page_title: Skiff
section_title: Traditional boats—United Kingdom
hierarchical_section_title: Skiff / Traditional boats—United Kingdom
caption_attribution_description: English: Boulter's Lock Sunday Afternoon
context_page_description: The term skiff is used for a number of essentially unrelated styles of small boats. Traditionally, these are coastal craft or river craft used for leisure, as a utility craft and for fishing, and have a one-person or small crew. Sailing skiffs have developed into high performance competitive classes. Many of today's skiff classes are based in Australia and New Zealand in the form of 12 ft, 13 ft, 16 ft and 18 ft skiffs. The 29er, 49er, SKUD and Musto Skiff are all considered to developed from the skiff concept, all of which are sailed internationally.
  The term skiff is also used for a racing shell called single scull for competitive rowing, which is rowed by one rower with two oars. As opposed to sweep boats, where the rowers only have one oar each – coxless pair, coxless four etc. Of course a lone rower must have two oars to row, so sweep oar does not exist for the skiff/single scull.
context_section_description: The term has been used for a number of styles of craft round the United Kingdom, often small river and sea going craft. They varied from double ended rowing boats to small sailing boats. The poet John Milton refers to a 'night foundered skiff' in Paradise Lost as early as 1670. There are references to skiffs on the River Thames  (as a result of accidents) as early as 1812 and 1824 at Oxford. In August 1815, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was taken on an expedition by skiff from Old Windsor to Lechlade by Charles Clairmont and Thomas Love Peacock. He subsequently settled at Marlow where he regularly rowed his skiff through the locks. Shelley later drowned sailing in a skiff off the coast of Italy. It was also used in the Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott.
  The Thames skiff became formalised as a specific design in the early part of the 19th century. It is a round-bottom clinker-built rowing boat that is still very common on the River Thames and other rivers in England. Rowing skiffs became very popular in Victorian Britain and a skiff journey up the River Thames features in Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, These skiffs could carry a sail and could be used for camping. Although general usage has declined, skiffs are still used for leisure and racing. During the year, skiffing regattas are held in various riverside towns in England—the major event being the Skiff Championships Regatta at Henley.
  Akin to the skiff is the yoal or yole which is a clinker built boat used for fishing in the Orkney and Shetland Islands. The boat itself is a version of the Norwegian Oselvar which is similar to a skiff in appearance, while the word is cognate with "yawl". The French yole is a leisure craft similar to the Thames Skiff and is translated as "skiff", while the French skiff translates to a single scull. In Dutch and German, "Skiff" also means a single scull, while Czech skif refers to sculling boats in general.
  Regattas also take place across Northern Ireland with one of the largest being held in Portadown but smaller events take place throughout the year across County Down.
caption: Boulter's Lock, Sunday Afternoon by Edward John Gregory shows skiffs among other craft coming out of the lock
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