Built here at the WoodenBoat School, our Joel White & N.G. Herreshoff designed Catspaw Dinghy is an all-purpose boat that’s easy to row and sail. The Catspaw Dinghy is a popular boatbuilding project for amateur builders; it represents classic, small-craft construction.
Joel White’s Catspaw Dinghy is an adaptation of Nathanael Herreshoff’s Columbia Dinghy.
JESSE performs best under fairly sizable oars — 7½′ or better—and has two rowing stations.
The Catspaw Dinghy is an easy boat to trailer or haul on the back of a pickup truck.
Plans for Joel White & N.G. Herreshoff’s Catspaw Dinghy are available from The WoodenBoat Store.
YANKEE DAHLIN’ began life as one of my class boats in Fundamentals at the School. I brought her home, completed construction and finished her out. She is just as Rich describes the Catspaw in the video – easily transported/launched/recovered, and fun either under sail and rowed. I use a pair of 8′ Shaw & Tenney oars, and they have the spring and leverage to get/keep her moving nicely.
I’ve designed and built a boom for use as needed, primarily in very light wind where slow speed coming up to and through a turn requires a little help in getting/keeping the sail over onto the desired tack. I would like to see what Rich describes in shortening sail – the one feature of the design I wish had more flexibility. There are no reefs in my sail as designed and the only way I have found to effectively slow down as breeze increases is either to loosen the sprit and let is sag a bit and/or simply to let out the main sheet, sailing farther off the wind; I am sure this reveals my incompetence rather than a design flaw, but if there’s a trick I haven’t discovered, I’d love to be taught it
Beautiful boat. Here’s a little more information on COLUMBIA’s tender, built in 1899, now resting at the Herreshoff Museum in Bristol, RI.
http://smallboatrestoration.blogspot.com/2022/01/columbias-tender.html
I built her lapstrake…much prettier…and with a traditional boom triangle sail. see “Peter’s catboat” Great boat, now 14 years old.
Peter
I built her, PEGATHA, with mahogany strip planking and layers of glass inside and out. Very good looking and very strong. I’m in the mountain small lakes so having a boat this size makes sense. She rows well with the longer oars and is a blast with two oarsman and a tiller.
She sails pretty well but could point better. The suggested main sheet arrangement is totally inadequate. It took me a while to figure out a center point attachment above the rudder on a rope track but that allows me to have a multi-purchase sheet and good tacking angles. I also installed sail track and halyards. Much easier and faster to set up and allows for reefing.
To reef you use reef points in the sail as usual, lower the reef point down the sail track, and hook the main sheet block into a grommet even with the reef points. I attach my main sheet block with a snap hook for this reason.
She always turns eyes on the road or in dock. I finished her bright so the mahogany really stands out. All the rest of the woodwork is red oak. BTW, you can sail this boat off a beach into small surf.