| The concept | The boat | The jSkiff kit |
The boat
The jSkiff is an easily operated one person "high performance dinghy". One of the basic ideas of its unique design pattern is that the hull contains only the items, which are absolutely necessary on functional aspects – the omission of unnecessary items results the low weight. Besides this, it is also an important part of the conception, that the hull can be assembled from components, in such a way, that the position of one of the main parts (into which the rotating mast should be inserted) can be widely changed. This gives an opportunity, to equip the ship with a rig appropriate for a crew of any age, weight and sailing skills. We might say, that the body of the ship can “adapt” to different size and shape rigs. You can read more about the planning concept of the jSkiff (the jSkiff design pattern) here.
The jSkiff is a particular one-man dinghy, which can be sailed in a “classical way” (without a trapeze, foiler and other pranks) where the hull is mostly skiff-like (the water line is narrow, but the hull itself is relative wide) but thanks to the jSkiff-concept, this relatively broad hull is very light. The main parameters of the hull:
| Length: | 375 cm |
| Length of waterline: | cca 360 cm |
| Width of waterline: | 90 cm |
| Beam (total width): | max 200 cm |
| Draft wo. daggerboard: | 8 cm |
| Draft w. daggerboard: | cca 80 cm |
| Weight: | 43 kg |
There are two changeable adapters - in the middle of the upper part of the front bridge (which can be freely positioned along the longitudinal axis of the hull to back and front), and in the mast-foot integrated in the front bridge – which allow to use a mast with the diameter between 40 and 70 millimeters, so the jSkiff in theory can be equipped with any rig used for any other type of boat. In practice it means that the sail area can be chosen between 4 and 8 square meters, according to the ability and capabilities of the crew.
At the width of the hull the “max” 200 cm mentioned that the width of the hull can be changed. Namely, the fixing mechanism of the hiking benches along the two sides of the hull allows us to set the hiking benches closer than the outermost position. So the hull of the boat can be “configured” for example to 190 cm width – let’s say for a smaller, junior aged user. The take-down components of the hull makes the storage and delivery of the boat easy (the hull can be carried on the roof rack when it is taken apart).
And in the end, here is a table in which we compare some width, length and weight data of some widespreaded one-man sailboats:
| Length cm | Width cm | Weight kg | Sail area qm | |
| Optimist* | 230 | 112 | 35 | 3.3 |
| Zoom 8* | 265 | 145 | 44 | 4.9 |
| Europe | 335 | 138 | 45 | 7.0 |
| Byte* | 360 | 130 | 45 | 5.6-6.8 |
| jSkiff | 375 | 200 | 43 | 4.0-8.0 |
| Topaz | 386 | 145 | 60 | 5.6-6.9 |
| OK | 400 | 142 | 72 | 8.9 |
| Laser | 420 | 139 | 59 | 4.7-7.2 |
| RS 100 | 430 | 183 | 57 | 8.4 |
| Finn | 450 | 160 | 100 | 10 |
| * youth class, for crew younger than 15-16 years |
The table excellently illustrates the main advantage of the jSkiff design pattern: relatively large (wide) skiff-like hull with an extremely small weight. Those types, where we placed an interval at the “Sail area” column can be set by different sized rigs – but these rigs (except of the jSkiff) were designed especially for those boat types. The jSkiff however, thanks to the freely positioned front crossmember, can be set in theory with any rig of any type of boat included in this table…