OzOne wrote:
Interesting isn't it that all the collegiate stuff is sailed in what
are basically dogs :-)

If you go to that page above and look at the classes you'll see a few
rockets like the Sharpie...nothing like your sharpies :-)

Seen em. I think they started out similar to Lightnings only evolved for


They actually came from EU and were developed here.
They dumped the gaff rig in favor of a full stick and then were
further refined
Pics here
http://www.sharpie.org.uk/pics/photo...hotos2004.html

http://www.sharpie.org.uk/pics/photo...es/Image3.html



Sometimes I wonder what classes in the U.S. would be like if sandbagger
racing had stayed popular... they were similar to the boats the
18-footers grew out of.

Don't know of these.
I assume they were a skiff type hull?


They had a wide variety of hull shapes. They evolved from different
types of work boats, ranging from catboats to sharpies to lighters. But
I think that the demands of carrying an extreme rig & lots of ballast
produced a sort of convergent evolution. By the late 1890s they were
roughly similar skimming dish types.

http://www.phillyseaport.org/workshop/bull&bear.html

http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listi...oat_id=1054450

The usual excuse as to why sandbagger racing died out in the U.S. is
that there was a big temperance (anti-drinking) movement culminating in
Prohibition which also stamped out gambling. Not sure I believe this,
the boats must have been expensive & cantankerous... but a lot of fun!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King