 paddle sport places per session, the exac mix depending on conditions and available staff. 

 We will no longer be offering Self Staffed sessions due to lack of demand.

Lastly, our Activity Base which gives groups the opportunity to use the centre as a base for their own group activities will move from a minimum charge with per-head topup, to a flat fee for  use of the centers land facilities.

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Late Availability

Like many volunteer organisations Longcraig is experiencing  difficulty in recruiting new staff. Some of our team have retired or moved away, and others have found that changing commitments make it more difficult to volunteer time to Longcraig.  Combine this with a preference from our existing team to delay commitment until a few weeks before an activity is due to take place can make it very difficult to know exactly which dates we will be able to offer activities. We have to guess and this means that some booked seasons will be cancelled and some unbookable sessions may become available at a later date.

If you cant get the date you want, try checking back later, We accept bookings up to to 28 days in advance and update our staff rota regularly. So its always best to check back to see what may have changed. 

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GetInvolved @ Longcraig  - we are looking for people to join our volunteer team. If you would like to get involved check out our recruitment page.

We are not just looking for water qualified people. We need volunteers to help get the boats out of storage and stowed away at the end of each session and to help get participants on to the water. We also need people who can help maintain and look after our buildings and equipment. Longcraig is supported by a core team of just 35 people, yet we aim to deliver activities almost everyday from May to September. We would really like to spread the load and hope you can help.

Please see our recruitment page for details.