The Peeler Skiff
By John C. Harris
A version of this article was first published in Small Craft Advisor in 2013
Designing a power skiff with versatility, good looks, and nice handling was easy. Much harder was making the project accessible to first-time builders, keeping the cost and shipping logistics under control, and meeting Coast Guard requirements.
So much about modern powerboats is taken for granted in the marketplace. The ability, for example, to go 30 knots in waves, and to be unconcerned about crew weight distribution. I’m immersed in the world of light craft, and the Peeler Skiff was an interesting lesson about lighter not always being better.
A current-generation Boston Whaler 15 shares the Peeler Skiff's length and width, but weighs 950 pounds, almost three times the weight of the Peeler Skiff. All that weight in the Whaler is the result of a heavy fiberglass hull and interior moldings, and it has a critical but unacknowledged purpose: it dampens the boat's motion. Drive a 950-pound hull into a small wave, and the boat's inertia wins. There's a dull "chumpf" and a bit of spray. A really light boat will hit the same wave with a nerve-shattering crash. You have to slow down. Thus, in some circumstances, a heavy powerboat can be driven faster than a light one. This paradox is unfamiliar to those of us brought up on sail and oar.
The Peeler Skiff is a "dory skiff" type. Dory skiffs have relatively narrow flat bottoms and sharply flaring sides for secondary stability and spray deflection. The Peeler Skiff isn't much bothered by the kind of chop you find in bays, harbors, lakes, and rivers. The center console version is better in waves because it's a little heavier, and the crew's weight is further forward.
In my first hours of on-water testing in the Peeler Skiff, I reflected that with clever okoume plywood egg-crate reinforcement, I could have engineered a 100-pound hull of sufficient strength. It would have been a mistake, though. All of that thin plywood would hum and vibrate and the boat would skitter over the waves in a painfully undignified way. The first version had an okoume plywood bottom that was just 3/8" thick, with a doubler down the middle for a total thickness of 3/4". With an 8-horsepower 4-stroke, I could manage about 16mph, which seems remarkably good, and everything felt sturdy enough. But with a 15-horsepower and three adults aboard, the 3/8" okoume bottom panel pumped like the head of a timpani drum. Speeding at 27mph through wind chop sounded like a marching band percussion section being rolled down a hill.
Water ballast was an option, but this increased the parts-count and complexity of the kit quite a lot. The answer, as old as the idea of a power skiff itself, is a thick bottom. With 3/4" plywood, doubled to 1-1/2" down the center, heavy layers of fiberglass inside and out, and two long solid timber runners, all the jitters were gone. The boat was quieter and could be driven faster in waves, and was less sensitive to crew placement. Sometimes there's no replacement for displacement. Depending on the builder, the Peeler Skiff's hull will weigh between 325 and 350 pounds.
Kit boats must satisfy the same stringent Coast Guard safety regulations that guide production builders. Thus, I found myself stripping the prototype of hardware, peppering the flotation tanks with holes, and delivering the boat to an official facility in southern Maryland for tank testing. There, engineers filled the boat with iron weights to represent various catastrophes, including being immersed for 24 hours. The boat creaked and groaned but held together and floated stably even while swamped. In this way the boat's rated capacity of four adults and max horsepower (15) was certified. And our insurers agreed to keep us on the books. And I can sleep at night, mostly.
The Peeler Skiff was by the US Coast Guard to a battery of tests at a special facility. Here, iron weights were used to simulate a swamping situation while fully loaded with engine and gear. The Peeler had to float upright and retain stability—after being swamped in the tank for 24 hours.
What keeps me up nights are the people writing in wondering if the boat wouldn't do better with 50 horsepower or whatever. No; this is a just a nice flat-bottomed skiff, for hauling crab pots or trolling for rockfish or tending an island camp. You're never going to use this boat for wave-jumping. Impatient types will be happier in the $70,000 Boston Whaler. The Peeler Skiff is a pip to drive in a nasty wind chop, as long as you're sensible. Pull back on the throttles, and the high and strongly flared sides give you a safe and dry ride home from the fishing grounds at 10 or 12 knots. As little as four horsepower would be sufficient for a little angling on the lake.
The Peeler Skiff's bantam weight and low-resistance hull make her a logical subject for electric power. Here's a Peeler Skiff with a Torqeedo outboard of about 15hp equivalent.
The Torqeedo factory fitted a bone-stock, unmodified Peeler Skiff with a motor and extra batteries for the 24-mile Wye Island Electric Boat Marathon. Despite the weight of the extra batteries, the Peeler Skiff finished second—behind a boat on hydrofoils.
The stitch-and-glue Peeler Skiff is within the realm of a first-time boatbuilder. There's a long list of features that were left off in favor of simplicity. Even at a third the weight of the Boston Whaler, it's still a big and heavy kit to ship through the mail, requiring a pallet on a freight truck. If you add too many bits and pieces like floorboards and center consoles you risk breaking the Harris Rule.
The Harris Rule is my own contribution to the art of the boat kit. It states that if the total cost of a kit boat project (boat, finishing supplies, engine, trailer, etc.) exceeds the cost of a used boat with roughly similar capability, the smart money is on the used boat. Nobody will buy the kit. A Peeler Skiff with engine and trailer will land well below $10k. It would be very difficult to find something in the same class for that kind of money. We’ve shipped hundreds of Peeler Skiff kits to boatmen (many of them sailors, I note, with a certain snobbery) who appreciate a wholesome skiff and don’t need to go 30 knots all the time.
Peeler Skiff built by Terry T, Grand Teton National Park, WY.
The Peeler Skiff in "utility skiff" mode. 10hp outboard and no center console.
