Sailing Skiff Vs Sharpie ~ What's the difference?

I've been looking at boats less than 20ft that are good to sail and easy to build and I have seen plenty of plans for Skiffs, Sharpies and Skiff Sharpies!
My question is ~ What's the difference?
Is it just geographical? I see boats call Sharpies mainly originate as oyster fishers in the US, while similar boats in the UK and Australia are called Skiffs.
The Sharpies have twin self-spilling flexible masts, yes but only on the larger 20ft and above.
Sharpies have rudders through the stern. Not really no, Sharpies these days have rudders that hang outside, through the stern rudders suffered directional stability down wind.

Am I missing something?

 

Hi Mark, skiffs often have frames on the sides to sit out on, or stand on, on trapeze, and now some can have foils. They can have 2 crew, rarely more, and go like a rocket but can spend some time capsized as they have huge sails, and you need good reaction time in gusts. Sharpies have a long history, and many yachts are called sharpies, eg. older heavy weight sharpies, Australian light weight sharpie a modification of an old European potential olympic sharpie, and there are many other named sharpies in America and Europe. Sharpies are usually heavier than a similar length skiff, can have 3 or more crew, with two on trapeze, and don't tip over quite so easily; some hulls have been made into trailer sailers with cabins, eg. the Usual. Both skiff and sharpie are very competitive in their class. Sharpies are more congenial to a sedate family excursion without a dunking than a skiff. That's my take on it anyway; others may have greater experience in both and can elaborate further.

 

Sharpies of the American type were flat bottomed boats. They were used in numerous types of fishing trades. They ranged in size from about 16 feet up to 30 feet. They were built in a simple economical fashion in their day. Many of the old time sharpies were rather narrow compared to their length. They had all sorts of sail rigs with one or two masts. Most of them had huge centerboards that were sometimes used for purposes other than mitigating lee way when under sail. There was no fixed design criteria. Many of them were built on the beach of the body of water where the fisherman or oysterman would be working.

The word Skiff is a generic term that is used to describe a whole lot of boat types. Mainly it is a term used to describe a small boat used for sailing, fishing, racing, or whatever other use it might be assigned. There is no clear definition or assignment of the word Skiff. It can be a simple flat bottomed boat, or a vee bottomed boat or even a tunnel hulled boat that the builder, user, chooses to call a "Skiff". Some countries narrow the term skiff down to include only a particular kind of boat. Almost everywhere a Skiff is a relatively small boat, usually up to perhaps 20 feet..... plus or minus.

I don't think that we could accurately describe the exact configuration of a given type of either the Sharpie or the Skiff.

 

Detailed analysis of a famous Sharpie design, HogFish Maximus

 

A skiff is generally a small, light boat with no ballast that is easily beached. It can be powered by oars, sail, or engine, or some combination of two or all three.
A sharpie, on the other hand, is a rather specific hull type that has a flat bottom of a rather specific profile, relatively low sides, and is somewhat narrow, typically with a Beam/Length ratio of 0.20 to 0.33. Not all sharpies are skiffs. And not all sharpies follow all of these design criteria. But they all follow these design criteria enough to be clearly distinguished from other types. Larger sharpies, even working ones from the age of sail, almost always carried ballast.

The most telling feature of a sharpie is its bottom profile. Its stem is typically above the waterline. Its bottom then slopes gently down in nearly a straight line, then curves near its deepest section. From there on, it curves upward in a more pronounced curve back up to the waterline. Working sharpies had this curve end substantially above the waterline. This was so they could carry a considerable load without immersing the stem. This bottom profile was said to make the smaller ones easy to row.