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.

[8] Full-scale examples of sharpies may be seen at the Mariners' Museum,
Newport News, Virginia, and at the Mystic Marine Museum, Mystic,
Connecticut.

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 proportionate beam, were extensively used in the small
oyster fisheries west of New Haven. There were also a few sloop-type
sharpies in the eastern Sound. In some areas this modification of the
sharpie eventually developed its own characteristics and became known as
the "flattie," a type that was popular on the north shore of Long
Island, on the Chesapeake Bay, and in Florida at Key West and Tampa.

[Illustration: FIGURE 11.--North Carolina sharpie schooner hauled up for
painting.]

The sharpie's rapid spread in use can be accounted for by its low cost,
light draft, speed, handiness under sail, graceful appearance, and
rather astonishing seaworthiness. Since oyster tonging was never carried
on in heavy weather, it was by chance rather than intent that the
seaworthiness of this New Haven tonging boat was discovered. There is a
case on record in which a tonging sharpie rescued the crew of a coasting
schooner at Branford, Connecticut, during a severe gale, after other
boats had proved unable to approach the wreck.

However, efforts to improve on the sharpie resulted in the construction
of boats that had neither the beauty nor the other advantages of the
original type. This was particularly true of sharpies built as yachts
with large cabins and heavy rigs. Because the stability of the sharpie's
shoal hull was limited, the added weight of high, long cabin trunks and
attendant furniture reduced the boat's safety potential. Windage of the
to