Sharpies "seaworthy"? come on...

[gilberj]

I sort of agree with your suggestion that boats like these modern ( often ballasted) flat bottom or arch bottom, shallow V bottom, or shallow round bottom boats should perhaps not use the 'sharpie' descriptor. I think the Meadowlark is more closely descended from Munroe's 'Presto', than any sharpie. On that note the original 'Egret' had several hundred pounds of ballast....bricks.... I think. I note that dory's are not sharpies, despite having a flat bottom.
Your comment about some of Bolger's boats are instructive. I don't think I am over-simplifying when I suggest that while most of his more serious barge-form cruising boats had some ballast, but he used enclosed volume above the waterline to assist with self righting in a knockdown or capsize condition.
The Norwalk Island Sharpie uses both ballast and enclosed volume to achieve a stability curve with a substantial righting lever well past the 90* knockdown.
So I think we are down to the need to establish a more precise definition,......... or........ we have to ignore the terminology and keep the discussion on the principles of the qualities we are wishing to discuss.

[Ben Fuller]

Traditional working sharpies were cross planked I believe, nailed into the garboard which you can do if the sides are pretty vertical. Hence in SNE especially in the RI area there were small " sharpie skiffs" that had no chine log. At Mystic we had an unrestored New Haven Oystering dugout, the ancestor of the working sharpies. Really big white pine log, with a flat cross planked bottom which is the same thing that shows up in the Hall 1880 ship and boatbuilding survey. I heard that the bottom wore out from shoveling but I can also see that the narrow flat bottom provided more initial stability. It was a guy named Thomas Clapham that started to design and use the term for recreational craft.

[johnw]

I sort of agree with your suggestion that boats like these modern ( often ballasted) flat bottom or arch bottom, shallow V bottom, or shallow round bottom boats should perhaps not use the 'sharpie' descriptor. I think the Meadowlark is more closely descended from Munroe's 'Presto', than any sharpie. On that note the original 'Egret' had several hundred pounds of ballast....bricks.... I think. I note that dory's are not sharpies, despite having a flat bottom.
Your comment about some of Bolger's boats are instructive. I don't think I am over-simplifying when I suggest that while most of his more serious barge-form cruising boats had some ballast, but he used enclosed volume above the waterline to assist with self righting in a knockdown or capsize condition.
The Norwalk Island Sharpie uses both ballast and enclosed volume to achieve a stability curve with a substantial righting lever well past the 90* knockdown.
So I think we are down to the need to establish a more precise definition,......... or........ we have to ignore the terminology and keep the discussion on the principles of the qualities we are wishing to discuss.

Munro called Presto a sharpie, in fact he called some of his later designs Presto sharpies. But I think Meadowlark traces its ancestry to Larry Hunt's arc-bottomed sharpies, which had hard bilges.

[Matt young]

A bit of a thread-drift, Question:
I always read that the Sharpie evolved naturally in the US. But what came first North American Sharpies or the Venetian Sanpierotas? It sure looks like a Sharpie, minus the lack of a centerboard. I know flat-bottomed boats can be found in the past all over Europe, but this is not a small river boat or dingy. It’s a bay fishing boat, just like the US Sharpies.

Credit for the plan below to:
http://www.bcademco.it/schede/EN/E-sanpiera.pdf

198FCBF5-761D-43B5-A7A4-CCB97FA4E285.jpg

B7B56ABE-A67B-4992-97CF-0AAA3CBDC470.jpeg 9D4F9E77-68E2-46D9-A70F-5C3B2B66944F.jpg

[skaraborgcraft]

Seeing that the majority of Americans were European settlers, most boats derived by adaptation of "home" boats to use in the local waters, just one example, the Portuguese were using "dorys" before the white mans invasion of the American continent .

[Ben Fuller]

What is interesting is the relative paucity of cross planked boats in what I have seen in the UK, where flat bottom boats planked fore and aft are the norm according to McKee. With the timing of various influxes into the US we see almost no Mediterrean influence, only in San Fran and the New Orleans area. The lug rig became popular in the UK after the revolution if you look at some Brit sources where it seems to be late 18th, 19th, by which time US practice had acquired some of their own characteristics.

[PaulBlair76]

Good question Paul.

Agree with u.

[Clarkey]

What is interesting is the relative paucity of cross planked boats in what I have seen in the UK, where flat bottom boats planked fore and aft are the norm according to McKee. With the timing of various influxes into the US we see almost no Mediterrean influence, only in San Fran and the New Orleans area. The lug rig became popular in the UK after the revolution if you look at some Brit sources where it seems to be late 18th, 19th, by which time US practice had acquired some of their own characteristics.

I think I remember reading of a single Thames Barge that was built with a cross planked bottom and it had a reputation as a very poor performer.

[gilberj]

Munro called Presto a sharpie, in fact he called some of his later designs Presto sharpies. But I think Meadowlark traces its ancestry to Larry Hunt's arc-bottomed sharpies, which had hard bilges.

I am aware that Commodore Ralph Munroe called his Presto style boats "Sharpies" as did Thomas Clapham of the Roslyn Yawl as Non-Pareil Sharpie's.....I am not sure the definitions are really a reliable way of assessing a boat. I suggest we look at the actual performance in a seaway. I have witnessed a few regulations in my time that were not clear enough. to me there is a grey area in the middle, which could be taken either way.

[Ben Fuller]

I think I remember reading of a single Thames Barge that was built with a cross planked bottom and it had a reputation as a very poor performer.

The original US cross planked boat were the skiffs and sharpies of the Long Island area. The method migrated to the Chesapeake and North Carolina, where they were transformed to wider V bottom craft. The v bottom meant that the cross planks even on skipjacks were not very long. I can imagine that there could have been issues in a wide flat
bottom boat.

[brahma]

Would this be considered a Sharpie. It does have a retractable centerboard ... but the lines are smoothly rounded out vs the squared look of typical sharpies. This is fiberglass has an inboard westerbeke 10 under hatch center of cockpit. Can I sail this on the rail or would that be danger?





242334755_540284263931750_6365777504917487368_n.jpg241789634_10219806996238063_7336334334775853490_n.jpg241816889_10219806996678074_8917009558954408413_n.jpg242043499_10219806997038083_3654097523980478880_n.jpg




QUOTE=gilberj;3763115]I strongly doubt LFH ever calculated stability. In The Common Sense he does not include a chapter on yacht stability. He makes mildly disparaging comments about metacenters in the chapter about 'Choosing a Cruisier', coincidentally referring to an imaginary Meadowlark. The point is Whimbrel a Herreshoff Meadowlark will come back from a mast in the water knockdown....easily. LFH did stability by ensuring there was a lot of ballast. I doubt he really knew what this design was capable of.
I get James point about pounding. I think Mr. Bolgers sharpies all had considerable rocker, to solve other problems, but suffered from pounding and slapping because the bow was out of the water. The Meadowlark seldom pounds and seldom very hard....the bow is immersed. On the other hand she maneuvers sluggishly, you win some and you loose some.
Few boats sailing offshore these days have ultimate stability......self righting from 180 degree roll over. ISO Stix numbers for sea class "A" for offshore yachts starts at something like 130 degrees.
Seaworthiness means .......is the boat suitable for its intended voyage ????......Is the crew competent?????
Seaworthiness includes for all vessels.......1. Watertight integrity, 2. Adequate stability, 3. general fitness including structure, equipment, maintenance, and outfitting. For sailing yachts you can add weatherliness.

Sharpies can be designed and built to be seaworthy, by any measure.....You may.. as James McM not like sharpies....thats ok...no-one is forcing a sharpie on him....and I appreciate his experience with the type. With Sharpies I have very little experience other than Whimbrel. But there again I have pretty extensive experience on three different LFH designed boats, and some on a handful of others. I trust his sense of rightness in his designs.
In truth I'd consider most traditional sharpies as suitable for estuaries and near-near coastal waters.[/QUOTE]

[Woxbox]

No, that's not a sharpie hull. It's most likely well ballasted and, if so, would be very hard to turn over, and would recover from a knock-down no problem. What rig does it carry? I see the mast is short, suggesting a low sail plan and with that a comforting level of stability under way.

[brahma]

Thanks for getting back. I posted Pics of this elsewhere and no one can seem to figure out what it is. Some suggested it to be a Sharpie... and I didn't exactly see that with the exception of centerboard, the Stem and maybe rail line. It was built by Golden Era boatworks in Noank, Ct. Its 22.5' I've got no other info about it. This also carries a westerbeke 10 two in that box located center forward, in cockpit. The sail is a gaff rig and certainly not a high peak because the yoke on the yard is straight out and not curved forked. The boom and yard are both the same length at around 12 ft. I'd guess the mast to be about 16 ft. I've not looked over the sail but guess is close to square