staving, molding, and balanced rudder.]

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-fastening 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 schooner can be said to have retained much
of the appearance 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 _Yachting_ 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 Chesapeake 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 "Albemarle
Sound b