12ft skiff Interdominion: Woof takes the biscuit, again
by Tim Bartlett 27 Feb 02:57 PST
Eli Liefting & Blake McGlashan - 12ft Skiff Interdominion - Royal Akarana Yacht Club - January 11, 2025 © Garrick Cameron
The three basic 12 Foot skiff rules are 12 foot long, 6 foot wide and the race starts at 1pm.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this is a class of would-be designers with new designs sprouting every year and in fact that was the case in the 70’s and 80’s.
But they were different times, the boats were mainly timber with plywood being the easiest construction method, and they were cheap to build. Some of us were such lousy boatbuilders that a new hull was required every year or two and the Phil Stevenson stitch n tape method made this easy and fun.
The arrival of carbon composite construction and in particular the Brendan Egan/Jim Walsh Woof design and put an end to self designed timber boats.
The fact that the Woof was fast and expensive meant that development turned to rigs and, heaven forbid, getting better at sailing the silly things.
Here are Jim’s words on the design….
“We drew the Woof in 1996. Nearly 30 years ago. I remember distinctly when as I was building my boat the announcement came over the radio that Lady Diana had died. That was 1997.
"We measured The Gus and Dicks Nash 4 to get a benchmark and the philosophy was to build a narrower boat as the sailing weights had dropped so much going to carbon. I think it was about a 15kg drop.
"We increased the rocker to keep some volume under the mast and made it conical in shape so it was forgiving for less experienced crew as it didn’t change shape much when it heeled over.
"There has been some variation such as chines, the Mathews modification etc but pretty much not much else. I think it shows that the hull is a minor part of the whole package.”
So to the 2025 12 Foot skiff Interdominion where of the 22 entries there were 19 that either came out of the Woof mould or were slight modifications of that design.
Monkey Wrench, the winning skiff, is 20yrs old and has been well maintained and kept up to date by current owner Jono Clough. Jono was unavailable because of ‘work’ commitments helping the ex-Rambler 88 win the Transatlantic Race.
Eli Liefting and Blake McGlashan showed that a couple of talented young sailors in a borrowed Woof are more than a match for the old hands in the class.
For the full race report click here www.sail-world.com/news/283980/12ft-Skiff-Interdominion-a-win-for-the-generations
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