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What defines a Skiff?
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JimC View Drop Down
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Posts: 6662 		Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: What defines a Skiff?
    Posted: 04 Oct 11 at 1:58pm
Damn Chris, that must have been a good dinner...

The first sentence in the Wikipedia article people have quoted (as if it had any authority at all) is

"The term skiff is used for a number of essentially unrelated styles of small boat. "

Must have been a smart bloke who wrote that [grin].

Attempting to define the precise meaning of a term that has multiple meanings, even in the same town, is a pretty futile exercise I reckon!
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Posts: 978 		Post Options Post Options   Quote rogue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 11 at 3:53pm
etymology of the skiff...

well back where I grew up they've been calling flat bottomed fishing boats skiffs from well before colonials and convicts shipped out to Botany Bay. It's used still to differentiate it from the more popular smacks, which are clinker built type open fishing boats.

In today's terms... I have to agree with Jim, utterly futile and loaded with personal perceptions, although I have to hand it to Chris for giving it a bash.

here's my take...

Skiff BF1 - sticky, slow to tack, fat bottomed sledge out of winter, that doesn't 'do' tactical racing

Skiff BF2 - tricky marginal trapeze boat that doesn't compete to handicap on a club course

Skiff BF3 - f**king ballistic ride that means you sack off the (crap) race course and go for a blast (ideally with mates and call this a Windward Leeward Course)

Skiff BF4- capsized, drifting. something to laugh at you go past in your GP14 at full chat with the kite up

Skiff BF5 - in the dinghy park, tinkering, shaking head at the "nuclear conditions"- forum wind gauge Force 8 for reference

Skiff BF6 - falls over, without any sails up, pulls stakes out of the ground, inverts cars and generally increase everyone's premiums at Noble Marine
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Posts: 241 		Post Options Post Options   Quote fudheid Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 11 at 4:03pm

Originally posted by rogue

etymology of the skiff...

well back where I grew up they've been calling flat bottomed fishing boats skiffs from well before colonials and convicts shipped out to Botany Bay. It's used still to differentiate it from the more popular smacks, which are clinker built type open fishing boats. 

I agree with this the fact that an aussie calls his dinghy a skiff is more to do with education than design. Clap
In today's terms... I have to agree with Jim, utterly futile and loaded with personal perceptions, although I have to hand it to Chris for giving it a bash.

here's my take...

Skiff BF1 - sticky, slow to tack, fat bottomed sledge out of winter, that doesn't 'do' tactical racing

Skiff BF2 - tricky marginal trapeze boat that doesn't compete to handicap on a club course

Skiff BF3 - f**king ballistic ride that means you sack off the (crap) race course and go for a blast (ideally with mates and call this a Windward Leeward Course)

Skiff BF4- capsized, drifting. something to laugh at you go past in your GP14 at full chat with the kite up

Skiff BF5 - in the dinghy park, tinkering, shaking head at the "nuclear conditions"- forum wind gauge Force 8 for reference

Skiff BF6 - falls over, without any sails up, pulls stakes out of the ground, inverts cars and generally increase everyone's premiums at Noble Marine
Can only think you own and sail a wayfarer and are sick of boats gybing downwind getting in your way. Wink
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Posts: 170 		Post Options Post Options   Quote gbrspratt Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 11 at 4:04pm
Originally posted by rogue




here's my take...

Skiff BF1 - sticky, slow to tack, fat bottomed sledge out of winter, that doesn't 'do' tactical racing

Skiff BF2 - tricky marginal trapeze boat that doesn't compete to handicap on a club course

Skiff BF3 - f**king ballistic ride that means you sack off the (crap) race course and go for a blast (ideally with mates and call this a Windward Leeward Course)

Skiff BF4- capsized, drifting. something to laugh at you go past in your GP14 at full chat with the kite up

Skiff BF5 - in the dinghy park, tinkering, shaking head at the "nuclear conditions"- forum wind gauge Force 8 for reference

Skiff BF6 - falls over, without any sails up, pulls stakes out of the ground, inverts cars and generally increase everyone's premiums at Noble Marine



I take it your not a fan of "Skiffs" then?   Shift+R improves the quality of this image. Shift+A improves the quality of all images on this page.
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G.R.F. View Drop Down
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Posts: 4028 		Post Options Post Options   Quote G.R.F. Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 11 at 4:07pm
Originally posted by Chris 249

Skiffs are not just boats that plane upwind, because many skiff designers today say that (1) planing is almost impossible to tell from fast displacement sailing; 

Hmm only one conclusion to be drawn from that statement..

Many skiff designers have clearly never truly planed upwind.
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rogue View Drop Down
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Posts: 978 		Post Options Post Options   Quote rogue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 11 at 4:09pm
I find they have a rather limited wind range for your average puddle-based, rtc course sailor.
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fudheid View Drop Down
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Posts: 241 		Post Options Post Options   Quote fudheid Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 11 at 4:13pm
Originally posted by rogue

I find they have a rather limited wind range for your average puddle-based, rtc course sailor.

PISH LOL 
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 11 at 4:25pm
Chris, loved your rant...
 
As far as I'm concerned, I'd be happy if the word "Skiff" was used like the word "Firefly" to describe a particular design of open boat. BUT, now that it isn't, and, as you said, skiffs are all so different, it is impossible to put a definition on it which doesn't include boats which  clearly come from a different heritage. So either use the word as a broad term for fast, light bowspritted boats which fall over a lot or call all of them dinghies and just use the term "skiff" as a description of a particular design. As far as I can see, the middle ground is just a confused mess.
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Posts: 296 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Menace Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 11 at 4:27pm

What are not skiffs may be a simpler and easier question. Laser, RS400, Ford Focus, Television. What it started off with has been lost over time, I can design a displacement boat for cruising on rivers and put skiff in the name, and automatically it gets called a skiff. That's all it means to me now, so many interpretations.  Skiff is just a fashionable name not a description, unlike say catamaran. If it was a description, we would have finished this on page 1.
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Menace View Drop Down
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Posts: 296 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Menace Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 11 at 4:29pm
Originally posted by Rupert

Chris, loved your rant...
 
As far as I'm concerned, I'd be happy if the word "Skiff" was used like the word "Firefly" to describe a particular design of open boat. BUT, now that it isn't, and, as you said, skiffs are all so different, it is impossible to put a definition on it which doesn't include boats which  clearly come from a different heritage. So either use the word as a broad term for fast, light bowspritted boats which fall over a lot or call all of them dinghies and just use the term "skiff" as a description of a particular design. As far as I can see, the middle ground is just a confused mess.
 
Think you beat me to the point on that one Rupert. I have never called any of my boats skiffs, just because they don't have skiff in the name. Some may have though, but what's the point. 
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