Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska quality skiffs, 16 foot or so

16ft skiffs like Lunds have plenty of uses, but some areas you really want to know the water before making that trip. I've seen plenty of relatively calm days get down right sporty with just the change of tide.

I do like the word sporty ,I was engineer on the fish tender Cape Sarichef when it got caught in the breakers going across Grass Island bar and grounded,couldn't back off ,the breakers coming over the stern lifted her up and jammed the rudders and she started breaking up,a friend and his dad came out in a jet Bow picker and got three of us off.I must say he had seamanship skills .

The next morning I flew over that old scow and there was nothing left, including a thousand gallon fuel tank.

I've been on the water my whole adult life and have been on lots of rescue missions,never did I ever suspect to be the one rescued.

Sporty is correct !

Lund is the third leading cause of death in Alaska behind drugs and alcohol

TOLMAN ALASKAN SKIFFS

http://www.alaska.net/~tolmanskiffs/

While I agree tolman skiffs are great boats, Renn has retired so you have to build your own. He'll also freely agree it is not the best boat to be beached.

To the op, I honestly can't see any reason to limit yourself to a 16' skiff. Peronally I consider a 20' skiff with a 50 horse as a prudent minimum in AK saltwater. A smaller boat simply doesn't have enough room to take an apreciable amount of gear, and it doesn't take much a chop to make it go from uncomfortable to downright scary. A 16 footer is fine for small lakes and lagoons.

If you're dropping pots you are going to want a puller, and the only thing I can picture with a 16' boat and a puller is a swamped boat.

+1

There's no comparing the capability of a boat like Calvin's compared to a smaller commodity riverboat manufacturer's skiff (hewes, alumaweld, etc.). High sides and self bailing mean an awful lot.

I'd be looking very carefully for something built by someone who knows a thing or two about salt boating. Almar used to make a 18' sounder but they're like hen's teeth. Pacific is a given. Lots of folks in southwest BC do these things right - lifetimer, eaglecraft, silverstreak (Sooke, BC) to name a few.

Like Sam said, "It pays to listen to the locals". No one here has said that I would be better off with a 16 foot boat, so I am going to start looking and thinking bigger. Have to start looking at what's available and affordable and go from there.

Fred

The most skeered I've ever been was in a 16' Lund and we were in an inlet both times. Add any open water to that and I'd want a BUNCH more boat. [bleep] changes fast there.

And 10-20 more horses are probably a good idea as well considering that power can be very handy either in back of or in front of big water. Lacking power can mean loss of purposeful aim, not to mention locomotion.

Yes, and longer service life most likely, as you won't need to always be running flat out so stay on plane.

The most skeered I've ever been was in "protected" waters of PWS.

Was Dan swinging a bat?

I don't go into "mean" water. There's way too much nice water to be had. Boating is supposed to be fun.

It weren't mean when the day begun. [bleep] happens FAST there and a 19 foot plus tide shift in 6 hours is something to behold.

A lot of the aluminum skiffs seem to have relatively flat bottoms. Nice to beach and move in the shallows but don't they beat the [bleep] out of ya? Do you slow down and keep the sharper bow in the water when chop kicks up?

How about inboards?
I see a lot of inboard aluminum boats. Are outboards the way to go, what's the advantage?

Brackets?

Snork!

I had an 18' Klamath CC with a flat bottom at the stern and a big high deep V bow that's exactly what you're describing. It was a very seaworthy boat within reasonable limits. With lots of thought and effort into weight distribution and engine tilt settings it wasn't too bad in regards to getting beat up. I could go flat out (27 to 28 mph with 3 guys and gear) in slight swells with a two foot chop but when it got bigger than that it was time to slow down. Three foot swells with chop and it was slow down to 21 to 22 mph. In the worst conditions, five foot swells with whitecaps, I had to slow down to 15 to 16 mph and keep the bow into or slightly quartering the swell. At that speed it was relatively smooth but slow going.

The big issue in extreme conditions was it had to be under power or you were in deep doo-doo. I've turned back and cancelled a day of fishing when conditions were that bad. Even though you were running OK, with only a single engine, it was too risky to lose power and get swamped floundering in big water.

It all depends on the hull design with smallish boats (skiffs) as to how smooth or rough they'll ride. My boat had the advantage of being very light and was able to keep the bow up under power. My buddy's heavier 18' Bay Runner would not and the bow would slap down after every big wave. Similar designs but it rode much rougher. The Bay Runner has a sturdier design and construction and it was far more durable though. ... Trade-offs.

I bought my boat for use in the salt and on the Kenai River. It did both reasonably well without too many compromises for either use. It was set up for beach launching at Anchor Point and I never had to use the tractor which was 40 bucks a day.

It was light and fast but I had lots of problems with cracks in the hull. The previous owner had beat up the bottom landing it on rocky beaches out of Valdez. That and he compromised the rigidity of the hull by turning flotation compartments into storage. I rebuilt it twice to correct the problems that I inherited.

I've posted these pics before but what the heck ... one more time.





Anchor Point halibut


Kenai River kings

kk--Very nice setup. Canvas gives options and is lightweight. Twin motors for failsafe operation. 20' is an order of magnitude improvement over a 16'.

fish head,

Those Klamaths and the similar Bay Runner are nice. But they can get a bit squirlly in a following sea. The big bow likes to dig into the waves and throw you around some. The cracking in the hull tends to be an inherent problem in those light-weight welded boat. I've had similar problems with 16 ft. Crestliners.

Good info Fish, much appreciated.

How about brackets? Many people run them on 18-20' boats? Seems like they open up deck space. Good cooler storage as well.

I'm shopping for an 18-20' to use here in the Puget Sound, Columbia and Frazer rivers, and some small fresh water. I'm thinking that size with a 90-115 on a bracket would cover it all well as long as I don't get too stoopid