During the COVID pandemic, Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, was second to none when it came to lockdowns. From March 2020 to October 2021, the city endured six lockdowns for a total of 262 days, more days by far than any other city on Earth. In the midst of the pandemic, Gary Hardy realized the looming threat of another long spell of being homebound could be put to good use as a compelling argument to build another boat. There wasn’t much room in the shed for building the 15′-long Skerry. When the weather permitted, the hull could be rolled out on a dolly and set on sawhorses, where there is fresh air and a lot more elbow room.
Photographs courtesy of Gary and Anne Hardy
Read this article now for Free!
Ready for a second free article? Create a free account by entering your email address and a password below.
— OR —
Subscribe now for $29.99 a year and have immediate access to all of our content, including hundreds of small-boat profiles, gear reviews and techniques, adventure stories, and more! You can also browse our entire archive of back issues starting from September 2014, as well as post unlimited classified ads. This is an extraordinary value!
I’m delighted to see such a well-equipped Skerry. I built mine a few years back because I wanted to learn how to sail and figured I have to start by knowing how to build it. Now that I know what I love in small boats, I’ve always felt let down by its ability to “cruise.” A lot of your modifications tell me I’m just not being creative enough. How did you do the side benches aft?
How does the dodger marry into the forward oarlocks?
As for the Norwegian tiller keeper. Shop time is hard for me to come by between work and parenting so I found that a line made off from the yoke or tiller (depending on tack) on a cleat just aft of the aft frame acts as a “limiter” to what the rudder can do and basically pulls her downwind where the weatherhelm on the sprit rig pulls her back into that line. And this was a development that happened underway as opposed to shoreside shop time!
I’m thinking I want to chop the rudder head off flush and make a crucifix bitt on the aft breasthook for towing things and making fast an outrigger for salmon trolling on a hand line. Kooky dreams for when I’m not so occupied by the raising of my three deckhands.
All that to say, very impressed by your efforts with this fantastic little boat. Very salty!
From the SF Bay Area,
-Josh
Thank you, Josh, that’s very kind. Yes, the Skerry is a fantastic little boat!
The side benches in the pictures in the article are my “Mark 1” version, based closely on pictures and plans that I got from the wonderful Arwen Marine website.
The site is treasure trove of creative ideas and inspiration for Skerries and other small boats.
I built the seats you can see in the photos pretty much to the plans on the Arwen site. The ply top sits on a curved laminated frame which slots into cleats screwed onto the aft and centre bulkhead. They work well, but they are heavy, and one reason I really like the Skerry is its lightness. So I have subsequently made “Mark II” seats, which are simply straight slats of Douglas Fir, with a hinged support that swings down to prevent any bending in the middle. I run a bungee cord through a hole drilled into one of those rowing foot supports on the floor and up through the seat slats to hold the side seats in place. I made a pair for the crew position; you can see them in the photo of my wife with the sail behind her. They worked fine and were significantly lighter, so I made some the same for the rear seating as well.
For the dodger, I used a nylon swivel arrangement, the sort that people use for attaching small bimini hoods to boats. The bottom part of the swivel (a Saint Marine Nylon Deck Mount) is screwed into a small block of wood. Into that block of wood I have epoxied a bit of oak dowel the right diameter to fit into the oarlock. So far so good.
I like your line preventer arrangement for self steering! I will have to give that a try.
I find a lot of the fun of having a small boat that I built myself is that I feel empowered to evolve it, to dream up ways to tweak it and make it work for me better. I figure if I built it, I can change it, or I can reconstruct it back to the way it was if things don’t work out.
Good luck with those deckhands. Hopefully you can get them signed up soon to help implement some of the “kooky ideas.” (Which I am sure are not kooky at all.)
Thanks again, happy Skerry sailing,
Gary
Gary, thanks for your article. Curious about the bed-slats. Across from what and what did you lay them across (in the Skerry)? Were it not for that center thwart….. Am sorely attempted to amputate one side of it, from the centerboard trunk to the side planks, but am too concerned that such a measure would overly degrade the structural integrity of the hull.
Gary, I think I see now what you did, from one of your pictures, re the cross-slats – you’d added side benches to your Skerry, from the middle thwart, aft, and so was able to put the slats across the two benches.
Thanks Brad. Yes, the slats go across the side benches forward of the centre thwart. With the centre board and the rear seat board laid crossways across the rear benches I have a reasonably roomy platform. I have yet to test it on an overnighter however. Like you, I have thought hard about somehow enlarging the gap in that centre bulkhead, or removing the darn thing altogether, but have come to the same conclusion structure wise. I see Galen Piehl on the Skerry Facebook group has modified his Skerry to remove that bulkhead. If the thwart level platform doesn’t work out in practice I might get out the saw and attack that bulkhead.