What defines a skiff?

Originally posted by Rupert The Minisail, Piccolo and the other sailing surfboards caused a naming issue back in the 60s. Skimmer was the best they could come up with. Scow works for me, though.

Frank Bethwaite defined a "Skiff" (49er and 29er) in Higher performance sailing page 280

"Three separate ratios, sail area to wetted area, sail area to total weight and sail carrying power to total weight and a special blend of handling characteristics with an automatic rig.....(have to be satisfied)....before it became possible to tack downwind with authority in all windstrengths and win"

so basically a skiff in those terms is an apparent wind boat that will sail downwind faster by gybing because of the greater windspeed created by its own movement, than a "normal" dinghy such as a 505 or Flying Dutchman which mainly just blow along.

Good idea to bite the bullet and read the book even though it's expensive and too heavy to be comfortable in bed with and not well written or organised. He needed a really good editor.

I thought since they got bigger kites 505's did do apparent sailing downwind.

Originally posted by Roger  but please, it's not a skiff.

See my rule 2 earlier!

OK.. change rule two to say "Trapezes for more than half of those aboard"




Edited by realnutter - 01 Mar 16 at 6:48pm