Citizendia
Your Ad Here

Sharpies are long, narrow sailboats with flat bottoms, extremely shallow draft, centerboards and straight, flaring sides. In some cases less is more The purpose of this article is to give an overview The draft (or draught) of a ship's hull is the vertical distance between the Waterline and the bottom of the hull ( Keel) with the thickness centreboard is a retractable Keel which pivots out of a slot in the hull of a Sailboat, known as a centerboard trunk (US or case They are believed to have originated in the New Haven, Connecticut region of Long Island Sound, United States, for the oystering were being built in the New Haven area, but later appeared in other areas on the American coasts. Long Island Sound is an Estuary of the Atlantic Ocean and various Rivers in the United States that lies between the coast of Connecticut The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The common name oyster is used for a number of different groups of Bivalve Mollusks most of which live in marine habitats or Brackish water.

Contents

Traditional sharpies

New Haven sharpies

These were long boats, about 27 feet or so, crewed by one man and rigged as a cat-ketch, with three mast steps; one at the bow, one amidships and one in between. A boat is a Watercraft of modest size designed to float or plane on water and provide transport over it A Cat-ketch is a Sailboat that is rigged as both a Catboat and a Ketch. The mast of a sailing ship is a tall vertical or near vertical Spar, or arrangement of Spars which supports the Sails Large ships have several masts The bow (pronounced &mdashrhymes with how) is a nautical term that refers to the forward part of the hull of a Ship or Boat, A hull is the body of a Ship or Boat. It is a central concept in floating vessels as it provides the Buoyancy that keeps the vessel from sinking Typically, in the summer, two masts would be stepped: one at the bow and amidships. In the winter, when heavier weather was expected, a single mast would be stepped in between. Larger versions, up to 35 feet, were crewed by two men. The New Haven models were typified by plumb bows with round counter-sterns rising just out of the water. The stern is the rear or aft part of a Ship or Boat, technically defined as the area built up over the Sternpost, extending upwards from the Counter

Although most sharpies were rigged as a cat-ketch with free standing, sprit rigs, larger versions - especially those found in the Carolinas and Florida - used stayed gaff schooner rigs which included a jib. The spritsail is a form of three or four-sided fore-aft Sail and its Rig. The Carolinas is a term used in the United States to refer collectively to the states of North and South Carolina. Florida ( is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the A schooner (ˈskuːnɚ is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts Schooners were first used by the A jib (also spelled jibb) is a triangular Staysail set ahead of the foremost mast of a sailing boat

The sharpie type migrated south and west to other regions where shallow water prevented deep-draft vessels from operating, including Chesapeake Bay, the Carolinas, the Great Lakes (Ohio) and Florida. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest Estuary in the United States. The Laurentian Great Lakes are a chain of freshwater lakes located in eastern North America, on the Canada–United States border. Ohio ( is a Midwestern state of the United States. As part of the Great Lakes region, Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads

Egret

Sharpies were introduced to Florida in 1881, when Commodore Ralph Munroe brought a 30-foot sharpie to the Key West area of Florida. Ralph Middleton Munroe ( 3 April 1851 - 20 August 1933) was an American yacht designer and early resident of Coconut Grove in south Key West is a city in Monroe County Florida, United States. The city encompasses Key West, the namesake island the part of Stock Island Several years later, the Commodore brought his 33-foot Kingfish to St. Augustine, Florida. St Augustine is the County seat of St Johns County, Florida, in the United States. Perhaps the most famous of sharpies was the Commodore's Egret design, now immortalized in plans available from WoodenBoat magazine. This is an article about a type of bird For the EGRET satellite mission see Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope. WoodenBoat is an American magazine that has been published since 1974 The Commodore designed Egret in 1886 and had her built on Staten Island and delivered to Key West. Staten Island (ˌstætənˈaɪlənd is a borough of New York City situated primarily on the island of the same name

Egret was unique in that she had higher, flaring sides than the typical sharpie and was double-ended. As with a dory, this meant more stability as she was loaded and the ability to run before a following sea without waves breaking over the stern. For the fishes known as dories see Dory (fish. For the Greek Spear see Doru. These attributes contributed to behavior that led the Commodore to call the Egret a "sharpie-lifeboat". Modern designers sometimes refer to the design as a 'shorie' - a cross between the sharpie and the dory.

Throughout the late 1800s, the Commodore and others helped to evolve the type. Thomas Clapham used a v-bottom in his "Nonpareil sharpies", and Larry Huntington introduced a rounded, arc bottom that has been used by modern designers like Bruce Kirby and Reuel Parker. Bruce Kirby was born and raised in Ottawa and began sailing on Lac Deschenes with his father and older brother David Some believe the Chesapeake Bay skipjack with its v-bottom may have evolved from the early sharpies. The skipjack is a type of Sailboat developed on the Chesapeake Bay for oyster dredging. Whatever the case, Chesapeake sharpie skiffs were common, especially in the smaller sizes, because of easy and cheap construction.

Howard I. Chapelle was a particular advocate of pleasure boats based on workboat models and designed many sharpie sailboats, cruisers and yachts. Howard Irwing Chapelle (1901-1975 was curator of Maritime history at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D For a typical example, see 14-foot sharpie. With Chappelle's encouragement, S. Owen Davis designed and built a sharpie disguised as a Chesapeake Bay bugeye in the late 1940s (see WoodenBoat Magazine October 1980). This boat incorporated the so-called "patent stern" that was used to provide deck space aft on the canoe-like double enders then working the Bay.

Modern sharpies

In recent years, the sharpie, as with many traditional American small craft, has enjoyed renewed interest as designers and sailors have sought boats with the virtues of shallow draft. However, most are homebuilt or of one-off construction. Exceptions include Bruce Kirby's Norwalk Islands series of sharpies, Phil Bolger's Dovekie and B&B Yacht Designs CoreSound series. The Norwalk Islands are a chain of more than 25 islands amid partly submerged boulders reefs and mudflats along a six-mile (10 km stretch and mostly about a mile off the coast of Philip C Bolger (1927-) prolific boat designer was born and lives in Gloucester Massachusetts.

The Twelve Square Metre Sharpie was designed in 1931 by the Kroger Brothers. The peak of the class was in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. At the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, five events in Sailing were contested To this day, the original design has been preserved, and the class is sailed competitively in the UK,Holland ,Germany, and Portugal. The European Championships are rotated between these four countries every year.

The term 'Twelve Square Metre' evolves from the original sail area, though on modern sharpies due to modern sail designs has now reached to around sixteen square metres.

There are still a small number of original sharpies in Australia, though they have not been sailed competitively since the 1960s. In Australia, the original 'heavyweight' Sharpie has now evolved into the lightweight Australian Sharpie. The Australian Sharpie is a 3-person sailing Dinghy which has evolved from the 12-square-metre class sailed in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne

Because of the design, the type has limitations that prevent mass-production in fiberglass. Fiberglass (also called fibreglass and glass fibre see Spelling differences) is material made from extremely fine Fibers of Glass. Fiberglass, by its nature, is stronger when used for compound curves. The flat bottom and sides of a sharpie are not well suited to this building material. Some designers, such as Bruce Kirby and Reuel Parker have managed to add some curves (typically at the chine) without compromising the qualities of the type, but there are limits as to what can be done before the boat becomes something other than a sharpie. A chine is a steep-sided river valley where the river flows through coastal cliffs to the sea

See also

External links

Other Types of Sailing Vessels

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic