BUILT to ORDER Candlefish 13 versatile small fishing boat

The Candlefish 13 is a versatile small fishing boat. Originally designed to be a cartoppable fishing skiff, she has also proven to be an excellent yacht tender. This is a big round-bottomed 13-footer, and she’ll handle a 5-20 hp outboard.

The thwarts, benches, and bulkheads reinforce the hull and leave the interior free of structural clutter. There’s no shortage of firm unobstructed footing. The cockpit sole is fairly flat, so to keep any water that gathers there from splashing underfoot it’s covered with removable honeycomb rubber mats.

The bottom has a keel running aft from the stem and ending about 30 cm shy of the transom. At the aft half of the hull there are bilge keels at the sides, protected, like the keel, by brass caps. Two wedges, each about 25 cm wide, serve as fixed trim tabs and keep the boat from hobbyhorsing with a light load aboard.

With a 20-hp Yamaha four-stroke outboard powering the Candlefish, she gets up and a plane with one person aboard in about 4.5 seconds and then with the throttle wide open flies along at 20½ knots. With two of us aboard, the Candlefish 13 topped out at just over 17 knots. She tracks well at all speeds and banks quickly and powerfully into turns: I quickly learned to use a soft touch on the tiller. A slight angling of the tiller sets the inside chine down, and the Candlefish carves smartly around.

The Candlefish maintains a level trim and good visibility at low speeds thanks to the centrally located cargo compartment and the fixed thwart that keeps the helmsman well forward of the tiller. The bow rises only briefly as she climbs up on a plane, and the skiff levels right out again.

We’ll use British Standard 1088 Marine Grade Plywood, 9mm for the hull and 18mm for the bulkheads. The exterior is sheathed with Fibre glass fabric and epoxy. The lumber that goes into the gunwales, seat edges, keels, breasthook and knees is either American prime Ash and purpleheart.

Note from the designer Sam Devlin:

Sam took his inspiration for this little workboat from the pangas he admired on his frequent visits to Mexico. These remarkably seaworthy skiffs had generous freeboard to fight back the chop that came up with the afternoon winds and were narrow for greater efficiency and speed under the power of modest outboards. The Candlefish 13 is diminutive version of the panga weight of 165 lbs.