Jean Alden uses the traditional catboat configuration to achieve the objectives of a weatherly pocket cruiser that maximize my available shop space while still fitting on a trailer. Mostly I built “by eye” with little attempt to follow a plan other than to steal some hull sections from Phil Bolger’s twelve foot Bobcat. My shop is large enough for a fourteen foot hull, so I scaled up Bolger’s design by two feet. I also wanted a traditional tumble home bow and a small cabin. This required changes to the forward hull sections and a different deck layout.
Construction is basic stitch-and-glue using mostly 9mm Okoume plywood. The deck and coach top are straight grained Douglas Fir laminated over 6mm plywood. The cabin sides and coaming are ¾ inch tongue and grove staves capped by an Iroko rail. All three spars are hollow, assembled using birds-mouth joints, and stuffed with aluminum foil to reflect Radar. The sail plan is adapted from the Breck Marshall – a Crosby catboat in the Mystic Seaport collection. I made the original sail one Christmas vacation using a conference room at my job for a sail loft. For luck I put 150 pounds of lead in the bilge.
The three-year project ended with her launching in 2000. The result is a sweet sailing pocket cruiser that has brought our family much joy and satisfaction.