best skiff

yer the people who sail the 18 footer are like super humans!!

From what I've heard, the 18 and 49er are equally difficult to sail, some even say the 18 is easier to sail because theres three of you and the extra size of the boat makes it a lot less eratic and twitchy than the 49er. When direct comparisions have been made in the past, it's been mentioned that the 18 is like driving a bus compared to the handling of the 49er, not in the speed sence obviously. Maybe the same sort of experience kicks in when you go from sailing a Cherub to moving into the 49er, the bigger the boat is the better behaved it seems to get with the increased water-line length. Still wouldn't swap my 49er for anything else, so in my opinion, the 49er is the best, but at the end of the day, aren't all well established skiff classes brilliant anyway and it's just down to your own preferance which boat you sail.

The small rig on the 18 doesn't seem too much bigger than the 49ers. Take away from an 18 one crew, about 2 feet a small bit of sail and a bit of width and it makes things really interesting, and I think that's the original concept Julian Bethwaite had? Small 18 rig on a 49er would be interesting. The 16ft skiffs have very similar rigs to the 49er, I think I even remember something about the 49er rig being a development of a 16 rig and heard of the 16 guys using 49er rigs. They get a little bit more sail area than we do, but "cheat" by having an extra crew. Plus, I think the 49er is nicer looking boat.

23+knots!!! I don't think so, you wouldn't be able to tack the boat in over 20knots with the big rig, most people change at around 16 knots. On a 49er they fully powered up in around 8 knots depending on weight, and they start to depower in over 12 so 16 knots to change to the small rig on a 18footer would make sense.

There can be no best skiff as each skiff suits different people and different conditions!

Best skiff ?  Try the B14.  Its a mini 18 footer except both crew hike from wings, so, no learning how to helm from the wire.  Jump out of your Ent, RS 400, Lark etc into a decent used B14 with change to spare.  It may be a hiking boat but its no slouch with a handicap of 880.