Latest on new skiff builds going on

Here are some updates on one of the past skiffs being built and some new skiffs being designed and built. I get these photos via emails and on Facebook.

 The first skiff is Jon Conners from Vermont.

In the last blog post Jon was building his skiff. He has since launched her and has been doing sea trails in a river near his place. I dont know if this is salt water or not. I dont think so because the trees are so close to the waters edge.

Jon and I first met when he emailed me asking if I would email him a clear set of drawings for my Ian Scott Devlin skiff proposal. Sure. He liked the idea of a slightly rockered bottom and some of my chine details. He wanted to design his own hull to be built in plywood using the stitch and glue method.

During sea trails we have talked back and forth via email about her performance.

Here she sits. I say she looks "right". By that I mean that everything flows well in this hull and shape.

Jon wanted a simple light weight skiff that would pole well with him alone and for small hp. 25 hp is his goal to have on the stern. This boat weighs under 300 lbs as built.

On the first few runs Jon used a very small trim plate on the engines cavitation plate. Here you can see her bow up attitude with the engine level. Jon had added a long wedge to the outside of the lower Chines to help the bow come down. I sent him the measurements of my outboards trim plate.

He removed the wedges which were slowing down the skiff a bit and making it very stable in turns.

Bow up quite a ways.

See all the leaves and flat water. This kind of bow up is really only good for very flat water running.

The engine with the right sized trim plate will lift the stern and the bow will still be out but the angle will not be like this. A more level angle.

Now a few weeks later! New trim plate, cold weather has set in and all the leaves are on their way out.

See the difference in the trim with a bigger trim plate. The skiff now does not have the above mushing along look.

Jon and a friend went up and down here and never got wet. It was a wet windy day. The ride was fine for all.

Bows trimmed right down now. All you have to do to lift the bow is tilt the engine a bit up by using the trim pin or you can build one of Jons simple trim plates.

You get this kind of prop wash when trimmed all the way down.

Look at the bow and you can see the seas - chop that hes going through. Are they called seas in a river? 

All in all Jon reports that he is very happy with his new skiff. I hope Jon comes to visit me when I get back to our place in the Bahamas. It will be fun to talk building and designing your own skiff.

Well done Jon.

This is Alexyz Milians skiff vison.

 Alexyz emailed me asking a few things about design. He has built a beautiful strip plank wood canoe and wants to build himself a no motor zone poling skiff that is very light in the same manner. This skiff is 4x14 long. It will draw very little.

He had several questions.

The first was why was his bow so down when he placed his hull in the water.

Why did on my bow on lines drawings of skiffs look like the decks of the skiffs were curved?

How to get the bow up look?

Simple answers. Its good for me to get questions like these as I need feedback to see if people are understanding my drawings and thought process.

Heres Alexyzs hull sections.

 

From this angle you get a real good view of his shape. Lots of firm displacment aft going foreward.

This will make the boat stable. The 4 of beam is not too narrow. The wide stern will do its job keeping the boat steady. I would place what ever weight I was going to bring along back there to replace the engine.

Here I explain in my email drawings how to add or subtract displacement-bouancy. What the skiff needed was 2-3" of freeboard added to the bow tapering aft. The design is fine at the waterline as it is.

The curved line you see in bow on hull lines drawings is the sheer. Because all the stations are laying one on top of each other the sheer line gets exaggerated.

This sketch explains how his skiff will sit with different loads.

Now a new sheer with no weight in the stern. Perfect.

The new hull stations ready to take all the measurements off of.

A nice shape. This shape will be easy to strip plank. With a 5 hp two stroke it will plane out doing most likely 12-15 knts with one person on board.

Nice job Alexyz, I look forward to seeing the hull being planked.

I saw this hull on Facebook the other day. I think its coming from a shop called Glasser Boatworks.

This is a very well proportioned skiff. Really looks nice.

Same skiff I believe inside the shop. I can see they have station molds in the background so its a one off. Nice to see new skiffs out there. Nice rounded transoms edge. I dont know who you guys are but youre doing a nice job.

Heres an email acquaintance that is building a Carolina type small skiff in epoxy and core.

This will be a nice all round skiff. But not a quiet skiff with that chine setup. But she will be the best looking skiff out there. Classic

Thats it for now. 

In a few days I will post all the latest on the Tom Gordon- Islamorada Boatworks skiff that I have played a small part in. They will be doing sea trials this week so will then post all the pictures and give you all the details.

Send me your skiff ideas and builds and I will post here. Over 95,000 viewers this year.

3/4s though read my sailing stuff though.

Read More..

The skiff list DETAILS

When staring to work on a flats boat skiff design you have to make up a weight list to know in advance what is going into and on your skiff. With this you get an idea what its going to cost after sourcing out your parts and materials. Also if you can weigh each piece in advance then you can work with this on your new design. The thing to realize is that 98% of what you see on the below list is what will go on most all skiffs in the 12 -25 range and upwards. The only differences will be rub rails and engines.

Every thing else will be small sutilties. But it maters when you want to have a skiff weigh out all up in the 600-700 lb. range. It also matters in all kinds of other boats like high performance sailboats , multihulls and anything that wants to be fast with low horse power. So get a good scale and start weighing every thing and make your list. I would print up mine here for you but I cant find it right now.

When I was in business for myself I used  to make up these parts lists and price all my whole sale vendors against each other to see who had the best deals. This really played out well when building  over $400,000.00 in boats a month. Doing a one off today in your garage its best to find a freind in the business and see if you can get stuff from them at a good break in cost. Today on the Internet you can find all kinds of good deals but you have to take the time to do this. I am always looking through old boatyards for deals to be found. It helps to be thinking years or projects in advance.

This list is blurry here. If you can see it the prices are old but gives you an idea of whats up.

I will post all these drawings on my facebook photo page as they are real clear there.

Read More..

Shallow water skiff shapes ideas

Here are some of my old musings of developing skiff shapes to bring to reality. As I described earlier in my blog of how I like to make a half hull of my vision - idea . I do this after I have done all my weight calculations in advance. Shown are a few past ideas in their growth stages. Sorry but I would love to be able to do this all properly but all I have is the iPad that I got for Christmas this year from my daughters. With out this contraption I probably would not take the time to do all this. Right now it is flat calm with lots of light rain about so Im inside with a fan on doing something. The iPad is great as I can do this stuff with a simple inverter on our sailboat as we move about and post it later. No TV time in my life so have extra time to fiddle here.

So look at the wood half hull against the mirror. The sections are glued to a 1/4" piece of wood,without this it would sit flush against the mirror with the thickness of the mirror being the center line. This is how it was done before 3 D programs . It does make you feel like a peeping Tom though as you stretch around trying to see the whole thing. Each section is drawn out from the center line to scale. Here you can calculate how many cubic inches are in each section. I do not have the side views showing which would tell and show you the distance between each section. It would not show up here very well.

What I will do this summer is draw up 3-4 new skiff shapes from past knowledge with all dimensions easy to draw up to full size hull sections. These you will be able to cut out and install on a simple building jig and from there you will be able to plank up in light cedar strips, Baltec balsa core strips or Core Cell brand planking strips. From this you fair and then glass the outside. When fair, flip over,

remove the forms and glass the insides. Then you finish the inside. To build a deck I will explain all the ways it can be done simply later. I will put this here for free. In the mean time anyone planning on building a skiff needs to read up a bit on strip plank boat building. This is the same as building a canoe; just a little more odd shape and it has a transom. I will get a list of books or pamphlets to look up.

In looking at these shapes it is easy to start to see how many ways and directions you could now reshape and go. Ha, it can be daunting if you do not have a weight list and a clue as to what the finished hull will weigh. Here I come back to having the vision, idea, whatever. Details. 

Of course if you are going to start a new company and you want to follow in the foot steps of something that is already well proven and established then all you really have to do is make a facsimile of it as all the thinking has already been done for you. If you do make it better, and at a better price good for you. 

Now with all the shapes here you still have to decide on which side of the half section line you will put your hull thickness. Makes a difference . Take your numbers from the center line out wards and up to the LWL. This is the quickest way. This method shown here has been used for centuries with the creations of some of the most beautiful boats in the world. Go to see the Herreshoff museum in New port RI. He did all his boats this way. There is not a Yankee boat builder up north that does not know this system nor a Carolina one either. The computer today is the way to go though if you have one.

  Another idea; this shows how you can take an existing boat today and measure or take its lines sections. Without knowing its length between perpendiculars you could stretch this boat out to ......

In this shape here I wanted a good sea boat at rest that would not be as they say here too "cranky" .

It has good freeboard and was a good all round skiff. I lowered the spray rail on this a bit in the bow area when built. Today I would change the stern section aft so this is obsolete in my mind.

 You can see the half sections above and the half hull below. 

Cheap 3 - D rendering 

You can see here how Im drawing in a bit of crown. I like crown a lot. It adds tremendous strength over a flat surface. Also you can gain some Disp. But then you have to be careful where its going to direct the water flow. I do not want crown in my skiff decks as it is a pain in the butt to fit the hatches so the will not squeak and lay flush. 

On this sheet you can see the displacement calculation that I wrote down from a simple lines program that I found on the Internet at the time. I put in all my half section numbers and in a second it spit out all these numbers. I had already done it my old way and every thing was pretty close. In the upper left corner you can see the displacement numbers for three different water lines. This you have to think about a lot as the guys, people that will be in the boat, are most likely going to weigh over 200 lbs.

The rest of the numbers there are just adding up Disp. If I posted all my calculation sheets it would be so boring. But I keep em for reference. This is a heavy skiff at close to 2,000 lbs with all the sports in it.

Read More..

St Ayles Skiff Doineann

Shortly after this blog began, almost a decade ago, I became enamored of Iain Oughtreds Ness Yawl . The Ness Yawl has taken Doryman readers through many voyages. (If you took the time to follow that link, welcome back!)
In the intervening years, Iain, who was then an internet no-show, has become possibly the most popular small boat designer in the world. And once again I find myself drooling over a new design from the Master, his beautiful sharpie, Haiku.
Shes exquisite, but thats a subject for another day.

While I was writing extensively about the Ness Yawl, Iain designed the St Ayles Skiff. The Scottish Coastal Rowing Association was formed on 29 May 2010, to encourage boat building and rowing and racing of coastal rowing boats along the Scottish Coastline. Communities were encouraged to become involved in the building of new boats to be rowed, principally the St Ayles skiff.

Doryman was quick to promote this extraordinary design and though hundreds of these boats have been built globally, only two St Ayles Skiffs exist on the west coast of the US, Dorymans cruising grounds. Both were built in Portland, Oregon at the Wind and Oar Boat School .

The first boat off the molds at WOBS (Rosie) lives in Portland, rowed regularly by the team of women who built her. The second St Ayles Skiff to come out of that shop was Doineann (Irish for tempest or storm), built for her proud owner, Julius Dalzell. The following update from Julius is the answer to my suggestion that the St Ayles Skiff might make a great sail-and-oar boat, if only she had a sail rig.

"Hi Michael,

It has been sometime since our last communication. As you may recall, Doineann was the second St. Ayles skiff built by the Wind and Oar and Oar School. My wife and I decided upon retirement, in July 2014, to move to a favorable locale, in Cathlamet, Washington for a variety of reasons, not the least being the beauty and boating opportunities of the Lower Columbia River. A significant aspect of our new abode was the availability of a large shop. Today it is a home and restoration facility for small craft.

Of course Doineann is one of the permanent residents. And yes, we did proceed to design and make a sail-rig for Doineann.

Before proceeding with the story, you might be impressed to know that we have a regular crew rowing Doineann, most having little prior rowing experience. We find that performance is outstanding regardless of wind or chop. She slices through anything with little fuss. Totally enjoyable.

We started with an e-mail exchange with Iain Oughtred himself. Iain warned that the craft was designed for rowing, not sailing, and would be tender, so recommended a small lug sail, maybe something around 90 sq. ft.. Iain stated that the existing keel might be sufficient to support lateral stability with minor leeway. He wasn’t sure how she would tack because of her wide turning radius.

We decided to go low budget. After considering many sail designs, our choice was an 85 sq. ft. balanced lug.

The mast was a used item acquired from a builder. Quite the specimen, ugly but it works. A sail was ordered from Lee Sails. I insisted that the sail be mounted without use of fittings or attachments. No screws, nails, brackets or drilled holes. In other words, no intrusions that would impact the original design.

The mast partner we devised uses the kabe support at the forward rowing station, using the kabes and pins incorporated into each rowing station at the gunnel. The mast step slips into the floor boards below. So, on a fine August day, we took to the river for the first sail. In a fresh, accommodating wind, her response was beyond expectations. She went like mad with five adults aboard. The existing steering rudder, though designed for rowing, performed well.The boat was not tender, in fact quite stable regardless of wind on any quarter. We had a ball!

Tacking was a challenge. Because of the long keel, she took her time. Speed would drop off and we would be in irons, propelled in reverse. Throwing the rudder over steered her in reverse through the tack. The sail would again fill and we were off. Too much rudder did nothing but enhance the stall, acting as a brake. The answer to a successful tack was two fold - lots of speed going into the tack, and finessing the rudder. A slow tack became doable.

The materials I used for gaff and boom are too light. Currently another gaff and boom are under construction. Three strips of tight grain fir to be epoxied and shaped.

So, Michael, that is the Doineann story to date. My expectations for the craft are progressing!"

Thank you Julius for that update. Its obvious you love your boat and its easy to see why.
Of course the St Ayles Skiff is a one-design racing machine, so Julius was careful to keep the design legal for racing. He looks forward to the day when more St Ayles are built and racing here in the US. (me too!)

Meanwhile, the Haiku is calling me. Isnt she a beauty?

Read More..

The Spanish Wells Marina Skiff reborn thoughts on redoing anothers design splashes copies and such

Late last year I got an email from a guy saying that he and some buddies had purchased the old Spanish Wells Marina skiff molds that I had designed and made 26 years ago. He had found my blog site and read my story about that project. He asked if I could answer some questions. He said they had been fans of this design for years and wanted to find one to redo for themselves, being avid spearfisherman and had come across the molds in Nassau for sale and wanted to build 3 - one for each of them. One of the partners was a boat builder too so would be doing all the retooling.

This was the start of whats turned out to be a very happy story for an old design that is a good boat being given a second chance and a new and better life.

I emailed Bradley Thornbrough back and gave him my Skype name and said lets talk. Within hours I was talking via the wonders of Skype from our little place in the Bahamas to Bradley, and his partner, the Builder, Eric Brush. They wanted to know all about the history of the boat, what I would change and any recommendations. We talked for over an hour. 

I told them that the original boats were tiller driven skiffs with small horse power but went on to have bigger and bigger engines. I had built the first ten skiffs and then turned the shop over to the owners and sailed away. The skiffs over the years had gotten heavier so were riding too low in the water for me and could be wet. I disscussed with Eric my ideal draft. We talked about the fuel tank postion, a full liner for this new upgraded boat. They wanted a stern bracket which Iam not a fan of so I passed on my knowledge of how they have performed on the ones that installed them. I did understand why they wanted one as they were free diving spearfisherman using Hawaiian slings of their own design and liked the stern platform to get in and out of the water in. Also the biggest point was to have a full transom with more cockpit boat space. 

They offered to compensate me for future advice. I declined as I live a simple life and dont need every buck that comes my way and I liked these guys right off and wanted to help in any way I could . Plus from looking up Erics and Bradleys companys web sites I could see right off these guys were people I would want to build my boat. First class.

So off Eric went retooling my 26 year old simple molds, adding a parting flange to the main hull, retooling the entire hull mold, building in steel reinforcing frames on all the hull and deck molds. What I had built had rotted away being left outside for years. I core my molds so that might of helped keep them straight.

Lots of emails followed with questions, and basically asking my opinion on this or that.

The final product has been outstanding. You can see everything on their Facebook page; Spanish Wells Boat Works or www.spanishwellsboatworks.com

With Erics modern building technology and skills the boat is better than ever. Its been very satisfying to see an old friend come back to life and look so well. So far they have built 3 skiffs all semi-custom.

Thanks guys .

The hull mold is reborn !

New logo. The original owners in Spanish Wells wanted to name it after me. I told them it should always be associated  with Spanish Wells, not me and I would be gone off sailing. 

Worked out well. 

The full stern and bracket. Nice set up . The liner is perfect. This boat would make a great stand up fly fishing skiff for strippers, and offshore fish as it has toe kick.

Sitting on her lines the way she was designed.

Now on to part two of this post.  

Bradley and Eric were concerned about how to separate this boat from its earlier predecessors in the Abacos that have a great loyal following in the Albury Brothers Boat building Company and its off shoot the Stuart Boat works that builds an Albury skiff design.

My advice was and still is to just tell the tale of how I came to be hired to come up with this skiff. At the time the Alburys were building smaller skiffs that had small details that could be improved upon that could greatly change the performance of this style and type of skiff. The changes and additions to this skiff style that I added and designed into this skiff made it the next best thing at that times current market in the Bahamain commercial fishing fleet. It was a good skiff 26 years ago and was a better sea boat with its simple improvements. Its a better skiff today in many ways with its new materials, construction techniques, and interior moldings that are all new. 

To me this was an improvement on a past designs pedigree and was a step forward. The Alburys went on to build rental boats with their smaller skiffs and merged into the bigger day boat designs seen today for well heeled expats that like the looks and feel of these classic skiffs. They have never adapted any of my changes to what I was asked to fix on their skiffs. 

Today there are a half dozen boat companys that are using some form of ideas that I have designed and used in my past flats skiff designs. Some have done a very good job of incorporating my ideas and styling into their new designs. These skiffs are not spashes off an old hull of mine but just liking what they saw and using it. This I like very much. Its a progression of an idea. 

Now some others have clearly turned over an old skiff hull of my design and have added and subtracted to come up with a new vision. This I like too. But so far from what Ive seen online, maybe no improvements made on some.

What I do not agree with is making a splash of someones hull. That is buying a finished boat, turning it over and just making a new mold over on old hull with maybe adding a bit to the transom with no other improvements to this hull. Then making a simple interior, not building to the same standards or better than the original and then claiming to have designed the best skiff ever. This is lowball boatbuilding that has gone on for a long time but Ive not seen for awhile. 

To me taking any skiff out there and signifigantly improving on its performance is an improvement and step forward. Also if you can build a good skiff and be very competitive then you are helping the buyer out. But if your skiff looks the same but is not built as well then it will bite you in the butt in the long haul.

Remember your reputation is everything, not the few extra bucks you can make.

During the time that Bradley and Eric were retooling and building the Original Spanish Wells Skiff molds

I received an email from Marc Stoner of Stoner Boatworks saying that he had an original Marina skiff hull and wanted to make an improved mold and boat off it. Would I answer some questions? 

Sure, I said, ask away. 

He wanted to build a stern bracket into the mold and I gave him my opinions on how I feel about brackets. He asked about where and how much fuel went into the boat, what would I change.

Well I would add more freeboard, lengthen the skiff, forget about the bracket .

Why was I talking to this guy when my old design was being reborn so well?

I get lots of emails asking advice about my old skiffs and other designs from how to fix to what I think of such and such. I have answered all for free with some taking many emails to guide along.

I built the original  Spanish Wells Skiff molds for a company that paid me by the hour. I feel anyone is free to improve on my ideas. So I have had no problems with this next skiffs reincarnation.

 The Stoners, after finishing the hull mold, emailed to ask me if I would let them name the new boat after me using my name. I explained to Marc Stoner that the gesture was nice but I would not want to have my name on any boat that was being built that I had no control over. Also its their company and name on the line not mine.

I explained that Bradley and Eric could use my name in association of having built the original Spanish Wells Skiffs molds but that the Stoner skiff would be a splash or hopefully an improvement. That the Stoner company when done with their new vision would have to market their boat as to how and why it was different than the original and the new improved Spanish Wells Boat Works skiff.

So far I have no photos to post of the Stoners Vision so time will tell. Its a huge undertaking to build a set of plugs and molds so I look forward to seeing what it looks like.

What I have tried to say here is that if others are not trying to improve on what is known to work then things will not move along. I say to all of you out there that are loyal to your builders and boats: Let the new guys give it a try. As I have tried to explain in past posts Iam always studying  what others are doing or have done to see what works and how I might make it work better in my next vision. Nothing is original, its all a process of trying to learn what really works from past ideas.

With out this process there would be only one kayak, canoe, Maine lobster boat design out there without any new ideas. We would all be wearing Levi jeans that felt like plywood or stuck in the missionary position.

Read More..