The Migrations of an American Boat Type Part 2

In the 1920's and 1930's many such boats were converted to yachts. They were fast under sail and very stiff, and with auxiliary engines they were equally as fast and required a relatively small amount of power.

Large Carolina sharpie schooners often made long coasting voyages, such as between New York and the West Indies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 18.--Deck of a North Carolina sharpie schooner under sail showing pump box near rail and portion of afterhouse.]

Sharpies in Other Areas

The Carolina Sounds area was the last place in which the sharpie was extensively employed. However, in 1876 the sharpie was introduced into Florida by the late R. M. Munroe when he took to Biscayne Bay a sharpie yacht that had been built for him by Brown of Tottenville, Staten Island. Afterwards various types of modified sharpies were introduced in Florida. On the Gulf Coast at Tampa two-masted sharpies and sharpie schooners were used to carry fish to market, but they had only very faint resemblance to the original New Haven boat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 19.--Sharpie yacht _Pelican_ built in 1885 for Florida waters. She was a successful shoal-draft sailing cruiser. (Photo courtesy Wirth Munroe.)]

The sharpie also appeared in the Great Lakes area, but here its development seems to have been entirely independent of the New Haven type. It is possible that the Great Lakes sharpie devolved from the common flatiron skiff.

The sharpie yacht was introduced on Lake Champlain in the late 1870's by Rev. W. H. H. Murray, who wrote for _Forest and Stream_ under the pen name of "Adirondack Murray." The hull of the Champlain sharpie retained most of the characteristics of the New Haven hull, but the Champlain boats were fitted with a wide variety of rigs, some highly experimental.

A few commercial sharpies were built at Burlington, Vermont, for hauling produce on the lake, but most of the sharpies built there were yachts.

Double-Ended Sharpies

The use of the principles of flatiron skiff design in sharp-stern, or "double-ended," boats has been common. On the Chesapeake Bay a number of small, double-ended sailing skiffs, usually fitted with a centerboard and a single leg-of-mutton sail, were in use in the 1880's. It is doubtful, however, that these skiffs had any real relations.h.i.+p to the New Haven sharpie. They may have developed from the "three-plank"

canoe[11] used on the Bay in colonial times.

[11] A primitive craft made of three wide planks, one of which formed the entire bottom.

The "cabin skiff," a double-ended, half-decked, trunk-cabin boat with a long head and a cuddy forward, was also in use on the Bay in the 1880's.

This boat, which was rigged like a bugeye, had a bottom of planks that were over 3 inches thick, laid fore-and-aft, and edge-bolted. The entire bottom was made on two blocks or "sleepers" placed near the ends.

The sides were bevelled, and heavy stones were placed amids.h.i.+ps to give a slight fore-and-aft camber to the bottom. The sides, washboards, and end decks were then built, the stones removed, and the centerboard case fitted. In spite of its slightly cambered flat bottom, this boat, though truly a flatiron skiff in midsection form, had no real relation to the New Haven sharpie; it probably owed its origin to the Chesapeake log canoe, for which it was an inexpensive subst.i.tute.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 20.--Florida sharpie yacht of about 1890.]

R. M. Munroe built double-ended sharpies in Florida, and one of these was used to carry mail between Biscayne Bay and Palm Beach. Although Munroe's double-enders were certainly related to the New Haven sharpie, they were markedly modified and almost all were yachts.

A schooner-rigged, double-ended sharpie was used in the vicinity of San Juan Island, Was.h.i.+ngton, in the 1880's, but since the heels of the stem and stern posts were immersed it is very doubtful that this sharpie was related in any way to the New Haven boats.

Modern Sharpie Development

The story of the New Haven sharpie presents an interesting case in the history of the development of small commercial boats in America. As has been shown, the New Haven sharpie took only about 40 years to reach a very efficient stage of development as a fis.h.i.+ng sailboat. It was economical to build, well suited to its work, a fast sailer, and attractive in appearance.

When sailing vessels ceased to be used by the fis.h.i.+ng industry, the sharpie was almost forgotten, but some slight evidence of its influence on construction remains. For instance, transverse tie rods are used in the large Chesapeake Bay "skipjacks," and Chesapeake motorboats still have round, vertically staved sterns, as do the "Hatteras boats" used on the Carolina Sounds. But the sharpie hull form has now almost completely disappeared in both areas, except in a few surviving flat-bottomed sailing skiffs.

Recently the flat-bottomed hull has come into use in small, outboard-powered commercial fis.h.i.+ng skiffs, but, unfortunately, these boats usually are modeled after the primitive flatiron skiff and are short in length.

The New Haven sharpie proved that a long, narrow hull is most efficient in a flat-bottomed boat, but no utilization has yet been made of its design as the basis for the design of a modern fis.h.i.+ng launch.