Sundog fisherman's skiff

Tethered to town docks all along the Maine coast, amongst plastic dinghies, grey inflatables, and noisy aluminum boats, are wooden fisherman’s skiffs that quietly work for a living. These skiffs have a moderately wide flat bottom that's usually fore-and-aft planked, and flaring sides that are often lapstraked, typically with a nice springy sheer to them. These skiffs reflect the personality of their builders, and range from purely utilitarian to quite elegant.

I love the good looks and good manners of these busy boats and I wanted a boat that was both easy to build and would make her builder proud, plus would be an all around useful boat. A flat bottom boat will get into the thinnest water for exploring all sorts of coves, creeks and marshes plus this design makes a stable platform to fish from and for loading and unloading gear and supplies onto a bigger boat.

A flat bottom by itself doesn’t guarantee good stability. A good amount of flare to the topsides is a big help. Giving the sides a little curve also helps and adds some nice shape to the boat but is still easy to build, requiring only a little beveling at the laps.

Another nice thing about the flat bottom is that when you pull her up on shore or the tide goes out, she sits nicely upright patiently waiting for her crew to return or the cove to fill back in.

The Sundog skiff's bottom has a moderate amount of rocker (fore and aft curve) so with a decent load of people or gear the transom is at the waterline and the boat rows nicely, without fuss.

We designed and built the skiff in the photo for a couple who wanted a comfortable, capable, stable boat for everyone in their extended family to use for rowing, exploring, and fishing in the creek and nearby cove and harbor. Their boat has enjoyed well over a decade of happy busy summers since her launching.

The Sundog skiff goes easily and is fun to row. With a notch in the transom you can learn to scull. She can also take a small outboard or trolling motor. She’s a perfect boat for kids to learn in, since she has great manners but. . .you row, she goes. Two kids starting out rowing together, one to each oar, would have some serious fun and by summer’s end they’d be expert rowers. This is a boat you will want to grab when you need to do a little work around the mooring, dock or big boat, the boat you’ll want to sit on the transom and look into the water to see what’s going on on the bottom of the cove, the boat you’ll want for exploring a little island out in the middle of the harbor, or ferrying someone out to (or off) a rocky point or gravel beach. This boat is perfect dipping a net into the water to see what you catch, for towing toy boats behind, going out for a morning row with binoculars and breakfast, evening row with binoculars and beer, dropping a line over the side with a baited hook on the end to see if anything is biting, or retrieving something that has come adrift, and—if so inclined, cannonballing over the side then climbing back in over the transom.

First up on the drawing board is the sail rig for the Compass Harbor pram, then John will start in on the drawings for the Sundog skiff over the winter. When shop space and time open up, we’re planning to build a Sundog skiff, for all the helpful photos—and because we seriously need a new skiff to replace our old one that went on a private trip out of the harbor on a stiff northwesterly, never to be seen again. The kids are looking forward to helping with the building of Brit (small herring.) Brit goes along with our big boat, Tinker (small mackerel—and what we will be doing for some time to come on this vessel.)
We’ll be putting up progress notes here on the blog and also on the Sundog fisherman's skiff page on our site (more photos there, too.) If you’d like us to send you an email when the plans are done, please let us know and we’ll put you on the list.

The Sundog skiff design has proven to be a good one and her turn for a complete set of plans, after many requests. The Sundog skiff has the characteristic look of a typical fisherman's skiff with the added touch of a little curve to the topsides. This adds elegance and more stability. This is an easy boat to build with gentle curves everywhere and we will draw the plans in a step-by step-style, like the plans for the Compass Harbor pram, to make building her clearer and even easier.