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Easy to build, easy to row, and easy to sail: the Skerry is a terrific rowing and sailing boat with timeless good looks.
The Skerry design combines elements of traditional working craft of the British Isles and Scandinavia, with a little bit of American Swampscott Dory thrown in. This synthesis of historic designs with CLC's LapStitch™ construction method results in a beautiful hull with excellent performance under sail or oar that you can build yourself. This John C. Harris design is that rarest of small boats that rows and sails with equal affinity. Sail when there's wind, row when there's not. You'll cover the miles either way.
The Skerry is an ideal first boatbuilding project, and a good boat in which to learn to sail or row. The Skerry will take you for a relaxing afternoon sail, yet she has the capacity and performance to go “beachcruising”—sailing or rowing by day and pulling up on a secluded beach each evening to camp. The Skerry’s feather-light weight and shallow draft mean that you can poke into quiet waters, pull the boat over a sandbar, and explore that hidden cove.
"A lightweight 15' double-ender, the Skerry fits the bill admirably for those who want a traditional Scandinavian design but may not be confident in complex traditional construction...It's a pretty hull. It's a pleasure to look especially at the curve of the stern, which I think is just right." WoodenBoat's Small Boats Annual 2007
"...Under sail, the Skerry felt slippery and footed right along...[Under oars] the Skerry was so smooth and it carried so well we decided she's a boat you might actually choose to take for a row, as oppposed to merelay acting as a secondary propulsion option. The owners we interviewed were unanimous in rating the quality of the plans, kit components, and building manual as excellent." Small Craft Advisor May-June 2016.
"This Skerry is a beautiful boat. . . There is not an ugly line on this boat. The sheer is beautiful and accented by the lines of the chines. The chines add interest and eye candy to an already appealing boat." Read entire review - Sailing Magazine, June 2003
The flaring sides make the Skerry stable and dry under sail. She's stiff and comfortable and lifts easily over choppy waves. Three sailing rigs are available:
The sprit rig is the most faithful to the Norse smallcraft that inspired the Skerry design. It's the easiest and least expensive of the rigs to build—there are no tapers in the spars, for example—and also the quickest by far to set up on the beach. It stows inside the hull for transport. The boom is set high enough that the boat can be rowed with the sail up, extremely handy when maneuvering close to shore.
The balanced lug rig is the best compromise between easy construction, performance under sail, and ease of rigging. Of the three rigs it is the easiest rig to set up and douse while on the water, and the easiest to reef if the wind comes up.
The gunter sloop rig is intended for sailors for whom speed is of paramount importance. The Skerry is a docile and fun boat no matter which rig she carries; the 78 square feet of the sloop rig will elevate her into racing-dinghy-level performance, though with the performance comes the racing dinghy's rigging complexity.
Under oars, the Skerry has a long, easy glide and excellent tracking. Two rowing positions permit the Skerry to be rowed with one, two, or three adults on board.
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As seen in Small Boats!
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2024:
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Ultralight weight—about a hundred pounds—also means the Skerry is easy to handle ashore. Given sturdy roof racks and two average adults to do the lifting, the Skerry can be cartopped with ease. Or, if you use the boat by yourself most of the time, the lightest, simplest boat trailer or dolly will work.
The Skerry is a plywood-epoxy composite boat, assembled using Chesapeake Light Craft’s exclusive LapStitch™ technique. The sides are 6mm Okoume, while the bottom is 9mm, sheathed with fiberglass for those hard beach landings. The interior includes 9mm okoume frames and sealed air tanks at the bow and stern for buoyancy. The matrix of high-quality plywood and marine epoxy allows great strength and a glossy finish. To build a Skerry, all you need is a pair of sawhorses and a warm place for a shop. No mold, no lofting, and no odd tools beyond a block plane, a drill, a bucket of clamps, and a sander.
The daggerboard trunk is included in, and integral to, the "base model" rowing kit—it supports the center seat. Thus all builders are ready for the sailing rig from the start. Or leave the trunk sealed and add the rig later.
The Skerry measures 15'0" overall and 4'6" wide. Draft is 5", or with the daggerboard down, 30". The rudder kicks up easily for beach landings. The Skerry is steered with a traditional Scandinavian push-pull control. Everyone who has ever spent time in a Skerry has lauded the push-pull tiller as it opens up the interior for flexible seating. The more common pivoting tiller limits the seating options, effectively blocking off the rear third of the cockpit. We do see the more common tiller arrangement fitted on Skerries that are sailed hard without concern for seating flexibility; many of the large fleet of Skerries in France are rigged that way.
Early in the Skerry's run it was noted that the design had much promise as a cruising dinghy. In 2008, John Harris modified the Skerry by adding a deck with more flotation and storage. The first of these modified and uprated Skerries was rowed and sailed more than 6000 miles by adventurer John Guider, completing the circuit of North America known as "The Great Loop." This version, now known as the Skerry Raid, is available in kit form and many have been built.
A little about the name "Skerry": The term is related to the Old Norse "sker," an Orkney word, the local name for a "rugged ... sea-rock, covered by the sea in high water or in stormy weather." It was also the name given (c 1540) to "little punts or boats that will carry but two apeece." (Both quotes from the OED.) "Skerry" is now common in Irish, and is found in the Rosalie Fry children's book THE SECRET OF THE RON MOR SKERRY. That book, in turn, became the famous John Sayles film THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH.
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