New Haven oyster tonging sharpie

New Haven sharpie

Like the dugouts (1946.643 and 1946.644) the sharpies were used for oyster tonging; however, they were a refinement responsive to changing needs and advancing technology. The tonger had to travel farther away for oysters as the beds near home became exhausted, so he needed a better Nailing boat. Scarcity of large trees and an abundance of sawmills made a built-up boat more practical than one fashioned from a single log. Inexpensive, shallow, and easy to handle, the larger sharpies rigged as cat ketches proved popular not only with the tongers of Connecticut, primarily of Fair Haven, but with the oystermen in the Chesapeake and southern Atlantic coast as well.

CREDIT LINE: Mystic Seaport Watercraft, Maynard Bray, Benjamin A. G. Fuller and Peter Vermilya. Mystic Seaport. 2001.