The cost of the New Haven sharpie was very low. 

 Hall stated that in 1880-1882 oyster sharpies could be 

 built for as little as $200, and that large sharpies, 40 

 feet long, cost less than $400.^ In 1886 a sharpie with 

 a capacity for 150 to 175 bushels of oysters cost about 

 $250, including spars and sails.'' In 1880 it was not 

 uncommon to see nearly 200 sharpies longside the 

 wharves at Fairhaven, Connecticut, at nightfall. 



The speed of the oyster sharpies attracted attention 

 in the 1870's, and in the next decade many yachts 

 were built on sharpie lines, being rigged either as 

 standard sharpies or as sloops, schooners, or yawls. 



Oyster tonging sharpies were raced, and often a 

 sharpie of this type was built especially for racing. 

 One example of a racing sharpie had the following 

 dimensions: 



Length: 



35' 



Width on deck: 



8' 



Flare, to 1' of depth: 



4' 



Width of stern : 



4M' 



Depth of stern: 



10" 



Depth at bow: 



36" 



Sheer: 



14" 



Centerboard : 



11' 



Width of washboards or sidedecks: 



12" 



Length of rudder: 



6' 



Depth of rudder: 



1' 2" 



Height of foremast: 



45' 



Diameter of foremast: 



6" 



Head of foremast : 



IK" 



Height of mainmast: 



40' 



Diameter of mainmast: 



5K" 



Head of mainmast: 



IK" 



The sharpie with the above dimensions was decked- 

 over 10 feet foreward and 4 feet aft. She carried a 

 17-foot plank bowsprit, to the ends of which were 

 fitted vertical clubs 8 to 10 feet long. When racing, 

 this sharpie carried a 75-yard foresail, a 60-yard main- 

 sail, a 30-yard jib, a 40-yard squaresail, and a 45-yard 

 main staysail; two 16-foot planks were run out to 

 windward and 11 members of the 12-man crew sat 

 on them to hold the boat from capsizing. 



Figure 3 shows a plan of a sharpie built at the 

 highest point in the development of this type boat. 

 This plan makes evident the very distinct character 

 of the sharpie in model, proportion, arrangement. 



*_«*— -ffOUmi^ li.tm)hA"9»- 



FiGURE 10. — North Carolina sharpie under sail. 



construction, and rig.' The sharpie represented by 

 the plan is somewhat narrower and has more flare in 

 the sides than indicated by the dimensions given by 

 Kunhardt. The boatmen at New Haven were con- 

 vinced that a narrow sharpie was faster than a wide 

 one, and some preferred strongly flaring sides, though 

 others thought the upright-sided sharpie was faster. 

 These boatmen also believed that the shape of the 

 bottom camber fore and aft was important, that the 

 heel of the stem should not be immersed, and that 

 the bottom should run aft in a straight line to about 

 the fore end of the centerboard case and then fair in 

 a long sweep into the run, which straightened out 

 before it passed the after end of the waterline. Some 

 racing sharpies had deeper sterns than tonging boats, 

 a feature that produced a faster boat by reducing the 

 amount of bottom camber. 



The use of the sharpie began to spread to other 

 areas almost immediately after its appearance at New 

 Haven. As early as 1855 sharpies of the 100-bushel 

 class were being built on Long Island across the Sound 

 from New Haven and Bridgeport, and by 1857 there 

 were two-masted, 150-bushel sharpies in lower New 

 York Harbor. Sloop-rigged sharpies 24 to 28 feet 

 long and retaining the characteristics of the New 

 Haven sharpies in construction and most of its basic 

 design features, but with some increase in proportion- 



8 Hall, op. cit. (footnote 3), pp. 30, 32. 



' Kunhardt, op. cit. (footnote 5), pp. 225, 295. 



* Full-scale examples of sharpies may be seen at the Mariners' 

 Museum, Newport News, Virginia, and at the Mystic Marine 

 Museum, Mystic, Connecticut. 



144 



BULLETIN 228: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



