Ray Speck built this boat in a, surplus military prefab barracks boat shop that he and Kit Africa shared, perched upon an old, deteriorating WWII Sausalito slipways pier. It’s a rare enlarged version of his ‘stock’ SYD skiffs, well-known through Ray’s years as a Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding instructor, and absolutely typical of Ray’s early production work–an approach to construction and details he’d learned in the UK from a ‘Yorkshire Coble’ builder before starting business himself. This boat enjoyed long and active use in the Monterey/San Francisco Bay Areas as well as on the Sacramento River, before experiencing difficulty in two or three of her (wider) garboard and broad-strakes and the oak frames in her bilges which withered on the River. All repairable issues, and above these areas, she is sound and mainly in need of refinishing–which was all in a ‘soft varnish’ for traditional and lovely appearance.
