Building and using the St Ayles Skiff on Loch Broom
Ullapool 1, the first St Ayles skiff for Loch Broom, has been started
General view of the working area,
We gathered in Adrian’s Cowshed, aka Viking Boats production facility, on one of the coldest nights so far to start the build. Clearly there is a masochistic tendency among Ullapool’s putative Skiff builders 
.
For the picture log of our building efforts have a look at the build page
The proposed visit of the St Ayles Skiff to Lochbroom has been postponed due to the adverse weather forecast. The feared strong South Easterlies look as though they are on the way and it is probable they would seriously inhibit the anticipated try out of the boat. Because the boat has to be trailed up from Fife, a 400 mile round trip, it has been decided to cancel this weekend. Our sincere apologies to anybody who was going to come along.
The Prototype St Ayles Skiff will be visiting Loch Broom over the Weekend of 21st – 22nd November.
The purpose of the visit is to allow interested people to have a good look at the boat and to try her out on the water (at their own risk). The plan is to launch her by the Wee Pier around 10 a.m. on Saturday 21st and to be available until about 3 ish p.m. We expect a group of potential Skiff builders from Lewis to arrive on the morning Ferry.
On Sunday we plan on having the Skiff available from 11 am until 3 p.m.
Members of the first Ullapool Skiff Syndicate will be on hand with Alec Jordan of Jordan Boats and the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project to chat about the boat and project. If you are interested please come along and find out more.
All this is of course rather weather dependant, but rest assured a drop of rain won’t stop us – however a howling South Easterly might!
Ullapool Coastal Rowing is a small group of individuals inspired by the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project to build and compete in a St Ayles skiff (the SCRP class boat) in Regattas around the coast of Scotland and possibly further afield. The idea behind the Coastal Rowing Project is that communities build and race their home-built boats against others from around the coast of Scotland. Our order for the boat kit has been placed and we are just waiting on delivery in a few weeks to make a start. If you stay in the Loch Broom or Coigach area, and would like to get involved or just see what we are up to then please get in touch – use the response area below and we will get back to you with more information. Responses are moderated so contact requests won’t be published to the wider world. A Coigach Syndicate is very much on the cards and is actively looking for a few more members.
So what is the St Ayles Skiff - in simple terms a reworking by Iain Oughtred, renowned small boat designer, of the traditional Fair Isle Skiff for Clinker/Lapstrake Ply construction. 22 feet in length and 5ft 6inches in breadth she is big in the shed but soon shrinks when on the water with a crew aboard.
'Aluna Ivy', Fair Isle Skiff traditionally built by Ian Best of Fair Isle
The design was commissioned by the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther and digitized for kit manufacture by Alec Jordan of Jordan Boats. Using the Jordan Boats kit as the basis of the project means that all the boats should be very close in hull form and dimensions resulting in teamwork being the deciding factor in competition. Use of the kit also means that the cost of a boat is minimised – the maximum build cost should be under £3,000, the build method means that it is well within the ability of an average DIYer. Having a Skiff built professionally in real wood would cost around £10,000. The finished kit looks like this :
Initially the Skiff will be a pure rower but the intent is that once experience has been gained under oars a simple rig will be fitted, primarily for downwind sailing. This should make for some interesting racing in the future.
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