I’ve had a copy of Phil Bolger’s book Boats With An Open Mind for a long time, and I’ve always liked the looks of the Clam Skiff he designed for Harold “Dynamite” Payson. Payson, writes Bolger, “was a lobsterman before he began to write and teach. His orders for this design were for a solid skiff that could stand generous power, carry a big load, and have flat footing right out to the side. Nothing about it should be hard to explain.” At 18′ long and 5′3″ wide, the skiff will carry 1,100 lbs and draw just 3″; it seemed to me that it might be a very good companion for fishing trips in the North Country. When my brother Jon expressed an interest in a fishing boat, one he could easily trailer behind the family car and reach the many lakes and rivers in his part of Wisconsin, it didn’t take me long to talk him into the Clam Skiff.I called Payson and ordered Bolger’s plan #606, called there a Workskiff, which came practically in the next mail. The drawings were clear and very easy to understand. After buying epoxy, plywood, and Douglas-fir lumber, I built a jig to make it easier to scarf the plywood sides. That turned out to be a waste of time, and I ended up scarfing the plywood by hand: I arranged the pieces for the sides stair-step fashion and cut the 8:1 scarfs using a power plane, a remarkably fast way to do it. A long, flat piece of 2x4 edged with sticky-backed 80-grit sandpaper flattened things out nicely.I cut the various plywood parts out with a circular saw with the plywood set on a sheet of 2″-thick rigid foam that later ended up as flotation in the boat. The transom is built up of four layers of ½″ plywood. Like the bulkheads, it is edged with Douglas-fir to give the builder something more substantial than plywood edge-grain to hold the screws that secure the sides. I scarfed together the plywood sheets to make the sides. I clamped the full-length panels together, then cut out the sides with the circular saw. While the bottom edges of the sides are nearly straight, the top edges have more shape, but the long curve of the sheer was easy to cut out with the circular saw. After I planed the sides up to the lines, I separated them and glued Douglas-fir chine logs along their bottom edges. I had cut the chine logs square and realized later that they’d hold water; next time, I’d cut a bevel on the top of them to let any water to roll off. Assembling the transom, sides, bulkheads, and stem was a two-person job and used just about all the clamps in the shop. Deck screws served as extra clamps when needed, and with two screw guns, things came together faster than anticipated.
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Living and building on the South Central Alaskan coast I’ve never quite understood why these skiffs had plumb sides? The form seems like it would have a drier ride, have much more form stability working over the sides and “look” more like a boat, if there were some flam to the topsides? In my view; with any kind of load, this hull will plow into and then clip swells right over the bow!
Surely I’m missing something significant (?) because there are plenty of skiffs in the same neck of the woods with sides that lean out enough to do all that seem missing in this design?
Hi Kevin. Bolger’s Clam Skiff caught my eye because Dynamite Payson’s son was photographed in Bolger’s Boats with an Open Mind hauling a trap without the boat heeling much more than a couple of degrees. I don’t take any issue with your comments other than to note it was designed as a work skiff for a man to safely haul traps over the side, at which it excels. Northern Wisconsin lakes, for the most part, don’t have the fetch to develop big swells that would hazard this boat, but were I in such a situation on a larger lake (such as Lake Gogebic, for example, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula), prudance and caution would have to dictate whether to head home or head for the nearest shore to camp for the night.
Twenty years ago I had wanted to build a Tolman Skiff but I built the Clam Skiff instead, borrowing as many building techniques and design details from the Tolman as I could. It was a much simpler design and I was able to complete the Clam Skiff in one summer.
The plumb sides make it easy to hand-haul my lobster traps over the side. The step keel works very well. The boat handles well in everything including a rough bay chop but as Kevin has suggested and as P. Bolger stated in his Boats with an Open Mind, the flat bottom V-bow does not like getting stuffed into solid water such as the back of a wave and the bow will wallow if it does. Otherwise the boat is extremely stable and dry allowing me to kneel on the rear corner to finish snapping on the mooring cover. I added a Tolman-style engine well and it keeps things drier plus it provides a rear attachment point to snap on my cover. For protected waters I think this is a good, simple and durable design. The center console in the original design works great.
Thanks for the comment and the photograph, Jim, your boat looks wonderful!