SAILING MAGAZINE SMALL BOAT ISSUE- JUNE 2003

SKERRY & CLASSIC CAT; BEACH CRUSIER AND CATBOAT by Robert H. Perry

This Skerry is a beautiful boat. It's a classic rowing type with a sailing rig built in a type of lapstrake construction the builder, Chesapeake Light Craft, calls "Lapstitch™." The promo material calls it a "beach cruiser." I guess I'm old. No, I'm definitely getting old. I just can't imagine sailing along with camping gear and pulling my boat up on the beach and setting up camp for the night. There was a time when I could.

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. The pea pod plan form shape is very traditional and makes this boat row sweetly. I admit to being a sucker for a nice pulling boat. That's what you call them when you are serious about rowing: "pulling boats." It has a good sound. In some ways it's a refined dorylike shape with flared topsides, but more plan form asymmetry. The flared topsides provide stability when the boat is heeled and gives you sufficient buoyancy to go out for an afternoon's sail and return home with a load of herring. "Ahh, the smell of the sea."

The little sprit rig will move the Skerry along nicely but don't harden up against a Laser. A Sea Scouter would be more fair game. I see myself in the Skerry, Piper perched in the bow, Three Nuns smoldering in one of my vintage Dunhills, silently sailing down the shoreline on a reach trolling for cutthroat trout. Bliss would be mine.