Book excerpt: The Sharpie Book traces the development of the sharpie from its earliest days to the latest plywood-and-epoxy designs; gives comprehensive instructions that can be used to build sharpies of all types and sizes; and includes more than a dozen designs and plans for sharpies from 15 to 40 feet from the likes of Chapelle, Kunhardt, Munroe, Boiger, Clapham, Kirby, and the author. A sharpie is a long, narrow, flat-bottom craft that evolved in the 19th century along the Connecticut shore as an oyster fisherman's boat. An 1880 report by the U.S. Census Bureau characterized the sharpie as "so good a fishing boat and so fast a yacht that it has been adopted in a great many other localities throughout the United States." To this add three more superlatives--easy, cheap, and fast to build--and you have the keys to the sharpie's almost cultlike popularity among backyard boatbuilders.