Here we have a distinctive, easily built, shoal-draft cruising yawl. The 25'3" Black Skimmer floats in 10" of water and sails handily in not much more. She stays with, or ahead of, most stock boats of comparable size on all points (including to windward)...and nearly always outdistances cruisers of similar cost.Skimmer finds her heritage in the working sharpies of the Atlantic coast. In plain terms, these ancestors can be described as relatively narrow, flat-bottomed skiffs that have grown in length. Properly designed sharpies offer impressive performance in return for modest investments of time and money.Black Skimmer comes from a happy coincidence of natural design evolution and contemporary materials (plywood and epoxy). The early 1970s found me in need of a shallow cruiser for exploring the hidden creeks that disappear into the shores of lower Chesapeake Bay. The available stock boats seemed too deep, too complex, and too expensive. To my good fortune, the late Philip C. Bolger was writing for Small Boat Journal at the time.
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Beautiful boat to my eyes! and you have the perfect place to sail her! Reminds me in so many ways of my Bolger’s Birdwatcher.
Why is the Dovekie designed by Bolger and built by Eddy and Duff not part of this article? The two boats are strikingly similar. Everything mentioned in this article pertains to the Dovekie! Peter Duff would not be pleased.
Bill Stocker, former Stonehorse owner.
The review of the Black Skimmer first appeared in Small Boats 2010 and material for that issue was gathered in 2009. In that same year Phil Bolger passed away and Edey & Duff closed following the unexpected death of the company’s general manager; the Edey & Duff Dovekies were no longer available.
Second hand Dovekies are still available. Yes, Edey and Duff closed after the sudden death of David, their general manager. His death was preceded by Peter Duff’s death after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Peter had a close relationship with Phil Bolger. They were both proud of the Dovekies built by Edey and Duff. Black Skimmer’s description is exactly the same as that of the Dovekie. I think readers would appreciate the history of this unique design by Phil Bolger.
I will certainly investigate this as well as the associated boats. This seems the ideal to me but I have more info to gather. Not sure I have room yet to build but sure I can find it. I need a place to find all of Mr. Bolger’s ideas and designs. One of the many geniuses we have been blessed by in so many realms.
Bolger’s books have most of his designs. “The Folding Schooner,” “Small Boats,” “Boats With an Open Mind,” “Different Boats,” and “Thirty Odd Boats.” Are there others I don’t know about? Black Skimmer is on p. 60 in “The Folding Schooner.” All the info appears to be there, but you’d need a magnifying glass to read it all. Maybe easiest to photocopy in an enlarged format. The developed layout of the plywood sides (to draw the sides on the ply while lying flat) would be the critical dimensions. Shouldn’t be any need for lofting, otherwise.
In many ways Birdwatcher is a better boat than Dovkie, and fulfils the same design objectives. Plus, it’s designed for home building.
Hi guys,
Thanks for the article on Black Skimmer. I need to mention a predecessor, however. Way back in the Dawn of Time, 1960, at Mashnee Island (at the Head of Buzzards Bay) I used to sail my small boat by a strange winged creature which turned out to be Black Gauntlet. She was longer than Skimmer, maybe 30+ feet. It had been built nearby at Bucky Barlow’s yard in Pocasset (The Home of the Meadowlark). Peter no doubt did much of the work and the details and later while sailing other boats and knowing Mait Edey I crossed paths with and cruised occasionally with Peter Duff and BG. She was fast and spirited. Peter usually left the “Potato Chip” mizzen up at night to keep the boat from yawing around at anchor. I can say she was a bit noisy if the waves in the harbor were more than 0.5 inches with that bow out of the water, while the Meadowlark is silent. Those were some great days of adventure and experiment.
Bob Wallace
Am in infested in the Skimmer. Who sells plans and is a kit available?
Plans for Black Skimmer are available from http://www.Instantboats.com , Harold “Dynamite” Payson’s website. I sailed a Black Skimmer for a week’s charter across Florida Bay from Key Largo to Everglades City, down to Lignum Vitae Key and back to Key Largo. Handled beautifully, just as Mike says in the article. There was ample room inside for sitting and kneeling headroom (I’m 6’2”, my wife is 5’11”), a porta potti, a camp stove, and a roomy double berth forward.
I built two small Bolger boats, Teal and June Bug, and corresponded with and spoke to Bolger and Payson both. I have several of their books in my library and the letters will be filed in them.
I chartered a Black Skimmer at Key Largo for almost a week on Florida Bay over 30 years ago. It was a perfect match: thin boat for thin water.
How much headroom inside the cuddy or forward section? Nice design,
Thanks
Jim
I also chartered a Black Skimmer (three times) in Florida Bay and still think of it often, even thirty years later. I believe one of the chartered boats was the original Skimmer. Wonder where they are now?
Hi,
Yes, I chartered the red one. Great fun. The black one ended up in a restaurant parking
lot as a road side attraction on the 1A. If I was to guess, mile marker 45 ? Back in early ’90s.
I saw the article about Black Skimmer in the Small Boat Journal (or was it WoodenBoat? I don’t remember which) long ago. I lusted over that boat for years. But living in the Chicago area I couldn’t justify building one. Then the successor design, Martha Jane, appeared. Allegedly a Black Skimmer modified for easier trailering.
After moving to Florida I built, sailed and loved the Martha Jane. She was snub-nosed, a bit shorter, and had a balanced lugsail with a shorter mast mounted on a tabernacle. She was supposed to be water ballasted. I had my drill bit poised at the chine to drill the hole for the water ballast and couldn’t make myself do it. Water inside a wooden boat didn’t seem like a good idea. I filled the tanks with 500 lbs of solid ballast.
Early on, we discovered the flaw. With the 200 sq ft mainsail luffing and the small mizzen cleated we were hit by a shifting gust of wind, maybe 40 mph and knocked flat. I thought she’d self-right but instead she turned turtle and we had a terrible time.
Mr Bolger decided that there was a problem and designed a “fix” which included sponsons, 500 additional pounds of ballast and optional “high house” (which I didn’t add because of windage concerns.)
The modified design also included dual shallow-draft rudders. Now the boat was an absolute delight. I miss her to this day.
She was noisy at night when anchored, even small little ripples seemed magnified inside that huge interior. But I still loved that boat. Of all I’ve owned, she the favorite.
So glad to see this article. Around Christmas, 2021, I found a blurry image of a large boat on Craigslist. Only $1000, which appealed to my Scots ancestors! Turned out it was a Black Skimmer, built in 1982, but not in bad nick at all. So I bought it.
Since then I have been working on it. The first thing I found out was that it was unacceptable without a private potty, so with the advice of The Nomad Boatbuilder I decided to lengthen the cabin by about 30 inches and its height by 7 inches. Hard to get a private head into a 4 foot cabin. So far things are going well, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
Here’s an idea for boats that are capsize prone: Install an inflatable float at the top of the mast, rigged to self-inflate if dunked. Mechanism similar to that in auto-inflating pfds. A problem to overcome would be to have it not inflate in the rain. A project for some genius.
Would prevent turtling in a capsize. I know this can be made to work. Should be a market for it, might even increase the popularity of shallow draft sailboats.