A boat or yacht that is Cat-rigged has a single mast, stepped well forward, carrying a single

fore and aft sail A fore-and-aft rig is a sailing vessel rigged mainly with sails set along the line of the keel, rather than perpendicular to it as on a square rigged vessel. Description Fore-and-aft rigged sails include staysails, Bermuda rigged sails, ga ...

, behind the mast. A boat that is cat-rigged can also be described as having a Una rig. Laser dinghies are cat-rigged, as are Finn dinghies, Optimists, many

Freedom Yachts Freedom Yachts was the maker of the Freedom (sail) and Legacy (power) yacht brands. The Freedom sailboats have unstayed rigs, meaning that the mast is freestanding and not supported by the normal set of wires called standing rigging. Garry Ho ...

and many traditional fishing vessels. Also cat-rigged are

catboat A catboat (alternate spelling: cat boat) is a sailboat with a single sail on a single mast set well forward in the bow of a very beamy and (usually) shallow draft hull. Typically they are gaff rigged, though Bermuda rig is also used. Most are f ...

s,Encyclopædia Britannica, 1959, Volume 5, p. 24 a traditional style of wide-beamed, shallow-draft boat, typically

gaff-rigged Gaff rig is a sailing rig (configuration of sails, mast and stays) in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar (pole) called the ''gaff''. Because of the size and shape ...

with a

centreboard A centreboard or centerboard (US) is a retractable hull appendage which pivots out of a slot in the hull of a sailboat, known as a ''centreboard trunk'' (UK) or ''centerboard case'' (US). The retractability allows the centreboard to be raised t ...

. Formerly common on the East Coast of the United States they are more commonly seen as dinghy-sized open daysailers and class racers. The terms cat-rigged, and catboat, should not be confused with

catamarans A Formula 16 beachable catamaran Powered catamaran passenger ferry at Salem, Massachusetts, United States A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a multi-hulled watercraft featuring two parallel hulls of equal size. It is a geometry-stab ...

. Catamarans are not related to the term cat-rigged, though catamarans can be cat-rigged, if they have a single sail and no jib. The term 'cat' may come from the 'cat head', a protruding cross beam, not far behind the bow, or head, of a sailing ship, to which the anchor was attached when the vessel was preparing for sea. The mast of a cat-rigged boat is stepped near the point where the 'cat head' would be.

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