The Sharpie Book
by Reuel B. Parker
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Book Summary Information
Author: Reuel B. ParkerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-01
ISBN: 0877423040
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Intl Marine Pub
Book Reviews of The Sharpie Book
Book Review: Best how-to book on building low cost, elegant sailboats.
Summary: 5 Stars
An enticing book on amateur boat building, The Sharpie Book brings together affordable building techniques, low-cost materials, historic designs, and sophisticated contemporary design revisions for today's builders. The sharpie, a long forgotten working sailboat from America's oyster industry past, is a shallow draft boat that has speed, elegance and simple construction all in one hull. Banned in the late 1800s from yacht races because they always won, this form of boat design has been brought back by Reuel Parker, a boat designer and builder living on board his Key West headquarters.
Parker researches the history of the sharpie, showing photographs and measured drawings done by naval architects of the late-1800s and early 1900s. He then descirbes and shows in numerous drawings and photographs how to build these elegant craft with plywood and epoxy using redesigns in which he only slightly modifies the original lines of the boats.
In the books I've read on amateur boat building in the recent past, this one stands shoulders above the others because it combines a practical approach to building, a preference for low-cost materials,a dedication to elegant design, and the use of modern materials.
For those considering a sailboat and without the cash to buy what Parker calls "Tuppeware" boats -- today's manufactured fiberglass boats -- this is a book not to be missed. 15 designs, from a 14-foot Cape Cod oystering skiff to a 36-foot San Juan double-ended sharpie are included.
Construction drawings can be purchased directly from the author.
(Reviewed by Dick Burnham
Summary of The Sharpie Book
The Sharpie Book traces the development of the sharpie from its earliest days to the latest plywood-and-epoxy designs; gives comprehensive instructions that can be used to build sharpies of all types and sizes; and includes more than a dozen designs and plans for sharpies from 15 to 40 feet from the likes of Chapelle, Kunhardt, Munroe, Boiger, Clapham, Kirby, and the author. A sharpie is a long, narrow, flat-bottom craft that evolved in the 19th century along the Connecticut shore as an oyster fisherman's boat. An 1880 report by the U.S. Census Bureau characterized the sharpie as "so good a fishing boat and so fast a yacht that it has been adopted in a great many other localities throughout the United States." To this add three more superlatives--easy, cheap, and fast to build--and you have the keys to the sharpie's almost cultlike popularity among backyard boatbuilders.Ships Books
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