diff --git a/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/sftp/RemoteFile.java b/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/sftp/RemoteFile.java
index 5bb48362..d40136d9 100644
--- a/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/sftp/RemoteFile.java
+++ b/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/sftp/RemoteFile.java
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ import net.schmizz.concurrent.Promise;
 import net.schmizz.sshj.common.Buffer;
 import net.schmizz.sshj.sftp.Response.StatusCode;
 
+import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.io.OutputStream;
@@ -88,8 +89,7 @@ public class RemoteFile
             throws IOException {
         return requester.request(newRequest(PacketType.WRITE)
                                          .putUInt64(fileOffset)
-                                        // TODO The SFTP spec claims this field is unneeded...? See #187
-                                         .putUInt32(len)
+                                         .putUInt32(len - off)
                                          .putRawBytes(data, off, len)
         );
     }
@@ -238,27 +238,56 @@ public class RemoteFile
         private final byte[] b = new byte[1];
 
         private final int maxUnconfirmedReads;
-        private final Queue<Promise<Response, SFTPException>> unconfirmedReads;
+        private final Queue<Promise<Response, SFTPException>> unconfirmedReads = new LinkedList<Promise<Response, SFTPException>>();
+        private final Queue<Long> unconfirmedReadOffsets = new LinkedList<Long>();
 
-        private long fileOffset;
+        private long requestOffset;
+        private long responseOffset;
         private boolean eof;
 
         public ReadAheadRemoteFileInputStream(int maxUnconfirmedReads) {
+            assert 0 <= maxUnconfirmedReads;
+
             this.maxUnconfirmedReads = maxUnconfirmedReads;
-            this.unconfirmedReads = new LinkedList<Promise<Response, SFTPException>>();
-            this.fileOffset = 0;
         }
 
         public ReadAheadRemoteFileInputStream(int maxUnconfirmedReads, long fileOffset) {
+            assert 0 <= maxUnconfirmedReads;
+            assert 0 <= fileOffset;
+
             this.maxUnconfirmedReads = maxUnconfirmedReads;
-            this.unconfirmedReads = new LinkedList<Promise<Response, SFTPException>>();
-            this.fileOffset = fileOffset;
+            this.requestOffset = this.responseOffset = fileOffset;
         }
 
-        @Override
-        public long skip(long n)
-                throws IOException {
-            throw new IOException("skip is not supported by ReadAheadFileInputStream, use RemoteFileInputStream instead");
+        private ByteArrayInputStream pending = new ByteArrayInputStream( new byte[0] );
+
+        private boolean retrieveUnconfirmedRead(boolean blocking) throws IOException {
+
+            if (unconfirmedReads.size() <= 0)
+                return false;
+
+            if (!blocking && !unconfirmedReads.peek().isDelivered())
+                return false;
+
+            unconfirmedReadOffsets.remove();
+            final Response res = unconfirmedReads.remove().retrieve( requester.getTimeoutMs(), TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS );
+            switch (res.getType()) {
+                case DATA:
+                    int recvLen = res.readUInt32AsInt();
+
+                    responseOffset += recvLen;
+                    pending = new ByteArrayInputStream( res.array(), res.rpos(), recvLen );
+                    break;
+
+                case STATUS:
+                    res.ensureStatusIs( Response.StatusCode.EOF );
+                    eof = true;
+                    break;
+
+                default:
+                    throw new SFTPException( "Unexpected packet: " + res.getType() );
+            }
+            return true;
         }
 
         @Override
@@ -268,26 +297,64 @@ public class RemoteFile
         }
 
         @Override
-        public int read(byte[] into, int off, int len)
-                throws IOException {
-            while (!eof && unconfirmedReads.size() <= maxUnconfirmedReads) {
-                // Send read requests as long as there is no EOF and we have not reached the maximum parallelism
-                unconfirmedReads.add(asyncRead(fileOffset, len));
-                fileOffset += len;
+        public int read(byte[] into, int off, int len) throws IOException {
+
+            while (!eof && pending.available() <= 0) {
+
+                // we also need to go here for len <= 0, because pending may be at
+                // EOF in which case it would return -1 instead of 0
+
+                while (unconfirmedReads.size() <= maxUnconfirmedReads) {
+                    // Send read requests as long as there is no EOF and we have not reached the maximum parallelism
+                    int reqLen = Math.max( 1024, len ); // don't be shy!
+                    unconfirmedReads.add( RemoteFile.this.asyncRead( requestOffset, reqLen ) );
+                    unconfirmedReadOffsets.add( requestOffset );
+                    requestOffset += reqLen;
+                }
+
+                long nextOffset = unconfirmedReadOffsets.peek();
+                if (responseOffset != nextOffset) {
+
+                    // the server could not give us all the data we needed, so
+                    // we try to fill the gap synchronously
+
+                    assert responseOffset < nextOffset;
+                    assert 0 < (nextOffset - responseOffset);
+                    assert (nextOffset - responseOffset) <= Integer.MAX_VALUE;
+
+                    byte[] buf = new byte[(int) (nextOffset - responseOffset)];
+                    int recvLen = RemoteFile.this.read( responseOffset, buf, 0, buf.length );
+
+                    if (recvLen < 0) {
+                        eof = true;
+                        return -1;
+                    }
+
+                    if (0 == recvLen) // avoid infinite loops
+                        throw new SFTPException( "Unexpected response size (0), bailing out" );
+
+                    responseOffset += recvLen;
+                    pending = new ByteArrayInputStream( buf, 0, recvLen );
+                }
+                else
+                if (!retrieveUnconfirmedRead( true /*blocking*/ )) {
+
+                    // this may happen if we change prefetch strategy
+                    // currently, we should never get here...
+
+                    throw new IllegalStateException( "Could not retrieve data for pending read request" );
+                }
             }
-            if (unconfirmedReads.isEmpty()) {
-                assert eof;
-                return -1;
-            }
-            // Retrieve first in
-            final Response res = unconfirmedReads.remove().retrieve(requester.getTimeoutMs(), TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
-            final int recvLen = checkReadResponse(res, into, off);
-            if (recvLen == -1) {
-                eof = true;
-            }
-            return recvLen;
+
+            return pending.read( into, off, len );
         }
 
+        @Override
+        public int available() throws IOException {
+            while (!eof && (pending.available() <= 0) && retrieveUnconfirmedRead( false /*blocking*/ ))
+                /*loop*/;
+            return pending.available();
+        }
     }
+}
 
-}
\ No newline at end of file