[Illustration: FIGURE 12.--North Carolina sharpie schooner converted to yacht, 1937.] Kunhardt mentions the extraordinary sailing speed of some sharpies, as does certain correspondence in _Forest and Stream_. A large sharpie was reported to have run 11 nautical miles in 34 minutes, and a big sharpie schooner is said to have averaged 16 knots in 3 consecutive hours of sailing. Tonging sharpies with racing rigs were said to have sailed in smooth water at speeds of 15 and 16 knots. Although such reports may be exaggerations, there is no doubt that sharpies of the New Haven type were among the fastest of American sailing fishing boats. [Illustration: FIGURE 13.--Bow of North Carolina sharpie schooner showing head rigging.] Sharpie builders in New Haven very early developed a "production" method. In the initial stages of building, the hull was upside down. First, the sides were assembled and the planking and frames secured; then the inner stem was built, and the sides nailed to it, after which the bulkhead and a few rough temporary molds were made and put in place and the boat's sides bent to the desired curve in plain view. For bending the sides a "Spanish windlass" of rope or chain was used. The chine pieces were inserted in notches in the molds inside the side planking and fastened, then the keelson was made and placed in notches in the molds and bulkhead along the centerline. Next, the upper and lower stern frames were made and secured, and the stern staved vertically. Plank extensions of the keelson were fitted, the bottom laid, and the boat turned over. Sometimes the case was made and fitted with the keelson structure, but sometimes this was not done until the deck and inboard works were finished. [Illustration: FIGURE 14.--The entrance of a North Carolina sharpie schooner and details of her sharp lines and planking. Note scarphs in plank.] The son of Lester Rowe, a noted sharpie builder at New Haven, told me, in 1925, that it was not uncommon for his father and two helpers to build a sharpie, hull and spars, in 6 working days, and that one year his father and two helpers built 31 sharpies. This was at a time after power saws and planers had come into use, and the heavy cutting and finishing of timber was done at a mill, from patterns.