 Brogans typically used the same sail plan as the log canoes of the Tilghman Island region, a leg-of-mutton (i.e., triangular) foresail, mainsail and jib, with the foremast taller than the main.Both masts raked rather sharply aft, with the mainmast raked significantly more sharply than the foremast.1

Brogans were still too small to effectively haul dredges, and continued to be enlarged and improved.By the early 1880s, or possibly even earlier, the first bugeyes were being built.2 Over the next twenty years, the bugeye became the dominant type of vessel employed in oystering, but by 1893 construction of new bugeyes began to decline with the introduction of the skipjack, which was less expensive to build, operate and maintain yet was very well suited to dredging for oysters.