12sq metre Sharpie (Heavyweight Sharpie) for sale and Restoration in Australia.

A story about finding someone to preserve some sailing history. An International 12Square Metre Sharpie found in Australia.

Happily it has since been restored but this article has the background

This was posted on the woodwork forums overnight by Peter.  I can put him in contact with you if you are serious. The boat is in Tasmania.

UPDATE on Australian 12sq metre Sharpies

There has been a sudden growth in restored 12sq Metre Sharpies in Australia

The Original Article about Jabiru Needing a new Home prompted me to write this webpage.

I ended up writing a little article that shows the links between the arrival of the 12sq metre Sharpie and its influences on Australian Dinghy design.

Looking closely at the pics I am not sure now whether this is a 12sq metre Sharpie, which would be planked in cedar or something heading towards becoming an Australian Lightweight Sharpie by being built of plywood.

Here’s one of those unrealised dreams that needs to be realised. Jabiru 11 was last sailed some 20+ years ago (maybe more). The project was to rebuild her as a day cruiser for the Derwent. The hull was repaired where needed, new ply was bought and cut for the forward deck, and that was about it.

Jabiru 11 needs to find a new home and her owner is willing to give her away to someone with the right intentions. Original Oregon mast and boom plus an aluminium mast that was part of the intended project which included re-rigging as a Lightweight Sharpie. Rudder and centreboard etc. The owner is currently looking for the sails but says they may be “lost”. There is a rudimentary steel trailer on 4-stud rims (Cortina?) that allows it to be rolled around.

She must be at least 50 years old, built in King Billy Pine and some Huon. She all looks pretty sound to me, some minor damage on the gunwales at the bow. A lovely hull shape

I’m not the owner but have taken on the responsibility to find a home for Jabiru 11, so I won’t know all the answers to questions you might have, but ask anyway. Does anyone out there recognise the name, or have links back to Sharpie sailing in the early sixties?

This prompted me to write this article

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!

I have filched the sailing pics from the British Sharpie Association website.  I hope they forgive me!  Maybe they will because this is aimed at saving a notable boat!

Also there is a great article by South Australian Journalist Doug Hogg about the history of the 12 sq metre sharpie and its transition into the modern Australian Sharpie.

They would be a great resource for the restoration – it has the rules from the relevant era and probably much advice and many pics.

UK Sharpie Association