A
tribute to a memory of a bygone era,
yet many still live and sail that memory.
Below the sleepy town of South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, on the flat waters the flat cat boats lie at their moorings much as they have done for nearly two centuries, when they awaited their crew of a man and a boy to nudge them out into the mist toward Buzzards Bay, and Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, in search of mackerel and cod, and bluefish, and swordfish, or scallops to be dredged up from the bottom of soft sand.
They were silent, tough and self-sufficient men, and they had to be to take what these waters dished out year round, and they worked their gear and boats with the care that they demanded, for care was what kept them alive on the cold seas.
The
cat boats were built by men who eyed the curves and felt the lines, and
whittled half hulls out of chunks of pine.
They are a heritage in New England, an embodiment of the past when the simple things of work blended with the simple joys of leisure; so the cat boats lived on, beloved and cherished and respected by all who sailed.
Most of them were tough and stable boats with a beam that was usually
half their length, and with
ample sail and a boom so long that it trailed somewhere behind you like
the tail of a kite, they virtually skimmed over the bays, most of them
drawing less than two feet with their boards up.
And with the boards up they had access to river mouths and quiet bays,
grounds unattainable for
longer-legged keel boats.
With their breadth they had tremendous volume for their length, both below and topsides, where four could sit comfortably side-by-side on the high side of a tacking 18 foot cat — so they carried great payloads, then later great playloads, and were a joy to all who sailed them.
Back Yard Yacht Builders
A non-commercial association of amateur boat-builder enthusiasts.
All our wooden boats are Stevenson designs.