Royal Navy skiff-dinghy
CLASS
16 feet
LENGTH
circa late 1800s
YEAR
Smaller vessels such as this skiff-dinghy were found on Royal Navy warships from the 1870s to 1930s. This skiff-dinghy was likely built in Victoria or Esquimalt prior to the arrival of the Royal Canadian Navy’s first vessel in the Pacific Command, HMCS Rainbow, was transferred from the Royal Navy in 1910. The skiff-dinghy was sold at auction with all of the HMCS Rainbow’s ship’s boats when the warship was scrapped in 1920. The intervening period is unclear: it could have been part of the inventory of the Esquimalt naval base when it was transferred to the Dominion of Canada in 1905, when Britain terminated its Pacific command.
The 16-foot skiff-dinghy made its way to LMS in 2010 after changes and refits by a number of owners, including by LMS volunteer, historian, and boatwright Robert Lawson. Lawson stewarded the vessel in 1999 and 2005 with over 700 hours of refit work, before donating it to LMS. A number of volunteers working on the MMBC’s Dorothy refit project were interested in completing the skiff-dinghy’s refit, and took on the project with generous community support.
West Wind Hardwood donated Afromasia wood to make the skiff-dinghy’s seats. 130 BF of teak decking salvaged from a steamer broken up in the 1930s were donated by the granddaughter of the man who salvaged it. A private donor paid for bronze castings and Burma teak for final finishing.
