 No working bugeyes appear to have been built after 1918, but bugeyes continued to be employed in oystering and freighting until the middle of the Twentieth Century, albeit in ever-decreasing numbers.3

The origin of the name is obscure.Like the earlier brogan, the typical bugeye, designed by William Reeves who was originally from Nova Scotia, was two-masted, with triangular “leg-of-mutton” mainsail, foresail and jib.By modern standards, this rig would be described as a ketch rig, but it appears that watermen of the time referred to it as simply a leg-of-mutton or a bugeye rig.