How many people can sail a Goat Island Skiff and still sail fast?
This is from a discussion on the Goat Island Skiff Facebook Group. Join up if you use facebook – lots of interesting stuff there.
Goat Island Skiff Plan Information
OK – the video of the Goat Island Skiff with lots of people aboard
We see interesting photos like this with a group aboard, but how does the boat move? And with a bigger load.
Answer … Videos!
The first time I sailed the Goat Island Skiff it was the second boat to hit the water over 20 years ago. We had four aboard and the boat felt very yachtlike and still covered a lot of ground in the light to moderate breeze. Nice introduction to Moreton Bay too.
But nicely … one of the old members of the GIS group has reposted a video from a couple of years back.
Video image can take a moment to load.
Simon said (about his sailing video)
Solo I’m on the rail at under 10 knots of wind.
With 4 people aboard the Goat becomes a completely different animal. In this video you can see 3 adults and a boy starting at the 40 second mark.
At the 2 minute mark the wind has piped up to quite brisk as you can tell by the whooping :-). At that point we still had full sail and it was very manageable. I would have had the second reef in if I was sailing by myself.
Design Corners – Not meaning boat shape but about proportion and design ratios
If looking at all possible homebuilt boats they are scattered all around the potential measurements of length, sail area, wetted surface, weight.
Most boats would be in the centre of such a multidimensional graph.
The Goat Island Skiff is over in a corner almost by itself.
It is light (130lbs for a near 16ft boat), with small wetted surface, narrow waterline, quite a lot of sail.
Sailing by yourself or two up it is responsive and lively.
Two tricks built into the design – make it manageable to sail. It can heel a lot because the sides of the boat are extremely high. And at such heel angles it has fingertip steering and goes where you want. Many boats start to go where they want when well heeled the Goat has a fingertip response at all angles of heel.
With 4 it becomes yachtlike and heel accumulates slowly.
But it’s not boring because it has only moved a bit out of the design corner it inhabits. Because it is still out of the mainstream its still a fun boat and not bogged down at all.
You will have to work out for yourself how the transom doesn’t drag with an extra 400lbs on the boat.
RAID and distance events – extra payload no problem – where to stow heavy gear on the Goat Island Skiff
But please keep the weight central! Not at the back or the front.
For the Texas 200 mile – 5 day event we had to carry most of the water for the event with us plus camping gear and foot. So apart from the boat and the two of us we had maybe 300lbs of extra payload.
Video image can take a moment to load.
John has a big canvas bag that fits across the boat behind the mid seat. It has a piece of plywood in the bottom and the bag is lashed down inside the boat. So weight was kept under the mid seat and just behind.
Serious speed even with a heavy load – hour after hour at 10 to 12mph
With strong winds from behind and cautious amounts of sail area we very seldom dropped below 10mph (John’s hiking GPS :) ) spending most of the time in the 10 to 12 range and occasional bursts up to 15.
John is a rather good sailor – and I was doing my bit too. But with all the gear the boat moves smoothly rather than the breakneck planing that would have happened without the gear aboard.
Here are 4 chaps in Greece sailing between islands in the afternoon after work.
