Little Egret A Munroe style sharpie nearing completion

After having written recently about the so-called Humber Yawls, my mind turned to another type which may well provide similar character and utility, but in a boat which is vastly more simple to build.

I was brought up on the shores of Moreton Bay in south-east Queensland, Australia. Moreton Bay is a huge expanse of water protected from the open Pacific Ocean by a line of huge barrier islands - the bay itself being 100 kilometres long and 32 kilometres across at its widest point. The waters of this great waterway are open and deep to the north, but large portions of it, particularly in the southern half, are shallow and protected. As a friend once said to me, "There is a lot of water in Moreton Bay, but it is spread out very thin!" This sort of coastal area is, in my opinion, a magnificent location for dinghy cruising.

Pleasant days on Moreton Bay

 As a child, I learned sailing in Sabot pram sailing dinghies at the Cleveland Yacht Club, and I remember my father pointing out the "Sharpie" which sat on a mooring in front of the house next-door to the club. She didnt mean much to me, being a non-descript flat-bottomed boat of about 24 feet LOA fitted with a very basic cuddy-cabin. But Dad obviously thought highly of her, so I did store the image and the "Sharpie" name away in my memory.

One characteristic of this boat which I did appreciate was that the family of the owner could get her underway and put back to bed on her mooring in no time flat, and they never seemed to be stressed by the operation.

It is now more than fifty years since those days, but I have come to love the sharpie form, and marvel at the reported speed and carrying capacity of those used in the fishery, particularly the oyster fishery, on the east coast of the United States in the late ninteenth and early twentieth centuary.

A New Haven Sharpie, much used for oyster tonging in Chesapeake Bay

Some time back I wrote about the design and initial building stages of a sharpie I designed for a customer who wanted a 19 foot boat similar to one designed by Bill Schwicker in the U.S. The design ended up being very much after the style of Ralph Munroes famous Egret, which was a cross between the hull-form of a sharpie and that of a Bank Dory, and which measured about 28 feet LOA.
You can read one of my posts on the design using this link.

An early drawing of my Little Egret design

An early drawing of my Little Egret design

The owner/builder of this boat has made wonderful progress, despite having to work at his normal job and being forced to carry out his building under a tarp over an outdoor deck. His determination, resourcfulness and quality of work should be an inspiration to those of you who procrastinate!
Here are a few photos of the job, including the almost-finished boat. This is just a very small selec tion of the photos, but you can see a very comprehensive presentation of Johns photos, along with much commentary at this address  http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?139737-Little-Egret-an-Egret-style-day-sailer

Johns strongback under construction. Note his inovative a resourceful use of existing backyard structures!

Construction begins - the bottom panel being cut

Scarphed-together panels of marine plywood being marked out using offsets taken directly from the plans.

An example of determination - the project being protected from rain.

Rain protection for scarphed panels

The stitch-and-glue construction method allows one to mark shapes directly onto the plywood panels without lofting, and as long as the developed panel shapes have been correctly designed, a boat will appear without the need for a station mold or other conventional bracing structure.

Johns first glimpse of a three-dimensional hull!

The addition of prefabricated bulkheads and frames gives shape to the boat, and also refines the rocker as the topside panels are held at the correct flare.

Cleats/deckbeams being glued to the bulkheads. This can be done prior to installing the bulkheads

Birds mouth masts being assembled on Johns fence! An excellent example of lateral thinking!

Casting a lead sinking weight into the lower end of the centreboard

Centreboard at a later stage, sheathed in epoxy/glass, and having had the pivot hole drilled oversize and filled with a reinforced epoxy plug which was cast in place. This was subsequently drilled to take the silicon bronze pivot pin

The very shallow, low aspect-ratio rudder was equipped with end-plates to improve efficiency. The excellent stainless steel shaft and head were devised by John

The rudder can be held at differing depths by moving the tiller attachment point up or down on the shaft

Here it is at the deepest setting

Masking for the bottom paint

Tantalising progress! Decks and coamings in place

Very nicely done floorboards

Floorboards in place, and seat-risers being fitted

Spars being fitted out and coated. Lovely homemade cleats

A big day! Moving the boat out of her coccoon

First opportunity to see the hull shape from above. The balanced ends will hopefully make her a good bar-crosser

John has done a superb job of taking this boat from plans to reality

Launching is not too far away now, and I eagerly await test reports. As soon as anything becomes available Ill put up a post. Remember to look at Johns thread on the Woodenboat Magazine Forum at http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?139737-Little-Egret-an-Egret-style-day-sailer??

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Little Egret an Egret style Sharpie

Ive often been asked the question, "What is your favourite boat?". In fact, I frequently ask myself the same question, and there is no single, correct answer because it depends on the job the boat has to do, and the conditions under which she has to do it. However, I do have a changing short list of favourites, and one boat which has been on that list for decades is Ralph Munroes Egret.

Profile of Egret drawn based on research by Jon Wilson (Woodenboat Magazine Founder), with input from Bob Baker, Maynard Bray, Dave Dillon, and Joel White. Image courtesy of Woodenboat Publications.

Lines Drawing of Egret. LOA 28 2" LWL 22 8" Beam 7 2" Draft 1. Courtesy of Woodenboat Publications.

Egret was designed by Ralph Munroe to act as an ambulance, mail boat, and water taxi for the early residents of Biscayne Bay in Southern Florida. Here is a short description in Ralph M. Munroes own words;

The difficulties of beach travel being thoroughly realized, and the Weather Bureau having established a telegraph line to Jupiter, it seemed imperative that something in the boat line superior to any of the existing craft for this work should be obtained. So in the summer of 1886, to replace Kingfish, I had built at Browns the 28-foot double-ended sharpie lifeboat, Egret, very strongly but lightly constructed. She drew eight inches, and had only fifty to seventy-five bricks, laid under the floor, for ballast. She was fitted with all the appurtenances needed to keep the sea in almost any weather, and if necessary to be put on the beach without harm. That she fulfilled all requirements until the first road was opened the older residents can testify. (excerpted from The Commodores Story by Ralph Middleton Munroe and Vincent Gilpin - Historical Society of Southern Florida)

Like many others, I have found myself under the spell of Egrets superb lines, which could be described as a cross between a sharpie and a dory. Her swept-up stern and distribution of buoyancy put me stronly in mind of our Australian Surfboats, so the combination of the three hullforms gives her a wonderful pedegree.

Australian Surfboats in action. They share full forward sections, substantial flare, and fine, raised stern sections with Egret. This is not surprising as both were designed or evolved to deal with the same conditions.

This is a superb photo of an Egret built in the mid nineteen-eighties by Graham Ero for Robert Jones. (Photo by Ray Egan, courtesy of Woodenboat Publications)

This is my favourite Egret photo, showing her character very well. (Courtesy of the Historical Association of Southern Florida, scanned from Reuel Parkers excellent book, "THe Sharpie Book")

Several months ago I was approached by a fellow who has also been in love with Egret for a very long time. For nearly thirty years, on and off, he had been searching for plans which would allow the building of an Egret-like boat of around 18 feet LOA. He had become frustrated with the search, not being able to locate exactly what he was after, but a chance occurrence put him in contact with me, and he gave me the opportunity to try my hand at a modern interpretation.

Scaling the size of a boat up or down introduces many hydrostatic and hydrodynamic complications, so I did not in anyway attempt to copy Egret. In fact, as disciplinary measure, I refused to look at any of my original Egret plans until the hull modelling was complete - that way I knew that I was drawing an entirerly new design - inspired by Egret but not copied.

I suggested a gaff rig using short gaffs as per the original, but my customer wanted to keep the boat as simple as possible and opted for a jib-headed sailplan. Other steps taken in the interests of simplicity included un-cambered decks and sheet plywood construction using the stitch-and-glue method.

We passed ideas backwards and forwards, and my customer proved to be polite, informed, and insistent about a number of small details. However, he kindly allowed me to dictate elements of the hull design, and after many iterations we agreed on a hull and proportions.

Little Egret showing her full sailplan upper/left, and the mainsail stepped in a third position lower right. She measures 18 10-1/4" LOA, 4 9-3/4" Beam, and draws about 6"

Plans are largely finished except for rudder, mast step details, and instructions. However, they wont be released until an example has been completed and tested. The plans include developed panel shapes for the topsides and the bottom, so no lofting is required.

Outboard Profile and Layout

Lines drawing, to the inside of planking.

Im really interested to see how this boat goes, especially when dealing with bar crossings and moderate surf.
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Sharpie Sunday

A quick austerity primer, a boat related blog post you need to read, and in the "irony bites" department...

Ted Brewers Centennial...

A lot more info here.

Whats not to love?

Listening to The Meters

So it goes...

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Sharpie Hulls and Fine Sections

Graham has written a very interesting comment following-up on the last two postings. As it happens, it touches on a subject which is of great interest to me, as Im in the process of designing a boat which incorporates the very characteristics he mentions. This boat has come about because of a request from a customer, but she has been in my head for many years and some of the reasons that I am so interested in this hull type are illustrated by Grahams comment.

Hi Ross, Have really enjoyed the last couple of posts. I like thinking about the laps as spray rails, it added another dimension to what I thought of as simply a nod to tradition. On the matter of fine entry + flare I would like to make an observation - is this discussion of fine entry and flare dependent on hull type? I am thinking of flat bottomed sharpie hulls in particular. These hulls often have nearly plum or vertical sides, but are designed to be sailed with a fair amount of heel, thus introducing a degree of flare. Also, the most successful sharpies have a fair amount of rocker in their flat bottoms, this means that more often than not they carry their stems at or above the waterline. I think that Bolgers Black Skimmer is an excellent example. Are the needs for flare and fine entry different between say, displacement hulls versus planing hulls, or between boats that are designed to be sailed fairly flat versus those with a little heel? cheers, Graham

Yes, the combination of a fine entry (i.e. sharp waterlines in the forward sections, with a half-angle of less than 19 degrees when viewed from above) a flat bottom, adequate rocker, and a boat which sails at an appreciable angle of heel will produce a soft and dry ride in a chop. I lack suitable photos to demonstrate this in decent wind conditions but here are a couple which may help.

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Green Island 15 in light conditions. You can see the chine rising above the waterline, and gently slicing through the water. If the boat was heeling more, the effect would be greater, as the angle between the bottom and the topsides would make a pronounced "V"

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Martin Kortluckes Folding Schooner designed by Phil Bolger. Once again the wind conditions are light, but you can see the way the chine would work if the boat was heeling more - it would cut like a knife.

There are two primary reasons why so many flat-bottomed sailing boats have a bad name: -

• bottom too wide; and
• not enough bottom rocker

The idea is to have the curve of the topsides (in plan view) match the curve of the bottom (in profile view). This over-simplification really only applies if the boat has no flare i.e. vertical sides. However, with normal flare of between 10 and 12 degrees, it works pretty well. In theory, such a chine line would slice through the water without the formation of eddies associated with the normal flow of water across the chine.

Here are two drawings to give some idea of what Im talking about. These show the forward hull sections of the design Im working on, drawn at an angle-of-heel of 25 degrees. For reasons of practicality, the curve of the bottom and the curve of the topsides are not perfectly matched, but you will get some idea of the process involved.

Forward sections of sharpie heeled at 25 degrees

Same drawing, but with only the underwater sections shown. This gives a better visualisation of why properly designed sharpies can work so well, and be so fast.

What should be obvious from the above illustrations is that (within reason) a narrow hull with the chine line running high will perform better than a wide hull with the chine line running low.

Maybe Ill be able to come up with some better way of describing what I mean, but this will have to do for the moment.

Just to get you thinking, I believe that the fastest sharpie would actually be a scow hull, in which case the limitation on breadth of hull is removed. Look at the work of Phil Bolger and Jim Michalak for some clues...

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A sorta sharpie concept

Just a little something you may want to keep in mind, a quick moment of sanity, and I really should go on record that I admire Natalie Maines...

A friend dropped me a line with a link to a newish "sharpie" design and, while it has a lot of sharpie attributes, it pretty much misses the whole idea of what a sharpie is. Well, lets put it this way and say it misses what I think a sharpie is all about.

Sure, its narrow, shallow, and has that retro look that seems to be coming back but its a far cry from the workboat origins that make a sharpie what it is.

Being that the boat would be more expensive than our old Loose Moose 2 (I suspect that a single carbon mast from this boat would cost more than a new Loose Moose 2 fully outfitted) and has about the same interior accommodation (or less), I just dont find myself thinking of it as a sharpie.

That said, when folks start designing expensive copies of sharpies or faux-sharpies it tends to signal a certain reappreciation of the sharpie in general which is no bad thing when you take a minute to think about it...

Since were on the subject of sharpies, whatever happened to that wooden home buildable version of Rodger Martins Presto 30?

Listening to Me and Molly

So it goes...

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