Sharpie 600

Plans, Sharpie 600 - 230 EUR Purchase

images | information | lines | particulars | history

Sharpie 600 is designed as a daysailor and weekender, a use most boats are put to,

regardless of their design purpose.

The design brief for Sharpie 600 goes like this.

1. Daysailor for many: Roomy cockpit (< 200 cm)

Comfortable under sail and in harbour.

Everything within reach without passengers

beeing in the way. No boom above the cockpit

(the lug rig). Flexing masts reduce heeling in a

gust (also the lug).

2. Weekender/Cruiser for two: Comfortable for

one, acceptable for two. Provisions for basic

cooking. Place for a portable toilet. Usable in

bad weather. Some kind of heating for use in

early spring or late fall.

3. Fast: Fast enough to cover considerable distances in a day. Lots of sail

(SA/d=21) for ghosting along in a breeze without having to succumb to an O.B.

or oars.

4. Safe: Selfrighting in a knockdown. The lug rig reefs without offsetting the

balance. Ability to tack free from a lee shore in a blow. If possible unsinkable.

5. Small and handy: Short, narrow and light (d/l=159) - easily handled on and off

a trailer. Small harbour fees - if there is such a thing. Draft not more than 25 cm.

You can sail in and dry out upright on the beach. The rudder and centerboard

lifts without damage if you hit bottom.

6. Pretty: Pretty in a traditional way, under sail and

on the beach. To maneuver camly and smartly

under sail, motor or oars.

7. Low maintenance: Modern wood. epoxy/glass

sheated plywood. No permanent installations. OB,

preferrebly in a well. Unstayed mast/masts (the lug

rig). Easy trailering.

8. Easy to handle: All conceiveble maneuvering on

land or in water should be possible to tackle

singelhandedly albeit with practice and

competence. With the gaff rig you can quickly lower the mast for going under a

bridge.

9. Easy to build: Designed for amateur construction, the Sharpie is built on 7

transversal and 2 longitudinal bulkheads, preassembled like a large jig-saw

puzzle. On this are glued bottom-, planking- and deck boards in epoxy/glass

sheated plywood.

Sharpie 600 took a third price in Classic Boat´s design competition in 1996

Images

Particulars

Length 600 cm

Beam 206 cm

Draft 22/122 cm

Weight 600 kg

Sail area 21 m2

Layout 2 berths, pentry with sink/stove, portable toilet, stowage

Headroom 128 cm

Engine 6-12 HP

Intended use Day trips 1-6 persons. Touring 1-2 persons.

Plans

The plan set consists of six sheets (A1) with the information needed to build the boat –

at least for those with some experience: fx from building a kayak. Others may need a

book on boat building for support:

1. Lines

2. Construction

3. Sections with offest measurements

4. Profile

5. Layout

6. Rigging, masts and sails

The boat is built with plywood – a simple and quick way to achieve strength and finish

– double 12 mm sheets on the bottom, 12 mm on the sides and 9 mm on the deck and

house. Wood strip is an alternative – though more time comsuming.

The plywood sections and longitudinal bulkheads fits together like a large puzzle,

creating a super stable 3D grid, joined by epoxy fillings. The ballast is lead sheets

glued/screwed on the floor – can be used lead weights for car tyres, molten on a

charcoal fire and poured on a chipboard sheet with wood strips to get the correct shape.

The image above show the lug version.

No manual is included. For more information get one of the books on boat building

listed in litterature.

Plans, Sharpie 600 - 230 EUR Purchase

More on Sharpie 600

I frequently get questions about the off-center board, positioned 30 cm to the right of

the centerline. It means that the centerboard trunk that usually tranforms the cabin of

shallow-draft cruisers into to two narrow and not very usable spaces is now out of the

way, hidden behind the longitudinal bulkhead. The Sharpie is surpricingly roomy.

"But won´t she sail better on one tack?" In practice you must be a very good sailor to be

able to notice any difference. In the good old days the centerboard was often placed

through the planking besides the keel, at least in those with workboat ancestry –

boatbuilders did not like to cut a hole in the backbone. Thus my Sharpie follows good

old tradition, albeit the offset is slighly more than was the custom.

The suggested interior layout is simple and easily maintained, without any installations:

a portable toilet can be stored under the cockpit seat or under a hinged seat, the water

system is two 25 ltr jerrycans under the lifting galley countertop – one for fresh water

and one to collect the waste water – easy to lift out and fill/empty. An alternate solution

is to have two cans for fresh water and dump the waste though the centerboard trunk. A

removable portion of the transom can be a perfect place for an OB – or a little more

elaborate: a motor well in the aft left corner of the cockpit. Lighting can be led lamps

with dry cells, or led lamps run on a house battery under the cockpit (in that case a four-

stroke OB with generator would be best suited)

The photos below (from Audun Bull in Norway and his S/Y Kuling) show the

surpricing space that can be achieved in a tiny pocket cruiser, when the centerboard is

hidden behind the pantry counter.

Sharpie 600 – background and history

Sharpie 600 started as a private project - an idea for a very simple, hassle-free,

inexpensive and convenient way to spend time at sea. When the drawing was nearing

completion English magazine Classic Boat launched a design competition with almost

the same specifications as those I had set for myself.

Sharpie 600 was elected runner up in Classic Boats design contest 1996

The plans were submitted and were honored with a third, in spite of a partly un-brittish

appearence – a centerboard and a mizzen placed off-center is hard to take for English

traditionalists and was thus commented by one of the judges:

"Björn Thomasson's flat-bottomed 'weekender-for-two' appealed to me for its charming

simplicity. At a personal level, I am not entirely comfortable with the assymetry of the

off-center board and mizzen. Hang the rudder in a slot to allow for a central mizzen and

centre the board and this little lug-rigged cat yawl complete with two-berth cabin, head

and galley, would be just right fo a drying mooring. The high aspect ratio lug rig,

certainly suits the little booat. Allowing for my personal prejudices, I gave it a third

place".

So let´s see; if I hade put the centerbord in the middle (compromising the liveable room

in the cabin) and centered the mizzen mast (complicating the construction with a non-

lifting rudder in a slot, or a link system between the rudder and tiller) I might even have

won! They are tricky, those Englishmen ;-)

But by then I had discovered that kayaks were an even more efficient way of spending

time at sea, so the prototype was built by Wermlandia Båtproduktion, and exhibited at

the Stockholm Boat Fair, where she attracted a lot of interest from sailors, journalists

and boatbuilders.

Some twenty plans have been shipped (winter 2011) but I am still waiting to start

building my own – there has been many kayaks in between.