Australian Sharpie
Description
The class evolved from the 12-square-metre Sharpie, which was an Olympic dinghy class at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics (the "Heavyweight" version). Post-Olympics, Australian designers and builders modernized it into the Lightweight Sharpie starting around 1960. This version became a national one-design class, emphasizing lightweight construction, planing performance, and affordability. It's remained popular for club racing, state/national championships, and grassroots sailing, with fleets in places like Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, and beyond. The Australian Sharpie Sailing Association (sharpies.com.au) governs the class today.
Construction Details
| Designer | Karl and Hans Kroger |
|---|---|
| Builder | Home Built |
| Length | 20.000 ft |
| LOA | 20.000 ft |
| Beam | 4.667 ft |
| Notes | The Kroger brothers designed the 12 Square Metre, Kevin Wilson in 1976 defined the "Lightweight" version drawings -- these are the sanctioned class drawings. |
The standard boat dimensions
| i | 4.89 ft |
|---|---|
| j | 1.32 ft |
| p | 6.40 ft |
| e | 2.85 ft |
| p2 | - |
| e2 | - |
| i2 | - |
| j2 | - |
| I | J | P | E | P2 | E2 | I2 | J2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.89 ft | 1.32 ft | 6.40 ft | 2.85 ft | - | - | - | - |
Sails
Australian Sharpie - MAINSAIL
| Luff | * 6.4 ft - (1951 mm) |
|---|---|
| Foot | * 2.84 ft - (866 mm) |
| Leech | * 6.75 ft - (2057 mm) |
| Tack Angle | * 88 ° |
| Diagonal | * 6.91 ft - (2106 mm) |
| Head (inches) | * 3.5 in - (89 mm) |
| Area | * 9.91 ft² |
| Edit in Calculator | |
Disclaimer. Boats are not all the same -- even when produced in the same factory of the same model. Sailrite does its best to publish accurate dimensions, but we often find it worthwhile to have our customers measure their boats carefully before we produce kits for them. You should take the same precautions, especially when the data is not from Sailrite. The information on this site is not guaranteed to be accurate. Sailrite offers this content as a service to our community, but takes no responsibility for the reliability of the data provided.