GV11 /Fast Garvey – 11ft skiff - Built by Pat Johnson in 2006 Click images to enlarge

I decided to build a skiff for fishing and joy riding in the spring of 2006. I was hoping to build a boat that would be able to go fast enough to get out to the Pensacola pass area from my local ramp. The pass is nearly 8 miles across & down the Pensacola Bay from my ramp. The boat needed to be able to take a light chop and be seaworthy enough to use in the bay on calm days. I am convinced that a V-bottom is essential for motoring in any kind of chop from a ripple on up. A flat bottom boat works well in many conditions but pounds like the devil in a chop.

After looking around at various plans I settled on the Fast Garvey because it was a simple boat to build, had the required V-bottom, and was only 11ft long, yet nearly 5ft wide at the beam. The cut off bow allows the boat to have the attributes of a boat nearly 2 feet longer. Sharp bows are generally pretty useless for anything accept parting the waves and because the Garvey has enough rocker/deadrise to bring the V-bottom up high enough to be out of the water, it does the job of parting the water. Consequently I ended up with a virtual 13foot boat that was physically only 11 feet long. That allows me to store it on a shorter trailer and it used less wood & epoxy to build.

The length requires a scarf or butt joint in the two pieces of plywood used for the sides and also for the 2 bottom pieces. I used a butt-block on the inside and three layers of fiberglass tape on the outside of these joints. By staggering the layers of tape on the outside I was able to ramp up to the maximum thickness instead of having a sharp 3-layer thick bump to fair when finished. The sides & bottom of the hull are ¼ inch plywood with the vertical parts (bow, stern & seat supports) being 3/8 inch plywood. The seats, bow & stern provide the structural strength to allow for ¼ inch sides & bottom.. Generally I box in the seats to provide watertight flotation in my boats but I built this one to plan and only installed frames to support the seats.

While I did everything by plan I was a little disappointed in the plans call for making the seat frames from multiple pieces of plywood that had to be fiber glassed together. I suppose they were trying to use less plywood by making the frames out of the scrap from the hull but it took more time, tape and epoxy and proved to be false economy.

Generally I box in the seats to provide watertight flotation in my boats but I built this one to plan and only installed frames to support the seats.

I would have rather bought another $12 sheet of plywood instead. Still the end result worked fine. Using frames makes it easy to have limber holes for water drainage.

I beefed up the transom with an additional piece of oak across the top of the stern on the outside so I could safely install a 9.9hp engine without worrying about it tearing the transom out.

The plans called for lengthwise floor stiffeners between the aft & mid seats and it definitely made the floor stiff. The stiffeners are important due to the wide expanse of ¼ inch plywood that has to bear the weight of the occupants when getting in & out of the boat. I did not cut down the stern for a short shaft motor since I wanted the additional safety of the higher stern. The designed stern height without the cut-down for the short shaft is the perfect height for a long shaft motor.

I’ve had 4 adults in the boat at low speeds and it was very comfortable and felt really safe, but the boat comes into it’s own with two adults and shows why it’s called a “Fast” Garvey. She’ll do 25mph with a 9.9hp engine. Not bad for 2 adults in an 11ft boat that weighs in at 125lbs.

The plans came from the Bateau website

She’ll do 25mph with a 9.9hp engine. Not bad for 2 adults in an 11ft boat that weighs in at 125lbs.

About the author….Pat Johnson builds boats as a hobby and has built about 20 odd boats to date. All of the boats are less than 16ft and about half are power and the others are sail or row boats. Pat enjoys helping others get started building boats and offers to show people how it’s done if asked. Pat lives in Pensacola Florida and often sails in Pensacola Bay and surrounding rivers and lakes. Pat’s most common advise to people thinking about building a boat is to start small and start now!

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Other Articles by Pat Johnson:

• Building a D4 Dinghy
• Chuggerboat trip - November 2005