Thread: Heavyweight Sharpie in Hobart

Do you think we could turn it into a lampshade?

This is a great thing.

I've got no connection with or knowledge about the sale.

This is one of the strange things where the boat as it is has little (relatively) value because so much work needs to be done and money spent - and that the person who buys it and does the work will never recover the money they spend on it - but will end up with something sensational. There is a chance always that someone can come along with a pocket full of money and willing to pay full price, but it is very unlikely.

So I am writing this to try and see if someone with the right attitude will look at grabbing this boat.

The heavyweight sharpies are just about the rarest and most notable dinghies in Australia's boating history.

The Sharpies were designed as a boat for racing on European lakes and were one of the classes sailed in the Melbourne Olympics in '56. I have seen drawings in Chapelle of a flat bottomed European Sharpie by Stampfl - the word sharpie in Europe seems to have meant a simplified box shape of the round hulled Jollenboot and Jollenkreuzer classes which were set up with restricted sail area and a box rule. The 12sq m sharpies were one design, or close to, and may have been envisaged as a feeder class for the more expensive Jollenboots (the flying dutchman comes out of that line of devlopment too).

Peter Mander from NZ won and second was Rolly Tasker from OZ. The Kiwi flag is up and the Oz about to be hoisted.



It is possible (but not a sure thing) that this boat was built for the Olympics as one of the competing boats - for one of the countries involved.

In a design sense it was very important for Australians to see these boats because they led directly to completely new thinking in the skiff classes - that sail area is not everything. A good sharpie, well sailed, could put the frighteners on the skiffs in the right conditions - smaller sail area and very refined devlelopment - sound familiar?

Ben Lexcen (then Bob Miller) wrote about how the arrival of the Sharpie and the Flying Dutchmen revolutionised the Australian 18 ft skiffs - Ben then designed two boats - Venom and Taipan which broke completely with skiff tradition - halving (or more than halving) the crew number to 3 and using PLYWOOD - shock horror! Of course the powers that be in the skiffs didn't like this so had the boats banned. Taipan is on display in their annex a hundred yards from the Australian Maritime Museum.

This is Bob/Ben (flowerpot men?) helming Taipan.



See article here - Outimage: ANMM Press Release - Taipan. (a cute/funny thing is that the foils have "fences" to prevent ventilation and the article calls them "gates" - hehe)

Don't make any mistake about it - this boat is like finding a late 1950s Maserati or Aston Martin with ripped apholstery and an engine that hasn't been started for 20 years. The first thing that needs to happen is the Aluminium mast be thrown over the side and the original rig restored.

This photo shows why.


Pics are on flickr

If you turn up to any traditional or wooden boat event in this, the crowd will be gawking on the beach, you will have a million old timers coming up saying "I remember ..." and you have a very good chance of blitzing the fleet.



They are beautiful boats to handle - particularly in rough water - providing you sail them dead flat - and represent a pinnacle of traditional rig development. If you let them heel this much in any but the lightest winds you will go over.



It would be great for someone to put the time and money into this boat to get it back to original condition.

This is a pic from the 2004 worlds - wouldn't you like to see an AUS sail number there?



A close look at a wound up boat - I really dig those little transoms on such a big boat - that's part of the reason they have great rough water handling.



They don't use spinnakers downwind - but Australians can't help themselves locally.



So lets hope it gets into the right hands!

MIK

Photos filched from the British Sharpie Association a nice website.

Just looking a bit closer Peter, is it plywood or planked? If it is planked it is a true 12sq metre sharpie - if plywood it is a transition boat - on the way to becoming a lightweight sharpie - not sure of the route the construction developments took.

Can see the bottom is planked, what about the sides - the one I have seen was batten/seam construction on the sides as well and those spacings for the battens look too wide.

MIK

So it could be an historic lampshade.... a real talking point in a lounge room.

Mik, you are one hell of a salesman. If it was in Melbourne, I'd put my hand up.
Remember the wooden boat festival is just around the corner, so Mik's spiel might just help find an enthusiast.

Thanks for all that info Mik, someone just has to get enthused about this.

As I understand it, the alloy mast has never been fitted - so that's easy to rectify. The original Oregon mast and boom is there, but no gaff as far as I know. The rudder and the curve on the tiller is a work of art, and I agree totally that the transom is perfectly shaped. The bottom of the hull is planked, easily seen in the photos. I've looked at all the pics I have and feel that the planks continue right to the gunwales. I know what you're refering to Mik, but I don't think the sides were ply, just the decks. The hull was light enough for two of us to turn her over with a bit of a grunt. If anyone wants 100% confirmation on this I can go look.

And remember, the "For Sale" is a give away price - as long as your intentions are good......

Thanks again for the info Mik.

We here in the USA, went through a similar "evolution" so to speak and I was in the middle of it, as a young man. I was a light weight, plywood fan and jumped at chances to sail on these sail powered harpoons. I couldn't afford one, so had to settle with the Chapelle style sharpies, which were often file planked beasts. These old heavy boats excelled in big wind, but got eaten up by the light weight plywood beauties, I really wanted to be sailing, when the wind was below 15 knots.

Mik I see fore and aft, about 100 mm wide bottom planks on this old gal. This and judging from her wide frame spacing, she's got some heft in those planks.

This is one of those boats I'd jump on, if it was here. So how much would you guess it would cost as deck freight, to get her to the USA? I can truck her from California to here.

I'd take her over to a buddy of mine, that has a furniture refinishing business. More importantly he has a finish stripping vat. Picture a 8' long, 3' deep 4' wide steel box, with a steel grating at the top and filled with this nasty smelling chemical that melts paint, varnish, polyurethane, etc. right off what ever it's sprayed on. We've balanced small boats over this table more then once before and sprayed it down with this chemical elixir. Once the finish is stripped, the boat is washed with a neutralizing solution to stop the chemicals from doing more harm then good, then it's dried with a ride on the trailer back to my place.

This is a boat I'd leave just as it is. I'd make repairs, additions, upgrades, etc. and no paint. Not a drop, just varnish so there's no hiding what she is, patina, repairs, wear and tear and all showing for everyone to see. An old war horse in all her glory, scars and all. Then find a handful of young men and teach them how to hold the old girl on her feet, when the wind gusts are over small craft advisory speeds. Many of our winter races are in heavy air and the speed demons are reefed down or refusing to race. It's hard to refuse to race, when your 50 year old competition, is out and blasting back and forth in front of the committee boat, calling the other skippers little girls . . .

You had me at hello Mik,

Actually the pics of the boat had me before that but heck, what a romantic bit of history. If only I lived a lot further South than Sydney.

I don't know who'll end up with this boat but I envy them already.

Would the ply deck have been original do you think, or has this been added at some point? I'm looking at the self bailing tubes too. Could they have been added when the deck was replaced perhaps? I haven't seen tubes on old pics of these boats.

I found this here, and lifted the text and pic in case it ever disappears, as archive pics of these boats is so very rare...
The Gray Monk: Interesting things Archives

Another little "blast from the past" to contemplate. The boat in the picture below is a "Sharpie" sail ID letter "C" and they were big, solid boats - 24 feet long, around 6 feet in the beam and carried a lot of sail for their size. The three man crew worked hard to race them and the one in the picture, named "Panga" was one of the crack boats I learned to sail in - though almost always as a pre-teen and early 'teen - in milder weather than that in the photograph. Starting off as Centre Hand your job was to manage the "sheets" that controlled the spinaker and the centreboard tackle which raised and lowered it. The Forehand was the trapeze artist who's quick movemnt of his weight while attached to the masthead by a long wire and bos'un's chair style harness kept you upright as the boat beat to windward or - as here - planed on a broad reach.
Attachment 159923
Panga and her crew lift to the plane on a broad reach in the entrance to East London Harbour with a strong South Easterly blowing straight up the harbour!
The Sharpie Class were built of 5/8ths Oak planking on oak frames forming a "hard chine" hull. The deck covered the fore and after ends completely with a long narrow cockpit along the centre line. A heavy steel centre board could be raised and lowered using a double set of pulleys to give the necessary mechanical advantage and, unlike modern hulls, the "board" had to be raised to about one quarter its full draft when on a reach. A sister of Panga, the national champion boat for five years running, named Excalibur (Sail Number C 52) once overtook a motor cruiser towing a skier. And she wasn't reaching at the time, she was lying close to the wind on a "beat" to windward!

Note to the 'elf 'n safey mobsters#- no one wore life jackets and there were features on these boats that could take your head off, slice through a finger or trap you in a capsize and yet, no one ever lost a finger, a hand, drowned or was injured in them.

PS. Added by me: This boat is aptly named. In South Africa, a panga is a broad bladed cane knife, not to be messed with!
Attachment 159925

Great info coming out on this thread - I'm certainly looking at this boat in a new light. I should be able to get back and have another look at a few things this week-end. Mik might be able to help out here - I think there may have been floor boards, or a false floor?? in these boats. She was sailed against Lightweight Sharpies and perhaps the floor was changed then? The tubes look old, but if I'm right about the floor the tubes may have been added then. I'll certainly have a real close look at the planking and make sure that the sides are planks, not ply. And I'll have a look at the deck fixing, though I'm pretty sure the ply decks are original.

Any other requests?

Take your chequebook....?

Originally Posted by woodeneye

Take your chequebook....?

What for... it is free to a good home.

Cool!

Not a Sharpie, but here's some inspiration anyway...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKRT-SMAq5s]YouTube - Star : un bateau de légende ...[/ame]