Moving back home to Eastern Washington after being away for decades required that I get a boat. Lakes Coeur d’Alene, Priest, Chelan, and Roosevelt, together with the Columbia and Spokane Rivers, needed to be re-explored. Alright, as my wife correctly noted, “required” is too strong a word. Nonetheless, the move gave me a good excuse to buy or build a boat.My requirements were simple. The boat would have to be light enough to tow behind our four-cylinder SUV, small enough to fit in the garage, and capable of getting two of us and our gear the 50 miles from the south end of Lake Chelan to Stehekin on the north end and back again in the afternoon when the lake gets rough.Although there are many affordable aluminum and fiberglass boats that would serve my purpose, I wanted something distinctive. Fond memories of my uncle’s 16′ Thompson Sea Coaster, with its lapstrake hull and mahogany deck, prompted me to look for a small wooden boat to restore, but I didn’t find one nearby. While searching for an old boat, I came across the Peeler Skiff, a 15′ plywood kit boat from Chesapeake Light Craft.
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The boat is beautiful! Great job!
Nicely done, Fred!
Propitious posting of the Peeler Skiff. I just finished mine and chose it for some of the same reasons Fred did: my towing vehicle is a 4-cylinder SUV and I need to keep it in the garage. My outboard motor was just installed and, after watching the video, I can’t wait to get my skiff in the water.
Fred, she looks great. I built my Peeler in 2014 and have been more than pleased, both with the boat and with the quality of the kit and the support from CLC. I tow my Peeler with a MINI Cooper and she’s well under the weight limit for a MINI.
Currently, I’m in the process of adding a console as requested by my 71-year-old back and knees.
Great article and build, Fred. I noticed you bought a Tohatsu with remote power functions. I would like to do the same on my Peeler, but no boat shop has been able to find me a throttle package that will mount to the right of the console and include a right thumb trim switch. The best they could tell me was that I could have right mount throttle, but the trim switch would be on the outside, operated with my pinky. CLC Boats could not help me with this either. I seems I will have to mount just a throttle, then custom wire into the console face, a trim toggle, keystart, and kill switch. In your photo, it looks like you have an all-in-one throttle, remote start, kill switch package mounted just like I’ve been searching for. Is your trim activated with your right thumb right from the throttle? Should I check out Tohatsu? I had been exploring Mercury only, as that was all I could find for a small HP outboard with all of the remote power features. Your comments on this matter would be greatly appreciated.