Skiff Building Projects

Comunn Birlinn are actively working towards a design for a small vessel which can be quickly and inexpensively built by many groups, for community sail-and-oar racing. The ideal is a design which is swift and fun to build and swift and fun on the water.

As a first step towards this aim, two experimental prototypes were built in June 2002 at Lochgilphead. The builders were teenagers from the High School and they completed their seventeen-foot skiffs in just ten days.

The Lochgilphead Skiffs were a new design by Ian Oughtred, specifically for this community project. Ian thinks 'it must be possible to design a hull which can be put together quickly by inexperienced builders, but has a little more shape than the usual tea-chest-with-a-pointy-end. This vaguely Norse/Shetland/W. Coast sort of hull, with a strong sheer, plenty of flare, cutaway forefoot and keel rocker would be a far more able and seaworthy boat, and will look good'