Skip to main content

Skäreläja?

Skäreläja is a solid boat from around 1970 and various manufacturers and yards have produced them over the years. It's very hard to find a production number, but I have heard there should be one number next to the gelcoat, but to find that you have to take away all layers of paint. There is no exact number of have many boats that are made, most probably close to 500.

The boat is designed to both fish with or go out with your family, and the superstructure of the boat differs from these two models. The fishing boat version is more square inn it's superstructure. The family had also a possibility to "sail" with both mast and sail. My grandfather had such a boat and once tried it, he told us you have to have patience if you think you could "sail" with that boat...


This one (above) belongs to my uncle and the owner before him was his dad, my grandfather. That's the "sailing"-boat version. But there is a wide range of different sizes of masts, most of them you can't sail with.



One of the newest / latest produced boats is this one (below). The windows are different and also now there's an extra small bridge over the pilothouse. And as you see, no front window in the cabin.


The fishing model of the same boat, with the typical square superstructure are these (below). As you also can see, there is no extra interior in the cockpit.





Popular posts from this blog

Number two: Delilah

A Skäreläja in average condition and with an old engine would approximate cost around 10.000€ - 15.000€ (back then in the early 2000's and now in 2020). That was out of my budget, but the Skäreläja boat type is not the only choice on the Swedish West Coast. There are others, like Marstrands snipa, Nicanders' snipa and Gullholmesnipan for example. The Gullholmesnipan had to different versions, one open as my previous one and one with a build similar to Skäreläja. I managed to get one older Gullholmesnipan in plastic, and a wooden build. My plan was to renew both all wooden parts as also the old engine (this time it was Albin 011). However, one year later my life took another turn, from Marstrand on the Swedish West Coast to Finland and the Gulf of Finland. A couple of months after our move, the new owners had a disastrous incident when the engine boiled. But like Skäreläja, an upgraded Gullholme snipa is also coveted and valuable. As you see, it clearly reminds of a Skäreläja. ...

Seaborn

And once again we're seaborn! Because of the COVID-19 situation, our Captain Keijo did all the work himself! The crew embarked later in the evening, with lots of joy!

The Tiller

There's two ways to control the Skäreläja; either "inside" the pilothouse  or in the stern. And if you steer the boat from the stern, you need a tiller. When our boat arrived from Sweden we had a provisional solution for the summer (of 2012) and a piece of oak... That provisional solution have been in the boat till this summer when I finally realized and accepted, the new tiller would not be done with magic. I have to do it myself. And even if I'm not a real woodworker the result turned out to be better than I hoped for!