S.K.I.F.F

September
ACBS Charlotte
Long Branch Ice Boat Club

What are our plans for the future? First, we are adjusting our membership year to run from January through December which will better align our membership year with other organizations that we partner with. The 2008 membership application is posted on www.speedskiffs.com. Second, we are securing preferential treatment for SKIFF members at the many boat shows we attend, for example, docks spots as opposed to beaching our boats. Another item is to have some fees waived for our invited participation at events. Third, we are reducing our membership fee to $15.00 a year. Our expenses are minimal and basically include corporate paperwork filing and to help financially support www.speedskiffs.com website, which is a major communication tool not only for SKIFF members but others as well. In the grand scheme of things, these may be considered minor issues but we need to start somewhere.

I would like to thank you for being a part of this organization and hope you will continue to support our efforts. In addition, I urge to join your local ACBS chapter and supporting the organization that has given us the Marque club status. We should be proud of all we have accomplished and I welcome any input or suggestions for events or improvements that you may have.

SKIFFS Inc. awarded ACBS Marque Club status.

Claire & Marty Ferry started the process to become recognized many years ago when Claire owned the 1938 wooden Mulford Skiff restored by Bob Chatterton.

S.K.I.F.F. (Special Class Intended For Fun) is a Florida based corporate club catering to the Jersey Skiffs. It's members are participants and organizers of Antique and Classic Boating Society, Vintage APBA events, and most recently Classic Race Boat Association events locally and around the country. These are fun shows with great people. We never fail to have a great time, burn a lot of gas and are a crowd pleaser.

We are all excited about this new status and look forward to supporting and promoting ACBS events in the future along with our own events.

Stay tuned. As we gain appreciation for what this means, we will let you
know.

Regards,
Paul Nowack Pres.
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12/15/2006

Paul F. Nowack
S.K.I.F.F. Inc.
2010B NE Ocean Blvd.
4565281863
Stuart, FL 34996

By now you have seen the home page of this site and you've read about it in Skiff Outings

Remember my last post when I said " Stay Tuned"

It's official, S.K.I.F.F has been invited to put on an exhibition January 27 & 28 during the Rolex 24 Hour Race at Daytona International Speedway.

Members of S.K.I.F.F checked out the course yesterday, while at the same time Officials of Daytona were checking us out. It turned out to be a win, win situation.

The course, although a little small turned out to be very doable, and the Speed Skiffs turned out to be attractive to the Race Track Officials.

We are looking for letters of intent from our members for this event.

We need to prioritize on boats that have run together on a circle course for this first event.

The objective is to put on a great Show, not a Parade, not a Race, but a great show. A mock race so to speak.

This is a trial for us and if we do well, which we will, there's a chance we will also be invited to the Daytona 500 etc.

Things went pretty quick yesterday after our Demo as there was lot's of excitement on both parts. We took notes, but here is a quick summary.

They have invited 12 Skiffs. 10 for the course and 2 for static displays in other areas of the Park. Each Skiff is going to get a RV Slot and 4 Event passes. ( I will be renting a RV )

If this is something you think you might be interested in and are thinking of submitting a letter of intent, please consider the following:

        1.      Obviously you need to be a member of S.K.I.F.F s

        2.      This is a three day event. From Friday, January 26 for setup through Sunday, January 28th. so you will have to be able to commit 3 days plus your travel time.

        3.      You will need to have at least a committed Rider.

        4.      The course is a little small so you need to have, beside some seat time, confidence running next to or behind other Skiffs in a circle. We need to become a team.

                The first priority is on safety and the second is on the SHOW.

        5.      We are going to have a lot of exposure and expect to have many  visitors in our pit area so we need to look good.

                We are going to ask that each Skiff have Team shirts with boat name and possibly our club logo.

I apologize for the rocky start while we tried to work with APBA Vintage, but if you've already read about Daytona in Skiff Outings, you know there is a new club being formed.

It's by Tom D'Eath and other prominent people and it's is called the "Classic Race Boat Association" Inc. and all past and present race type boats are welcome.

S.K.I.F.F members will be automatically become members in C.R.B.A. for the first year free of charge. We will still be our own entity, but part of what is soon to become an exciting sanctioning body and a fun group of people.

In closing, I am going to say again, please STAY TUNED.

Thanks,
Paul Nowack

For those of you you've who haven't heard, its official. APBA Vintage has issued restrictions for, and only for the Speed Skiffs.

Any engine larger than 283 needs to run a restrictor plate, size yet to be determined and no hydraulic controlled cavatation plates or side exhaust. These are to address the safety concerns of K&K insurance!

I don't know why they considered Side Exhaust or easily adjusted cavatation plates a hazard, but apparently they do. Stories on vintage forum.

Doesn't matter, after reading the posts and who posted them, Event organizers to APBA Skiff representatives, it's apparent, the welcome mat is not out for the majority

One of the thrills of participating on a Vintage course with other Skiffs is staging a mock race, and taking a turn out front. Well that will now be left to the unregulated 283 powered racing Skiffs.

Besides the impromptu events, there are many planned events not yet on the schedule for next year where skiffs will be welcome.

Skiff Inc. Members and all Skiff owners:

You have been asking what's going on with APBA Vintage

After all the comments and rumors this past year from Vintage Family officials about either eliminating the Skiffs all together, or changing the rules to reduce the membership, I think this is what we can expect.

1. Nothing larger than a 305 cu engine.
2. Only fixed or T Handle controlled cavatation plates.
3. Probably no Skiffs without transom exhausts.

The APBA Vintage annual membership renewal is coming up.

If you think you will be affected by these rule changes, and you probably will, as there are no more than 6 Skiffs that currently participate in Vintage events that will qualify under the above rule changes, remember APBA does not offer refunds, even if they change the rules on you.

APBA Vintage just started sanctioning events in region 5. Oh well !

Out of all the Skiffs that attended Clayton and Lake George, this year, I know of no more than 2 or 3 that will be able to attend future events.

If you have an old racing Skiff and you think this sounds like something you might want to get involved in, it might be the time to dust it off.

I just received a great DVD taken at Clayton this year with a note that reads:

"This is a "thank you" for bringing and running your boat at the Clayton Antique Raceboat Regatta of 2006. I took this amateur video of your boat running and hope that it will be of some value and interest. NO COMPENSATION OF ANY KIND is sought or expected - it's a gift and recognition for the time, effort, risk, cost and dedication involved for you to participate".

My wife & I will miss Clayton, Lake George and Wolfeboro etc., but I guess it's time to do something else. We have enjoyed our Skiff - Heartbeat for the last 18 years and don't expect that to change.

I don't know if any restrictions will be placed on the other classes. It's been my impression that the Skiffs are the only sore points.

Don't forget, there are ACBS events that welcome any and all Skiffs. There is no course set up, but they are fun events and there is a lot of water time and usually a cruise to a favorite local waterfront restaurant.

Stay Tuned,

Paul Nowack

Webmaster Note (Claire Ferry): Maybe all the regions should be more verbal about their vintage meetings like region 6 is planning. Let each region have a part in deciding what is best for them and their promoters. The last person who made this suggestion was given a full season suspension for speaking up ( was it for the good of Vintage, or was it personnel ). Vintage is too big to MICRO MANAGE, especially when the Vintage agenda is not really clear. When will the participants and especially APBA realize what is mandated for one class of vintage must be mandated for ALL classes within vintage. Sanctions in region 5 are now being signed, but after not signing any through October 2006 the season and region has already been ruined. In the past it was not uncommon for 15 - 20 skiffs to participate in an event, now less than 3 participate... is this progress? Does this help promote APBA? What's going to happen to the phrases "In the spirit of" or "replica" as they pertain to other vintage boats? Or will those phrases apply for all other boats except skiffs? Maybe this is the way of further punishing the very active skiffs. If current Vintage Officials succeed in getting the skiffs out of the Vintage category - will they speak out against them having their own category?
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I have had a Speed Skiff since 1978 primarily used for pleasure. My wife and I happen to be in Wolfeboro in September of 2000 and attended the Antique Race Boat Regatta. These people were having so much fun, we decided to join them. We have been participating in APBA & ACBS Vintage Boating events ever since.

Since that time the popularity of the Jersey Speed Skiff has grown. We moved to Florida from Illinois in 2002, and there are now over 30 ACTIVE Speed Skiffs in Florida alone. Dave Yeager has built 5 new ones in the last two years and is about to start the 6th.

We are not true "Vintage" Skiffs as defined in the current APBA Vintage rule book. Some are newer than specified, most have no APBA racing history, nor motors of the period etc. Today's skiffs have been updated to make them more user friendly.

Most of us never qualified as "Vintage" and, at the same time never passed ourselves off as Vintage, even though the events had "Vintage" in their name. The intent was to demonstrate former race boats and have fun doing it.

Previously we were invited to APBA events to fill the void of "Vintage Skiffs", but that is changing.

Being as active as we are, we are noticed and receive many requests from around the country to supply skiffs at APBA and other organized events. Because of the recent changes in the Vintage Class, not to mention all the scheduled events cancelled in Region 5, we are looking to do something a little different.

The name of our organization is "S.K.I.F.F." Special Klass Intended For Fun Inc. We are both a club and corporation.

S.K.I.F.F is incorporated in Florida, and has applied for and been granted Club Status with APBA for Special Events. These are the first of many steps we will be taking.

Our intention is not to Race-Race, but to do more to please the crowds than wave to them during Fly By's.

I heard about the Nostalgia Endurance classes on the West Coast, and thought something like that would be more appropriate for us, and exciting for the spectators.

All boats must pass the APBA safety inspection and must have the APBA required safety equipment as outlined in the "Vintage and Historic Racing Bylaws, and have a current APBA license.

Initially open this to Jersey Speed Skiffs, any Jersey Speed Skiff. If enough interest is generated in other classes, open it up to any Nostalgia boat in the future.

Engines have no limitations, other than having to be a small block Chevrolet or Ford and naturally aspirated. You run what you brung, as long as it passes tech. Our real limitations comes in the form of the GPS units we run to limit our speed, here is how that works.

All boats must run a hand held type GPS mounted in the boat, preferably away from drivers reach, or not easy to reset while driving.

Each Heat will be 2 warm up laps, a Flag or Clock start followed by 4 to 6 laps depending on the water conditions and length of the course.

All GPS's are read by an official after every fly-by heat, then reset by that official. We read the fastest speed recorded by that GPS, not the average.

If the speed exceeded 60.9mph the driver/boat is penalized 1 lap. If the GPS reads above 64.9mph the driver/boat is disqualified for the remainder of the fly-bys at that event and asked to evaluate his desire to participate in our events. If that happens a second time within the year, they will be asked to next time enter a class that has no speed limit if they want to go that fast.

Drivers will be considered "In Training" until they have participated in at least two "S.K.I.F.F." Events.

Drivers in training will be required to run the outside lane and to start last and run last. Additionally they will be asked to avoid passing and to stay away from other boats. The riding mechanic will be instructed that his/her responsibility is to observe other boats on the course at all times and insure that the driver is made aware of anything taking place that may create a problem.

If a driver is thought to be driving over their head, it will be addressed by a Representative or Referee.

There will be no awards or points. We don't want a Race type competitive environment.

The intent is to put on an event that the spectators and sponsors will like, grow the events and have safe fun doing it.

We feel this could be a learning environment to advance to caged skiff racing, add more APBA memberships and sanctions, and promote safe boat handling.

1. The popularity of Jersey Speed Skiffs is growing, in fact there are probably more Skiffs on the water today than any other time in history.

2. Promoters and Sponsors, having seen Jersey Speed Skiff demonstrations and flybys are inquiring about demonstrations outside the current APBA Vintage Circuit.

3. Currently APBA Vintage has no interest, and is in fact against expansion, especially where Jersey Speed Skiffs are involved.

S.K.I.F.F Inc. was formed as an entity to contract to participate as a Special Type Event, performing exhibitions / Fly Bys of Nostalgic type Race Boats, especially Jersey Speed Skiffs

Initially we hoped to work with the APBA, and would look forward to doing so in the future, but currently, for the events we are planning, the promoters and sponsors are working directly with SKIFF Inc.

As soon as these events are firmed up, all members will be informed, the dates and times will be posted on speedskiffs.com, and a press release issued.

As you know, our official web site is speedskiffs.com so please keep checking the Calendar of events for happenings and if possible join us. Click here to print the membership application (Microsoft Word)

Some of the events our members will be supporting for the reminder of this year are 1. Clayton, 2. Charlotte, 3. Lake George and 4. Thunder on the Shrewsbury.

Thanks again for your support and please feel free to contact me with your comments and thoughts.

	Teaming with the recently formed Classic Raceboat Association, where we participated in the Rolex 24 race at Daytona International Speedway and the Tavares Raceboat regatta.
	Recognition and formation of a Marque club within ACBS.
	Featured boat at the Hartwell, Georgia boat show planned for April 2008