The Garsharp-14

In 1975–76, Felix Garlasco and his two sons, Mark and John, built a 16′ boat from plans published in the Sports Afield Boatbuilding Annual of 1965. The design was called “Scaup” and was said to have been based on a Maine Lobsterman type but modified for duck hunting. The Sports Afield editors described it as “A wildfowler’s dream come true.” At the time of the build, Mark was studying at the University of Connecticut and boatbuilding was restricted to the long summer vacations. Felix had built his first boat in the early 1950s, and now, as he introduced his two sons to the art of woodworking, they used many of the classic hand tools he had used on that earlier project.

Photographs courtesy of the Garlasco family

In the 1950s, Felix Garlasco built his first boat, the 19’ sloop seen here with Felix standing on the cabin top.

Almost 35 years later, in 2009, Mark chatted with his father one evening, fondly recalling the project of his youth and musing about building another wooden boat. He was now also a father, and his children were much the same age that he and John had been when they built the Scaup. But he also had a management role in a growing company that required long hours and a good deal of travel. Felix reminded him just how much work was involved in building a boat. Even so, Mark was enthusiastic and suggested that, while his availability would clearly dictate the pace of the build, if they built the boat in his garage, the inconvenience of its presence would provide the motivation he needed to complete it. He wanted, he said, to share with his own children the satisfaction and skills he had gained at their age.

Over the winter of 2009, Felix, a retired manufacturing and design engineer, designed the Garsharp-14 and produced a 100-page binder of lines and detailed construction drawings.

The Design

As soon as Mark had committed to the project, Felix went to work. A retired manufacturing and design engineer for Grumman—now Northrop Grumman—he looked around for a suitable boat design. He settled on a sharpie, deciding that it would be relatively straightforward to build and would perform well with just a simple spritsail. The fact that the type was also native to the Garlascos’ home state of Connecticut didn’t hurt. After studying the plans of many possible sharpies, Felix eventually developed his own modified version that would be slightly wider than a traditional sharpie to provide more comfortable seating and more stability.

After struggling to dry-fit mahogany chine logs and sheer clamps, the Garlascos switched to steamed white oak. They built an 8’-long steambox with a hinged lid for easy loading and a plugged end through which the steamed wood could be quickly extricated without lowering the internal temperature of the steambox.

He worked on the design over the winter of 2009 and in the spring presented Mark with a complete set of hand-drawn plans—100 pages that included detailed drawings of all the parts, frames, joint details, wood types and dimensional requirements, and a comprehensive materials list including wood and hardware. The level of detail, said Mark, was much more than is “typically found in commercially available boatbuilding plans, but it was nothing short of necessary in the mind of an aerospace manufacturing engineer used to government and military programs.” Felix called his design the Garsharp-14. It was 14′ overall—long enough to suit the family’s needs, but short enough to be built in the garage—with a beam of 4′ 4 3⁄4″ and a draft of 9″. The mast was 13′ long so that, together with the sprit and loose-footed sail, it could be laid down in the boat for trailering.

The plywood sides were cut and clamped into place with adhesive caulking applied, then screwed to the oak chine logs. More than 30 years after building the Scaup, the Garlasco brothers—John (in the foreground) and Mark—were back together building another boat.

Mark, Felix, and Mark’s then-20-year-old son John Paul started work that year. It was, says Mark, slow going, but “we tried to get together most Sunday afternoons and on any other spare days.”

Building the Garsharp-14

They built the hull upside down, using marine-grade okoume plywood—3⁄8″ for the sides and 1⁄2″ for the bottom—on an oak centerline structure and mahogany frames. They eschewed the use of epoxies but instead fastened everything with stainless-steel screws and bolts (except for galvanized rod to fasten the skeg), and used Sikaflex adhesive between the plywood panels and the frames, sheer clamps, and chine logs. The stem was two pieces of white oak laminated with resorcinol, and the centerboard trunk was bedded to the keel with canvas smeared with compound on both sides, which, said Mark, “helped to fill in the slight voids between the hand-shaped curved surfaces of the centerboard-trunk logs and the keel.”

Felix Garlasco looks on as his grandson John Paul uses a ratchet brace to drive a screw through the plywood side and into the frame.

For the most part, the build went smoothly. But when it came to fitting the chine logs and sheer clamps the Garlascos ran into an unforeseen issue. They had opted to use 2″ × 1″ mahogany for all four parts. But as they tried to bend the pieces into the bow the mahogany cracked. “Even after we soaked the parts in the swimming pool for multiple days,” said Mark, “they still cracked.” They revised the jig and added 3″ to the boat’s length to ease the tight bend. Still the mahogany split. “We couldn’t add any more length,” explained Mark, “because of the limited shop space.” Instead, they researched the process of steaming wood. “We determined that white oak was one of the more pliable woods if steamed, and it’s more water-resistant than red oak.” They went back to the lumber yard and bought some suitable 2″ × 1″ white oak.

“Then we built a steambox, 8″ × 8″ and 8′ long,” said Mark. “The top hinged open so we could easily place the oak inside two at a time. The door closed with spring-loaded latches to keep it well sealed. Inside the box, we set a ‘piccolo tube’—a length of copper pipe drilled with holes to equally distribute the steam—which we connected to a hose. The other end of the hose was connected to a repurposed 5-gallon oil can filled with water and heated on a propane burner. We steamed the parts for an hour and then a team of four gloved friends pulled them out through one end of the box, which we’d left open save for a wood plug and rag seal, and ran them over to the boat where we clamped them in place until they cooled off. Problem solved.”

Felix’s great-grandson Nicolas, the youngest member of the building team, was given the honor of fastening the breasthook, the last part of the construction.

Mark estimates that they put about 2,000 man-hours into the build. The main building team were Mark, Felix, and John Paul, but they were joined on occasion by Mark’s wife, Kathy, their daughter Gina, and Mark’s brother John when he was in town. Toward the end of the project another family member pitched in: “We had started building in 2009, but we didn’t finish until 2020,” Mark said. “By then John Paul had become a father himself, and my grandson, Nicolas, then aged seven, was also helping out. We gave him the honor of fastening the very last piece of construction—the breasthook.”

Painted, varnished, and ready to go. The two maststeps were designed to provide a choice of mast position depending on wind conditions and load. The centerboard trunk is bolted through the 1 1⁄8″ × 4 1⁄2″ white-oak logs, the keelson, and keel with 1⁄4″ × 7″ galvanized bolts. The trunk and logs were shaped to follow the slight curve of the boat’s bottom, and the logs were sealed with canvas gaskets and bedding compound to keep everything watertight.

Launching the Garsharp-14

Construction complete, the boat was finished with Interlux polyurethane primer and paint, the spars and sail were built, and she was launched in July 2020. “We christened her TRADITION, which seemed an appropriate name,” said Mark. “From the day we put her in the water, she’s never taken on a drop of water, even when moored overnight—we’re quite proud of that.”

Nicolas prepares TRADITION for her first sail. From the day of her launching, the boat has never leaked, an achievement that the Garlasco family builders are justifiably proud of.

The Garlasco family have now sailed the sharpie for three summers and, said Mark, “we continue to learn how to sail her, going out on increasingly gusty days. The spritsail arrangement is extremely easy to set up and take down, and has the minimum of lines to manage. It’s great for a novice like me.”

Some 70 years after launching his first boat, Felix Garlasco stands on the dock with TRADITION, the boat he designed for and built with the next three generations of his family.

One day, late in 2024, Mark was with John Paul. “Out of the blue, he asked me, ‘What do you think about building another boat?’ I was surprised,” said Mark, “But I’m seriously considering it.” And why not? After all, boatbuilding is now a Garlasco family tradition.

Jenny Bennett is editor of Small Boats.

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