Skiff

A skiff is any of a variety of essentially unrelated styles of small boats, usually propelled by sails or oars.

The term skiff is also used for a racing shell called single scull for competitive rowing.

The poet John Milton refers to a "night foundered skiff" in Paradise Lost as early as 1670.

[5] 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.

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".

It is referred to historically in literature in Moby-Dick by Herman Melville[12] and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

The term skiff has been applied to motorized boats of small size and construction used as sea-going vessels for piracy or drug smuggling.

Modern developments began with the introduction of carbon fibre reinforced composite hulls, allowing for a significant reduction in weight, and an increase in rigidity.

These boats tend to be less heavily crewed in relation to their length than the traditional Australian Skiff Classes.