East Coast Oyster Sharpie Plans

The Sharpie originated in the mid-19th century in the vicinity of New Haven, Connecticut. The design quickly gained popularity, and by the 1880s, sharpies could be found in Florida and the Great Lakes. Sharpies were working boats with hard chines, flat bottoms, shallow drafts, and a centreboard. Their ease of construction, small size, low draft, and low, straight sides made sharpies perfect for harvesting oysters in shallow, tidal waters. Sharpies varied greatly in length and rig, including Howard Chapelle’s elegant 14' Sharpie design to large boats in the 30-35' range two masts and 2-3 crew. The design is still popular as both a recreational and a working craft, with local variants found worldwide. As a result, the sharpie offers the modeler a wide range of options for detailing, paint schemes, sailing rigs, and Detailed Plans and Monograph The plans cover eleven large sheets of clean, detailed, and accurate CAD drawings. Three of the drawings are used as templates and a full-size building board template so you don’t need to cut up or copy your plan set. Plans from Mystic Seaport and The Mariners’ Museum as well as books by Howard Chapelle and others provide reference sources for this 3/4" = 1' scale model. The plans offer three options to choose from to complete your model. Additionally, the project includes a 277-page monograph richly illustrated with 441 color photographs and detailed diagrams to guide the builder. The monograph is a free download. References and other sources are clearly footnoted for the modeler, and the documentation includes a full bibliography as well. The step-by-step monograph serves as a comprehensive introduction to scratch building a small workboat in miniature. The result is a project perfect for beginning and intermediate modelers. The monograph includes special instructions for modelers with limited access to power tools. The Sharpie is also great for experienced modelers who need a break from a long-term project. Download Sharpie Monograph (Free) Designers The Generic East Coast Oyster Sharpie was designed and written for the NRG by William “Bill” Strachan with the plans done by Al Saubermann, both members of the NRG and the Connecticut Marine Model Society (CMMS). Bill Strachan is a retired Enrolled Agent and an avid miniaturist. Early in the 1980’s he was the Comptroller for an architectural firm and had the opportunity to build all their architectural models. In the 1990’s, Mr. Strachan joined the Southwest Florida Shipmodeler’s Guild. Mr. Strachan served the Guild as Bosun and Newsletter Editor. Retirement meant moving to Connecticut, and he became Secretary and Newsletter editor for the Connecticut Marine Model Society. He also served as Vice President of the CMMS until last fall. Bill and his wife Sue live in Wolcott, Connecticut. Al Saubermann is a retired physician whose career in academic medicine spanned 45 years. Dr. Saubermann has been building model ships for over 35 years, including scratch building for the last 10. He recently completed a board model of the USS Peacock (1813) built from the original plans conserved in the National Archives. Dr. Saubermann currently serves as Secretary for the Connecticut Marine Model Society. He and his wife Olga live in Deep River, Connecticut. System Requirements   The downloadable monograph is provided in the standard Adobe PDF format.  You will need the the ability to view PDFs on your computer.  Click here to learn more about viewing PDFs.