Your literature states that your Skua dominated the Fixed Seat Open-Water Racing circuit in the mid-1990s. Why haven we heard much about Skuas winning races lately?
Answer. This answer requires a brief history lesson. In the Victorian Era rowing was the most popular outdoor sport in America. Back then everybody knew the differences between workboats, pleasure craft and boats designed and built for competition. In those days, a boat of Skua’s weight and general dimensions would have been considered pretty normal for a recreational craft. With the coming of reliable and affordable outboard motors in the early years of the 20th century, the general population gravitated toward modernity and ease, and they soon forgot almost everything they knew about “old fashioned” things like rowing craft and oarsmanship. For about half a century just about the only visible remnants of the Golden Age of rowing were Ivy League racing teams and a few coastal workboats preserved in maritime museums. Somehow, in the years following World War II, the notion got started that heavy, obsolete, coastal workboats would make good recreational rowing craft. That concept was re
