The Enduring, Adaptable Sharpie

[HenryC]

From Good Old Boat, Nov-Dec, 2011
by Henry Cordova

Of all Man's artifacts, the one most like a living thing is a sailboat. This is especially so for the traditional working boat, built by workmen's hands with simple tools from the earth's natural materials.  The boat responds directly to the forces of nature; not only through the skill of its crew, but by the accumulated experience of generations of boatbuilders that have contributed to its form.  All over the world, boats can be found perfectly suited to local waters, their intended uses, and the materials and skills of the men and communities that depend on them for their livelihoods.

Boats endure the same ruthless selection that living organisms suffer.  Those forms which do not work do not survive, and those that do are changed,  perfected, constantly improved.  Successful designs are copied and spread, and those with merit endure, or are modified as needed.  As in natural selection, it is mostly a process of trial and error.  Many boats are proven inadequate or are lost; the sea is unforgiving as is commercial competition. Sailors and craftsmen are clever, they learn from their mistakes and their traditions preserve what works and discards what doesn't. It is not just the sea which forms these vessels, but their crews' business, their trade, the fisheries and markets they serve.  A regional boat type may be exquisitely adapted but it is not necessarily an inbred over-specialized organism.  As in the organic world, sometimes boats evolved in one environment can be unexpectedly successful in others, or can easily be adapted to new conditions. Every vessel is a compromise, every virtue is paid for by some shortcoming.

America has a proud and incredibly diverse maritime tradition, especially for such a young country.  During colonial times, European boat designs, Native American craft, and peculiar  local requirements gave rise to a variety of water craft; the successes propagated along the coasts and up the rivers.  One of the uniquely American craft to arise in the new nation was the sharpie.  Its origins are not clear and may even be traceable to the native  log sailing canoe; but by the middle of the nineteenth century the sharpie was already a recognized type, especially in the oyster fishery around New Haven, Connecticut.

The prototypical New Haven sharpie was a shallow-draft, flat bottom, hard chine (where the  sides meet the bottom) vessel with decks low to the water.  Although of limited interior cargo volume, it could carry a great deal of weight for its size. It was easy to build, and handled by an expert, surprisingly seaworthy.  They were usually rigged with two masts and triangular sails and although meant primarily for shallow water, had many qualities that made them suitable, with little or no modification,  for a variety of other uses.  Sharpies were fast, easily beached, could be rowed as well as sailed, and although certainly not ocean-crossing cargo vessels, they were surprisingly safe offshore in a blow.
Most important, they were easy and cheap to build with basic skills and tools.  The sharpie was simplicity itself.  Two long tapered boards were joined at the bow and kept apart at the stern by a flat transom.  A set of transverse boards along the bottom kept the sides apart and the water out.  A few crosswise thwarts provided seats for the crew, places to mount the masts, and stiffening for a long  hull with a sharp bow (hence the name).  The design worked well for boats smaller than 50 feet, provided certain mathematical proportions were observed, and soon more elaborate sharpies were appearing with more complex  rigs, superstructures, cargo carrying capacity and watertight decking and cabins.  But the basic concept for a light, nimble, strong sailer was retained, along with ease of construction and most important, the ability to float in a "heavy dew".  Regardless of size, if a sharpie ran aground, you could always get out and push.

Before long, sharpies were popping up all along the eastern seaboard, and even in the Great Lakes.  The design caught on across the Atlantic where it was embraced by yachtsmen in Great Britain and France.  The French Navy even experimented with arming a large one as a revenue cutter for its colonial service!  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; a safe, useful design is not "intellectual property" to be hoarded and patented and marketed for profit. It belongs to all who need it.  The class reached its highest development and its finest hour late in the nineteenth century, after steam propulsion was already common on larger ships, as the Age of Sail rapidly came to an end.

In 1881, New York engineer and entrepreneur, marine architect, seaman, conservationist and Florida pioneer, Commodore Ralph M  Munroe, introduced the sharpie to Key West. His boat, the 30-foot Skipperee took the local sailors by storm, its performance  far superior to other craft in the area.  The vessel proved to be perfect for Florida waters and Munroe quickly designed and built others, which soon became useful in knitting together the scattered coastal settlements of the state in those pre-railroad days. Munroe was a truly remarkable man and justly remembered to this day for his many services to the state but his talents as a mariner and naval architect alone would have assured him a place in the history books. He built or drew the lines for Presto, Egret, Micco, Utilis, Wabun, Nethla and over a dozen other large sharpies, which firmly established this sailing class in Florida waters. 

Munroe's big sharpie designs exploited the virtues of this class, but were all customized for specific missions; offshore work, mail packet, fishing, yachting, running the treacherous inlets, or navigating shoal lagoons and coral coasts. Even the Government caught the fever, with two large sharpies of its own brought in as oceanographic survey vessels. Others quickly spread throughout Florida in applications ranging from single-handed  fishing to bay cargo lighters to coastal trading to smuggling, while others ventured into the Caribbean and the Bahamas. The design could easily be adapted to a particular use, but its general characteristics allowed  it to serve in other roles in a pinch.  Munroe designed subtle variations onto the basic sharpie hull depending on his intended use for each vessel.  It was the optimum blending of specialization and adaptability; the marriage of traditional wisdom and common sense with modern design science.

The key requirements for Florida were shallow water and surf performance, simplicity of construction and rig, ease of operation and use, and ability to be easily rowed or poled in the mangroves.  The smaller sharpies had unstayed rigs, that is, the masts were not supported by shrouds and stays, making it easier to drop the rigs on deck when navigating creeks and bayous with overhanging vegetation, or to snug the boats down during the area's frequent thunderstorms. The larger ones could  venture safely  into the blue waters of the Gulf Stream.  The type was not really a rough water craft, but in spite of its size and shallow draft, and with an experienced crew, it could often acquit itself quite well in a squall or a "norther". 

The Florida coastline is primarily vast stretches of sand, easy beaching most of the time for a sharpie's flat bottom, but a death trap  for keel boats.  Barrier islands protect the coasts, but the sand bars and passes to the shallow lagoons behind these natural breakwaters were treacherous and deadly in a heavy sea.  A sharpie could surf in and shelter while a heavier hull would have to stand offshore and fight to the death.  Many of the settlements, such as Biscayne Bay, Fort Myers, Charlotte Harbor,  Tampa, Cedar Key and the Panhandle ports were perfectly suited for these boats: wide river mouths and tidal estuaries, endless mangrove labyrinths defended by keys, flats and bars.

Today, the coast has been tamed and the engine and fiberglass have pretty much made the sharpie a curiosity, an antique, a collector's item for nautical antiquarians.  Occasionally you do see one, but not a rough working boat with a ruffian Cracker crew.  Instead, you'll find a modern plastic replica or a spotless museum piece, smartly fitted out as luxurious yachts, built of the finest materials and flawlessly maintained.  These are not the working boats that fished our waters, carried our mail, and took our produce to market. 

But the spirit of the sharpie survives, the familiar lines can be seen in the gasoline-powered mullet skiffs which still ply Tampa Bay, and in the flat bottoms and vee hulls (now in modern plywood) of one-design racing classes like the Optimist pram and the Windmill. 

Commodore Munroe would be proud.