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Figure i6. — Stern of a North Carolina sharpie schooner showing planking, 

 staving, molding, and balanced rudder. 



for those skiffs used in the Tangier Island area, it is not 

 evident that the Bay skiffs were influenced by the New 

 Haven sharpie to any great degree, in form at least. 



Schooner-rigged sharpies developed on Long Island 

 Sound as early as 1870, and their hulls were only 

 slightly modified versions of the New Haven hull in 

 basic design and construction. These boats were, 

 however, larger than New Haven sharpies, and a few 

 were employed as oyster dredges. After a time it was 

 found that sharpie construction proved weak in boats 

 much over 50 feet. However, strong sharpie hulls of 

 great length eventually were produced by edge -fasten- 

 ing the sides and by using more tie rods than were 

 required by a smaller sharpie. Transverse tie rods 

 set up with turnbuckles were first used on the New 

 Haven sharpie, and they were retained on boats that 

 were patterned after her in other areas. Because of 

 this influence, such tie rods finally appeared on the 

 large V-bottomed sailing craft on Chesapeake Bay. 



The sharpie schooner seems to have been more 

 popular on the Chesapeake Bay than on Long Island 

 Sound. The rig alone appealed to Bay sailors, who 

 were experienced with schooners. Of all the flat- 

 bottomed skiffs employed on the Bay, only the schoon- 

 er can be said to have retained much of the appear- 

 ance of the Connecticut sharpies. Bay sharpie 



schooners often were fitted with wells and used as 

 terrapin smacks (fig. 7). As a schooner, the sharpie 

 was relatively small, usually being about 30 to 38 

 feet over-all. 



Since the 1880's the magazine Forest and Stream and, 

 later, magazines such as Outing, Rudder, and Tachting 

 have been the media by which ideas concerning all kinds 

 of watercraft from pleasure boats to work boats have 

 been transmitted. By studying such periodicals, 

 Chesapeake Bay boatbuilders managed to keep 

 abreast of the progress in boat design being made in 

 new yachts. In fact, it may have been because of 

 articles in these publications that the daggerboard 

 came to replace the pivoted centerboard in Chesa- 

 peake Bay skiffs and that the whole V-bottom design 

 became popular so rapidly in the Bay area. 



The North Carolina Sharpie 



In the 1870's the heavily populated oyster beds of 

 the North Carolina Sounds began to be exploited. 

 Following the Civil War that region had become a 

 depressed area with little boatbuilding industry. The 

 small boat predominating in the area was a modified 

 yawl that had sprits for mainsail and topsail, a jib set 

 up to the stem head, a centerboard, and waterways 

 along the sides. This type of craft, known as the 



PAPER 25: THE MIGRATIONS OF AN AMERICAN BOAT TYPE 



149 



