What is the difference between a skiff and a dinghy

Again, this is simply verifiable, demonstrable historical truth. In the end, the followers of the "skiff type" 18s won, and gradually the term "skiff" went from describing 16s, to a particular form of 18, and then to all "skiffs" of the 12, 16 and 18 classes and sometimes Aussie 14s. This was not universal - the Kiwis called 18s by their LOA or as "Flying 18s" and the "skiff" label only gradually came to describe the various classes as a whole.

Historical research clearly demonstrates that until about , the term "skiff" as used to describe a particular and distinct type of racing centreboard mono as only used for 12s, 16s, 18s and rarely Aussie 14s.

It was then used as an advertising term by the VS, a local class vaguely like a 16 Foot Skiff without steroids, and was then applied as an adjective to similar boats. Skiffs cannot be defined by hull shape, because past and present skiffs have had all sorts of different hulls - round bilged, hard chined, multi chined, planing, or non planing. The current dominant 12 Foot Skiff hull has round bilges, the 18 hulls have chines, the 16 hull is round-bilged forward and chined aft.

They cannot be defined by speed historically, because at times they were slower than northern hemisphere type dinghies. They cannot be described by their attitude to development,because they are not any more open to development than other types - most of the attributes given today to "skiffs" were seen in conventional dinghies before they were seen in the classes that created the "skiff" label as it is used today. Skiffs are not boats that tack downwind, because that was specifically described even in ocean racers of the s.

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; 2 many "real" skiffs like 16s and 12s do NOT plane upwind; 3 other boats like Canoes and arguably s and Tasars and scow Moths plane upwind.

The classes from which the term can be traced in this context have been fast, slow, round bilged, scows, hard chined, rigidly against development, pro development, and had every contradiction available. Technically, the only real points of skiffs historically has been that they have had MUCH higher crew-induced righting moment and MUCH higher sail area oer LOA than conventional dinghies, and this has been consistent throughout the evolution of the term from the s to the s.

Originally posted by Rupert According to Graham Anderson in "Fast Light Boats", the Sydney harbour 18 footers were heavy dispalcement boats which didn't plane at all, but carried so much sail they went very fast.

With respect to Anderson, FLB manages to rewrite history to claim than Kiwis invented everything, but largely by simply pretending that advances created in the Northern Hemisphere occurred a decade or so later than they actually did.

Please note the above - this is NOT a case in which the Southern Hemisphere countries did things earlier or better, since that is not historically true in any way. However, the term in this context DID come from a distinct source that can be traced by anyone stupid enough to have gone to the effort As noted above, the term "skiff" in this context.

It refers to a lightweight dinghy with a broad wedge shaped planing hull. The emphasis is on power to weight ratio rather than performance. For me the 29er standard and the Aus. The 29er and the Cherub you might call Skiff Trainers, which in the hierarchy of things, is pretty much what they are designated as. Historically, this definition doesn't work when applied to the Aussie skiff classes, but language evolves and the term skiff is now being used internationally to describe a particular type of boat as outlined above.

Back in the 60's Moths were scows most of them Then the skiff Moth appeared the Europe was a spin off. Use of trapeze is irrelevent. Waaaay back there were no trapezes on skiffs. Then 1 was allowed, then 2, then more. I think I covered that in my last paragraph.

Language is a dynamic thing, meanings change over time. Furthermore, one word can have several meanings depending on context, and quite obviously the term 'skiff' has many meanings both historically and with regard to different types of craft. I've attempted to answer the OP based on my perception of how the term is currently used to differentiate a skiff type sailing dinghy from a more general type of sailing dinghy.

Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6. The first Cherub was built to the NZ Pennant class rule which was certainly not a skiff type. Spence is recorded as saying that the inspiration for the first boat was to take the deep chested English merlin rocket type shape, but by exploiting the properties of plywood to make a much lighter boat that would need far lower rocker.

I recall Spencer designed it and one of them won the 12' Interdominions back about the early - mid 60's or thereabouts. Yes, that's the cynical view, but really it's more about common usage.

Words are slippery things and determining the meaning of a word is not a simple task. A skiff was once a small shipboard rowboat, it was also a canoe in parts of nth america, and turned into a sailing version of both maybe years ago. In Aust the first racing class to use the term was the 16s early in the C20th. The 12s and 18s seem to have taken the term ony after WW2. Then the rest of the world took notice and thought it was a term for high performance sailing.

The moth class used the term from the 60s to distiguish scows from pointy boats. The 14s started being skiffs after the amalgamation of the Nth Hemisphere Int 14s and the Aust 14ft Dinghies, s?

Its become very general and consequently much less specific, as does any word which gets overused. Predates the amalgamation by more than 20 years. Skiffs was used more often in Sydney than other states. When I started sailing I thought a 'skiff' was as a type of 'dinghy' that has been designed to plane on a flat bottom as it's primary mode of sail and is most stable doing so vs regular dinghies that become LESS stable when planing. Now I think that it's more similar to 'Google' vs 'google' - let me explain: just like Google, Skiff capitalized is the official name of only a handful of classes.

These classes have certain common attributes which make them 'high performance planning dinghies' - let's give them the acronym HPPD. During the last few decades, existing and new classes have been developed with those same attributes, makes them Skiff-like, and given the general term of 'skiff' lower case instead of referring to them as HPPD, for example. This is like telling your friend 'google i14 for me on sailinganarchy forum' by which you mean 'do a search for If we could all agree that instead of using 'skiff' we could use something like HPPD, everyone would be happy!

But just like we use 'googling' when we do nothing related to Google, I think we'll keep using skiff and Skiff interchangeably and getting a few people's blood boiling in the process!

I sailed Aus 14's back then early 60's. We called them 14' skiffs as often as we called them 14' dinghies. The non Aus I14 guys only picked up 14'skiff from the Aussies after amalgamation. Been pissed there too many times back in the 60's. Then there was St Kilda 14ft Sailing Club, that "died" back about ?.. It continued to sail 3 up until at least Only some.

The term "skiff" is not defined by the classes that choose to use it in their official name. Nor is there a restriction on new classes being created that use the word "skiff" in their name. In general use, a skiff is a light, flat bottomed boat. When talking to small boat sailors, it might mean a light sailing boat that is not only light and flat bottomed, but also designed to plane in most conditions and may also be called an "apparent wind" boat noting that not all apparent wind boats are skiffs, though all sailing skiffs probably are apparent wind boats.

For some, a skiff is only those classes that have "skiff" in their name. But that's a flawed approach that defies logic. Should 12' skiffs move to hydrofoils and adopt a hull shape that is very un—skiff like, are they still a "skiff"? The NZ R Class seems to think so. If the class association decided to change it's name to " skiff", would that make it a skiff?

In any situation, if there is likely to be any confusion over what is meant by the use of a word, then an adjective or alternative term should be used to clarify its use. So in the case of "skiff", you might say "18' skiff", "i14" or similar. The word "skiff" has much much more general usage outside this very narrow definition. And the acceptance of the term as used in Australia is by no means universally known.

Until really recently, even though I've been following 18s loosely for 25 years meaning that I don't know what's really going on and never did , I've always called them "Australian 18s" or "18s" or as some people like to write, "aedeens".

The "skiff" part is more recently in my consciousness. Come to think of it, was it in Frank's book? I read that when it first came out. Chapt 1 Colonial: " There is no reason to suppose that in the 17th cent'y it meant a flat-bottomed rowboat. Mention of the difference between the flat-bottomed skiff or sharpie cross planked and the bateau long planked.

Note that "sharpie" has mutliple very specific meanings in different regions, viz. The "flatiron skiff," as a name, was in use as late as in some areas. The term was very popular, apparently, at New Haven and on the Connecticut shore, [my current home region--ed] and it was so descriptive of the small skiffs that it was readily understood and this retained its popularity for a long time.

I'm only giving a taste. Suffice it to say that reading it, it is quite interesting to realize that my own, locally developed sense of these words does indeed trace quite strongly to the regions in which my formative boating was done. Linguistic history is rich and quite long-lived--words carry echoes of the past, in their meaning. You may have called your boats whatever you pleased, just as you seem to do now with your own identity, but my post indicated that the association running 14ft racing in Aust as late as called them Dinghies.

I was at Nth Harbour SC today and saw all the 14ft Nationals posters on the walls and lots refer to 14ft Dinghy and none refer to 14ft skiff. I understand there was some class debate about the name with NSW losing the push for change against the most of the other states.

Everything lost. Records, trophies, boats? I have no idea what you called things in the 60's, so I won't presume to tell you what terminology you used then because I was not there. And I know that I had not met you back in the 60's so you could not possibly know what terminology I used then.

I do recall that the term "dinghy" or "sailing dinghy" was in greater use back in the '60's than it appears to be these days. Calling a 14' a "14' dinghy" could cause confusion because of the various 14' dinghies around then. Skate, GP 14, Javelin, and I think a couple of others. Calling them 14' Skiff left no doubt in the minds of non 14 sailors what we were talking about.

Nth Harbour SC was destoyed about , but it was rebuilt and maybe never again ran races. Its still there and there well maintained and there are even some s vintage 14s inside, along with some 16s, paddling canoes and various junk. The memorabilia collection dates from since the rebuild. Peter Moor is rebuilding a moth there at the moment, hence my visit. Skate, GP 14, Javelin,. Bob Miller tried to deck an 18 footer, FD style in the 60s and was required to cut great holes in said deck to race.

Haven't been to RMYS for about 30 years. Half of Triad was there then. Are Jon boats dangerous? Jon boats are not as safe or stable as V-hull boats in choppy or turbulent water. However, in calm, shallow water, jon boats are incredibly safe as long as you don't add to much weight or exceed speed recommendations.

But for the most part, yes, jon boats are safe. Can you use a jon boat in the ocean? Jon boats can be taken out into the ocean but must be done so with caution.

Boats shorter than 16 feet in length present a significant hazard on the open water due to stability and power rating. What size jon boat should I get? A 18 foot Jon boat should be big enough to haul dogs and decoys in large lakes. It should also be stable enough to handle fairly rough waters within reason. If you hunt in small lakes and ponds then a small Jon boat, 10 foot or 12 foot, will be more than enough for the job. Are Jon boats good in rough water? While they will be less stable and less smooth than most boats with a v-shaped hull, Jon Boats can reasonably handle most rough water with wave heights of up to 4 feet.

So, yes, we think for most rivers and lakes, a Jon Boat will do alright. Like the skiff from Sundance, the Mako skiffs offer in hull storage, operate from a center console station and have engine rating that includes as small as 40 horsepower for the foot skiff all the way up to a horsepower for the foot skiff. Carolina Skiff might be the most well know skiff manufacturer out there. This is definitely true here in the Carolinas where I am located. You can find the Carolina Skiff boats on almost any body of water you can imagine.

Carolina Skiffs are seen running rivers, lakes, waterways and even out in the ocean near shore on nice days. If you are looking for a Skiff, Carolina Skiff probably has a boat to suit your needs. If you want a fiberglass boat with a tiller motor similar to a Jon boat you can look at their smallest foot JV tiller series boat which is paired with a 25 horsepower tiller motor. If you want to go to a top of the line skiff, Carolina Skiff offers their 24 Ultra Elite skiff.

It is almost hard to call this boat a skiff. It comes with all of the bells and whistles you could ever want on a skiff. The 24 Elite weighs over 3, pounds and is rated for a horsepower engine. Does your father or your best friend have a beloved sailboat? Is their birthday coming up?

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