Sylvester and Catspaw

These are two little cats that I built in the early 80's. Catspaw was my own boat for several years and Sylvester was built for a client. Her second owner was Will Millar, lead singer of the Irish Rovers, who wrote about her in his book "Messing About in Boats" and which I last saw at the heritage docks of the Vancouver Maritime Museum about six or seven years ago.

These little vessels are 19'6" long and are flat bottomed "dory" type hulls, the smallest editions of designer Jay Benford's Sailing Dory series. They can be quite cheap and easy to build or as can be seen in Sylvester they can be dolled up a fair bit.

One photo shows the "catboat kit" as I call it, the assembled materials for Catspaw two months before her launch. The rest are "after" shots.

I should say for the uninitiated that all this feline nomenclature relates to the vessel type "catboat" which is a sailing vessel with one mast all the way up in the bow and only one big sail. (Not to be confused with "catamaran" which has two hulls)

I am posting this as an intro to the next "Shipyard Memories" which will illustrate this conventional plywood style of construction.

Thanks for looking.

Comments, critiques… All welcome.

2022 Edit: These two were built I the early 1980’s. I sailed Catspaw for several years and now in my old age I have a bigger somewhat more comfortable catboat. The last picture is Sandpiper, my current boat. She’s a 1984 Nonsuch 30U.
Paul