17' Skerrieskiff
Description
The 17' Skerrieskiff is a lightweight, glued lapstrake plywood rowing and sailing skiff designed by Scottish naval architect Iain Oughtred, introduced in the 1990s as part of his Skerrieskiff series inspired by traditional Shetland fishing boats (skerries being rocky islets off Scotland's coast). This versatile double-ender emphasizes portability, ease of construction, and performance for solo or duo use on lakes, rivers, or sheltered coastal waters—excelling as a yacht tender, daysailer, or expedition boat. With its narrow beam and low weight (built from a single 8x4 ft plywood sheet per side), it's highly trailerable and rows efficiently, while the balanced lug yawl rig provides lively sailing without a boom or standing rigging. Oughtred's plans require no lofting, making it accessible for basic-to-intermediate builders (80–120 hours). The design has been featured in Boat Design Quarterly #39 and proven in builds like a pair constructed by Scottish high-school students in just 10 days. A smaller 15' version exists for even more compactness.
The standard boat dimensions
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Disclaimer. Boats are not all the same -- even when produced in the same factory of the same model. Sailrite does its best to publish accurate dimensions, but we often find it worthwhile to have our customers measure their boats carefully before we produce kits for them. You should take the same precautions, especially when the data is not from Sailrite. The information on this site is not guaranteed to be accurate. Sailrite offers this content as a service to our community, but takes no responsibility for the reliability of the data provided.