St Ayles Skiff

The St Ayles Skiff is a 22 ft four-oared rowing boat with a cox, drawn by Iain Oughtred in 2009 for the Scottish Fisheries Museum, which wanted a boat a coastal community could build together for about three thousand pounds. Her lines come from the traditional Fair Isle skiff. Alec Jordan built the prototype in seven weeks and she took to the water on Halloween 2009, and the idea spread from Anstruther to hundreds of community clubs in Scotland, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia and North America.

She is glued clinker plywood and epoxy, about 5 ft 8 in in beam and around 350 lb finished, built over moulds from a kit of precut planks and frames that Jordan Boats supplies, with a royalty going back to the museum. Most skiffs are built by club volunteers over a winter, and the clubs race them under the Scottish Coastal Rowing Association. A log of a club build, or of a later refit, is exactly what the next club starting one wants to read.