Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
Here are a few shots taken from the water of what seemed to me to be a classic small working skiff built from what looks like solid timber we sighted on the river Vilaine in Brittany while on holiday a few weeks ago.
It’s crude, heavy, basic and all the rest, but its interest lies in the fact that in England, just across the Channel from Brittany, we don’t really have boats like this – to the extent we often think of them as being exclusively North American boats, thanks to the work of American language authors writing in English such as Howard Irving Chappelle.
But I’m pretty sure the American models, some elegant, light and nicely made and some heavy workhorses, some called just skiff or maybe sharpie skiff, flat iron skiff or flattie skiff or a range of other names, must have developed from European craft like this one.
PS – In answer to Doryman Mike Bogoger’s query in the comments below, here are two photos of the interior of a somewhat different boat local to the same area as the skiff above. These are used for tending mussel beds etc in the Vilaine estuary. I don’t know how closely these boats are related, but I think their construction is broadly similar.
This is Fairy Queen, a Loch Fyne skiff now with a gaff cutter rig and currently afloat in southern Galway Bay, Ireland – and she’s for sale. The photos above were taken a few days ago.
The Fairy Queen is 35ft on the keel, 13ft in beam with a draft of 5ft 8in, and about 17tons unballasted, built in larch on oak, with a Douglas fir mast and a 72hp Ford D series engine.
The owners are looking for a croft or a patch of land in a remote part of the Highlands or the West Coast of Scotland – so some kind of exchange may be possible.
I’ve pasted some older photos below – as usual, click on the thumbnails for much larger images. If you’re interested and would like to contact the owners, drop me a line at gmatkin@gmail.com and I’ll let you have their contact details.
