skiff vs. dory

[LightningJack]

Probably a naive question, but here goes: What distinguishes a dory from a skiff. I'm perusing designs for a project and I think I'm envisioning a skiff, but I want to know what makes a skiff a skiff. Maybe a dory is a better choice for my needs. What's the difference in general between a skiff and a dory?
Thanks,
-J

[Bruce Hooke]

Strickly speaking, I believe on a skiff the bottom planks run crosswise whereas on a dory they run lengthwise. Also, in building a dory you would traditionally start with the bottom and then add the sides, whereas with a skiff you would start with the sides and then add the bottom.

HOWEVER, since so many boats are now built with plywood where both of those rules may go out the window, I think for practical purposes it makes more sense to focus on shape --

So, in terms of shape a dory will usually have a relative narrow bottom with sides that angle out a good bit. Dories are also usually very narrow on at the stern **. Many dory transoms end at a point at the bottom and many are less than 12" wide at the top.

Skiffs on the other hand tend to be somewhat wider on the bottom and tend to have more vertical sides. They will also usually have a transom that has at least some width, and usually a good bit of width at the bottom.

As to use, dories are great sea boats. They were used in the old days for fishing on the Grand Banks, off Newfoundland. The narrower, lighter models row well and some versions can sail well althougth the ones that sail best are probably the ones with rounded sides because the straight-sided ones do not have enough stability to stand up to much sail area. Dories, especially the straight-sided variety, do not have a lot of initial stability, which can be hard to get used to for people who are not comfortable around small boats. Dories do NOT tend to take a motor well because they lack the width aft needed to support the motor well, let alone get up onto a plane.

Skiffs on the other hand have a lot of initial stability so they are very comfortable for the inexperienced. They make a good working platform for use around docks and other boats for the same reason and they would also probably be more comfortable for quiet water fishing, again because of their initial stability. They are not good sea boats as a general rule although there are plenty of skiff-like boats that do pretty well. They tend to be shaped better for taking an outboard. They can sail well but when healed much can tip in a hurry (think Sunfish -- once the windward side lifts you can go over pretty quickly).

So, that's my take.
I hope it's helpful...

** There are "semi-dories" that are wide aft but aside from construction methods they are basically shaped like skiffs so unless we're dealing with traditional construction let's call them skiffs and be done with it. ;)

[Bruce Hooke]

I would call this a skiff:

http://www.boat-links.com/DepoeBay/98/Skiff.jpg

and this a skiff:

http://www.marylouiseosullivan.com/skiff.jpg

and this a dory:

http://www.boat-links.com/DepoeBay/00/Bonus/Dory-2.jpg

This is also a dory:
http://www.nauticaspect.com/drifter/payson%20dory.jpg

Grand Banks Dories were traditionally designed to be stacked on the deck of a schooner:

http://www.schooner-adventure.org/photos/earlier%20lives/launch%20dory.jpg

It should maybe be noted that "skiff" covers a very broad range of craft. For example, the picture below is what our English friends would, I believe, call a skiff -- it's a far cry from the usually collection of rough-and-ready fisherman's skiffs tied up at town landings in any fishing port in New England! ;) :D

http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/swans/images/vintners.jpg

At times the term skiff seems to get applied to just about any "generic" small boat. Just try doing a Google image search on "skiff" and you'll get the picture!

[ 04-02-2004, 07:12 PM: Message edited by: Bruce Hooke ]

[Donn]

Now, if you still aren't sure, here's a boat that has a 30+ year old history, The Amesbury Dory Skiff from Sturdee.

http://www.stur-deeboat.com/images/skif1.jpg

It started in wood, but is fiberglass now. I have a 16' from the 80's, and it's a dandy craft.

[Dutch.Rub]

.....a dory has a flat bottom...optional in a skiff...

[dmede]

John Gardner's "The Dory Book" has a fairly complete history of the Dory and a good explanation of what seprates it from other similar boats.

It should be noted that John, something of an expert on the sublect, considered semi-dories to be just that, semi-dories, and not skiffs. Read the book, it will explain all ;)

[LightningJack]

Thanks all. The combination of text and pictures made it very clear.
That initial stability is gonna steer me toward a skiff, if I can find one that can handle a bay: not quiet water, like a lake, but not the ocean either. Right now I'm thinking of the Sea Hawk 'dory skiff' in Bolger's _Small_Boats_ (I think Payson sells plans that are based on this). Of course I'll do plenty more reading, browsing and asking before I decide if and what to build.
Thanks again.
-J

[imported_Steven Bauer]

LJ, you're welcome to come over and see my 14' John Gardner skiff. In a couple of months you could even come for a sail. :D

Steven

[Peter Lyons]

I don't get what part of the "Amesbury Dory Skiff" above makes it part Dory. It looks like all skiff to me.

[Donn]

One thing that makes it a dory is the freeboard. I can board her by pulling a gunwale down and climbing over, without swamping her, and I weigh 240#. I can pull pots with 250# of bait without swamping her. She's a great design, and I'd love to have a wooden version, but lacking that, the glass model does just fine.

[Peter Lyons]

To me, the hull looks very similar to this boat:
http://www.clcboats.com/boats/doryskiff.php/

[Bruce Hooke]

Originally posted by dmede:
John Gardner's "The Dory Book" has a fairly complete history of the Dory and a good explanation of what seprates it from other similar boats.

It should be noted that John, something of an expert on the sublect, considered semi-dories to be just that, semi-dories, and not skiffs. Read the book, it will explain all ;) I have the book and have read it, althought I will admit that it's been a while. Just to clarify, the point I was trying to make was that once you eliminate the construction methods from the equation the distinctions between a semi-dory and a skiff are pretty small. In many ways the semi-dories in John's book are at least as close to what I would consider to be a "typical" skiff as they are to a "typical" dory.

That said, I just took another look at the semi-dory designs in The Dory Book and I did notice one thing. Despite having wider bottoms aft (than a typical dory) to better handle a motor, the bottoms on most of the semi-dories is still narrower than a basic skiff (such as the first two pictures in my second post). So, semi-dories are something of a crossover between a skiff and a dory. Maybe that's why the type sometimes appears to be called a "dory skiff"!

With that in mind you might want to take a look at the semi-dories in The Dory Book. They are designed to run well under power and handle rough water, but they are wide enough so that they should feel pretty stable. In general, boats with a wide flat bottom do not handle waves well. A V-bottomed boat is one excellent solution to this problem but V-bottomed boats are a lot more work to build than flat-bottomed boats. Another solution is to compromise by keeping the bottom flat but angling the sides in more (or curving the sides) to keep the bottom from getting too wide. This is the approach taken in many semi-dories, dory skiffs, or dory-like skiffs (whatever you want to call them! :D )

What you are looking for is very common so you should have plenty of choices.

[Bruce Hooke]

Originally posted by Peter Lyons:
I don't get what part of the "Amesbury Dory Skiff" above makes it part Dory. It looks like all skiff to me.This is the point I've been trying to make. Once you leave out the construction methods, which fiberglass certainly makes moot, whether this boat is a dory (semi-dory, dory skiff, etc.) or a well-designed skiff is angels on the head of a pin territory.

Lowell's Boat Shop (http://lowellsboatshop.com/boats/amesbury_skiff.html), which has been building boats like this for a couple hunderd years now, calls their version of this design a "Lowell Amesbury Skiff" but says it is "an adaptation of the Surf Dory". So basically skiffs and dories to some degree blend into each other at the dividing line...

[Ken Buck]

To follow up on the Amesbury Skiff...

As others have mentioned, method of construction plays a role in deciding what a boat "is", although recent years have complicated things by adding construction choices that didn't exist in the past. Perhaps the "purest" form of "dory" is a wooden boat planked lengthwise using lapstrake contruction fastened with nails and/or rivets, with a flat wooden bottom that is also planked lengthwise, with several interior U-shaped frames, pointed at the bow and with a steeply-angled, narrow V-shaped transom ("tombstone") at the stern.

However... nowadays, epoxy and fibreglass and alternative construction methods have arrived, so we can still call a smooth-sided boat planked with plywood and epoxy a "dory", or even some fibreglass molded boats that look like a dory ... at some point, the shape of the boat becomes as much a defining factor as any other.
Furthermore, Chamberlain built dories using batten-seam construction; some have made use of bent frames in addition to, or instead of the standard sawn oak frames; and many variations on shape have occurred over the years.

With boats as with many other things, there can be some overlap from one type to another. It's good to be both accurate and flexible... Purists may choose to sit and argue over the names, while the rest of us will go out on the water and have fun in our boats.... smile.gif

Anyway, back to the Amesbury Skiff...

The "Amesbury" part comes because Lowell's Boat Shop built (and still builds) the boats in Amesbury, MA, at a location formerly known as Salisbury Pt. (Lowell's also builds what they call a Salisbury Pt. Skiff).

The "Skiff" term arises either as a shortened form of "Dory Skiff" or as a somewhat more elegant replacement for "Semi-Dory" (which doesn't exactly flow off the tongue - plus, who wants to own a boat that is a "Semi-anything"? smile.gif ). Generally, a semi-dory starts out as a dory at the bow, but tends to have a wider, lower sheer and wider bottom towards the stern, ending in a wider, more upright transom.
Since the semi-dory shape starts to approach the classic "flat-iron skiff", and perhaps because the boat also gets used more as a traditional skiff would be used, it becomes acceptable to call it a "dory skiff" or perhaps just a "skiff".

If you look at the construction method, the Amesbury Skiff, the Salisbury Pt. Skiff, and the Surf and Banks Dories are all essentially the same. They are built using the same method, same tools, same fastenings, same kind of internal framing, lengthwise planking, lengthwise bottom, and same general shape, though certainly with some significant differences, too. Sheerline, transom shape, beam, and other factors vary. Still, when you look at how they are built, there's no question that all share the "Dory Heritage" and can claim some ownership to the term "dory" (or in some cases, "semi-dory").

Here are a few links to pics from my photo galleries of the Lowell's collection. I apologize that I had to pull the large size pictures from some of the boat galleries, but I expect to be replacing them and adding some more in the not-too-distant future.

Lowell's Boat Shop Amesbury Skiff (http://www.tuckershobbies.com/lowellsboatshop/floats/pages/07_lbs_floats6.htm)

Lowell's Boat Shop Salisbury Pt. Skiff - Under construction (http://www.tuckershobbies.com/lowellsboatshop/general/pages/16_lbs_salisburypt1.htm)

Lowell's Boat Shop Surf Dory (http://www.tuckershobbies.com/lowellsboatshop/general/pages/28_lbs_paintshop_18sailingdory.htm)

Lowell's Boat Shop Banks Dory (http://www.tuckershobbies.com/lowellsboatshop/floats/pages/06_lbs_floats_banksdory.htm)

[Paul H]

...and for the best of both worlds, in my not in the least biased opinion ;) there is the Tolman Alaskan Skiff, which is a semi-dory with a semi-vee bottom

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/store/books_cds/alaska/asfas.htm

One feature of the dory I didn't see mentioned is the soaring sheer line.

Dories are very popular for drift fishing rivers, but don't see as much use in the salt water. I guess we are too lazy and too busy to enjoy rowing out to go fishing.

[Ken Buck]

Dory sheer lines vary. Typical round-sided Surf/Swampscott dories do tend to have a curved sheer, St. Pierre dories take this to the extreme, but some dories have a nearly flat sheer. Our family had an old 14' Swampscott type dory built with 5 strakes (a lot for such a small boat) and a nearly flat sheerline. I've seen some Banks dories that tend that way as well. I guess it helps with the carrying capacity - more fish!

As for use in salt water, maybe you are referring to dories in your area(?). There are certainly plenty tasting the sea on the East coast.

[stevenj]

All hail the Tolman Skiff!!!

hi paul

stevenj
(lowpine on TSYahoo)

[Paul H]

Originally posted by Ken Buck:
(sic)

As for use in salt water, maybe you are referring to dories in your area(?). There are certainly plenty tasting the sea on the East coast.You're correct, I failed to mention in Alaskan waters. I admit the fun I've been having making my Tolman skiff has lead me to consider future boat projects, and a dory to row around would be good fun, and possible as a future project.