Beetle Cat
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The Beetle Cat is an American one-design
sailing dinghy Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats by using five essential controls: * the sails * the foils (i.e. the daggerboard or centreboard and rudder and sometimes lifting foils as found on the Moth) * the trim (forward/rear angle o ...
that was designed by John Beetle and first built in 1921. It is a smaller adaptation of traditional
Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...
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 fi ...
designs originally intended for fishing in shallow waters.Sherwood, Richard M.: ''A Field Guide to Sailboats of North America, Second Edition'', pages 18-19. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994. The basic design has been widely copied and built under many names in the US and other countries.


Production

The design was initially built by the designer's company, the Beetle Boat Co in New Bedford, Massachusetts,
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. Following the end of the
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, the owner of the company at that time was Carl N. Beetle, the son of designer John Beetle. Wanting to concentrate on newer materials for boat manufacturing, he sold the Beetle Cat design rights to the Concordia Company, a company that builds a series of traditional
yawl A yawl is a type of boat. The term has several meanings. It can apply to the rig (or sailplan), to the hull type or to the use which the vessel is put. As a rig, a yawl is a two masted, fore and aft rigged sailing vessel with the mizzen mast p ...
s. The design was later passed to Howard Boats of
Barnstable, Massachusetts The Town of Barnstable ( ) is a town in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the county seat of Barnstable County. Barnstable is the largest community, both in land area and population, on Cape Cod, and is one of thirteen Massachusetts municipalit ...
, who still provide parts and repairs for the boat, although they no longer produce new boats. The design was also built in Marans, Charente-Maritime,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
by Construction Navale Franck Roy. The current manufacturer is Beetle, Inc. of
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, which operates under the
trade name A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...
of the ''Beetle Boat Shop''. More than 4,000 examples of the design have been built.


Design

The Beetle Cat is a recreational
sailboat A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails and is smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region and maritime culture. Types Although sailboat terminolo ...
, built predominantly with
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and
cedar Cedar may refer to: Trees and plants *''Cedrus'', common English name cedar, an Old-World genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae *Cedar (plant), a list of trees and plants known as cedar Places United States * Cedar, Arizona * ...
wooden construction, although some have been built from
fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass ( Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...
, with wood trim. The deck is canvas-covered. It has a
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 shap ...
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 fi ...
sailplan with wooden spars of fir, a spooned
plumb stem The stem is the most forward part of a boat or ship's bow and is an extension of the keel itself. It is often found on wooden boats or ships, but not exclusively. Description The stem is the curved edge stretching from the keel below, up t ...
, a near-vertical transom, a shallow depth, transom-hung
rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally air or water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adve ...
controlled by a
tiller A tiller or till is a lever used to steer a vehicle. The mechanism is primarily used in watercraft, where it is attached to an outboard motor, rudder post or stock to provide leverage in the form of torque for the helmsman to turn the rudder. ...
and a retractable centerboard daggerboard. It displaces , has a wide beam for load carrying capacity. The boat has a
draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...
of with the centreboard/daggerboard extended and with it retracted, allowing operation in very shallow waters, beaching or ground transportation on a trailer. The design has no seats. In light winds it is sailed sitting on the cockpit sole and in higher winds on the
gunwale The gunwale () is the top edge of the hull of a ship or boat. Originally the structure was the "gun wale" on a sailing warship, a horizontal reinforcing band added at and above the level of a gun deck to offset the stresses created by firin ...
. The
mainsail A mainsail is a sail rigged on the main mast of a sailing vessel. * On a square rigged vessel, it is the lowest and largest sail on the main mast. * On a fore-and-aft rigged vessel, it is the sail rigged aft of the main mast. The sail's foot i ...
is sheeted to a rod-type
mainsheet traveler A traveller is a part of the rigging of a boat or ship that provides a moving attachment point for a rope, sail or yard to a fixed part of the vessel. It may take the form of anything from a simple ring on a metal bar or a spar to, especially in a ...
on the transom. The design has a
Portsmouth Yardstick The Portsmouth Yardstick (PY) or Portsmouth handicap scheme is a term used for a number of related systems of empirical handicapping used primarily in small sailboat racing. The handicap is applied to the time taken to sail any course, and the han ...
racing average handicap of 103.8. For racing it is normally sailed with a crew of two.


Operational history

Notable owners of Beetle Cats include
John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he ...
, Jacqueline Onassis, who had one shipped to Greece in 1969 for
John F. Kennedy Jr. John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. (November 25, 1960 – July 16, 1999), often referred to as John-John or JFK Jr., was an American lawyer, journalist, and magazine publisher. He was a son of the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kenn ...
and
Caroline Kennedy Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (born November 27, 1957) is an American author, attorney, and diplomat serving in the Biden administration as the United States Ambassador to Australia since 2022. She previously served in the Obama administration as th ...
to learn to sail in, Steven Spielberg and Calvin Klein. In a 1994 review Richard Sherwood wrote, "Look for the Beetle Cat on the south and east of Cape Cod, in Buzzards Bay, and in Narragansett Bay. There are also fleets on Long Island. Competition, especially for juniors, is stiff. The Beetle is an excellent, stable training boat." Reviewing the design in 2007,
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Robert Perry, wrote "Beetle Cats are true to the traditional Cape Cod catboat model. They are fat and heavy. They have no overhangs. The strange-looking rudder is designed to give you control in a very shoal-draft boat. Unfortunately, this puts the center of pressure on the rudder blade way aft which exaggerates any helm pressure. The stern is broad. The mast is in the eye of the bow." He summarized it as a "sturdy, traditional catboat with a lively personality."


See also

* List of sailing boat types


References


External links

* {{Sailing dinghies and skiffs Dinghies 1920s sailboat type designs Sailboat type designs by John Beetle Sailboat types built by Beetle Boat Co Sailboat types built by Concordia Company Sailboat types built by Howard Boats Sailboat types built by Construction Navale Franck Roy Sailboat types built by Beetle, Inc. Catboats