All boats have limitations and are going to be a compromise to some extent, it’s just part of the gig… Why should sharpies be an exception?
Sharpies have two big advantages: they’re inexpensive/fast to build and they are very shoal draft. I’m not sure about you but I find those pretty frelling big advantages. In point of fact, those are such big advantages that I’m pretty willing to live with or work around any limitations or foibles that come with the whole sharpie thing…
Why not? Everyone else does! For instance, while deep draft does not make a boat more seaworthy (one of the great sailboat misconceptions) it does, if done right, make you go to windward a whole lot better. So, why don’t all boats draw nine feet? The obvious answer is that drawing nine feet is problematic in a lot of places and most designer/builders/buyers of boats are happy to compromise a little windward ability to be able to cruise in places like the Bahamas. See, compromise makes sense…
Well, most of the time. The thing is with sharpies a little compromise is OK but it all falls apart if you try to make a sharpie something it is not. Add beam and the boat does not perform like it should, add complexity and it quits being simple so becomes slow to build and expensive… The list goes on but in most cases where sharpies are concerned, change stuff and you’ll find yourself in a one step forward two steps back Mobius loop that spirals out of control.
The way to make the whole sharpie thing work for you (rather than against) is that you roll with the flow of sharpie strengths rather than deal with supposed negatives. A good example is, since it is extremely difficult to get a reasonable accommodation within a 30-foot sharpie envelope you capitalize on the fact that sharpies are cheap to build so you can build it bigger and still save money in the process.
George Buehler, a very smart builder/designer of boats and author of the seminal “Buehler’s Backyard Boatbuilding”, who for the record is not a fan of sharpies at all, does make a strong case for building big inexpensive boats instead of little expensive ones and, in my rather opinionated opinion, he is right on the money (well, except for the part where he’s all wrong on the shoal draft ting).
The truth is, that by building what passes for a 30-foot interior into a 40+-foot hull you find yourself with a much more livable and practical cruising boat…
We’ll show you how that works manana.