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Scuttlebutt: "New" Catboat Launched
Photos and information by Emily L. Ferguson
Fallon enjoying the day |
(April 26, 2006) The New England area enjoyed a very traditional launch this month of a newly built catboat, just the type of boat you figured to find in these parts. The boat's name is Kathleen, and she has been being built in Wareham, MA, at the Beetle, Inc. shop by Bill Sauerbrey, a master builder trained at IYRS and Mystic, for the last year and a half. Her owner is Tim Fallon, an engineer in Boston who is currently captain of the World Champion Team Racers - Team WHishbone, as well as regularly winner of both men's and overall championships of the New England Beetle Cat Boat Association. Here Tim provides some details into his 'new' boat:
“KATHLEEN is a 28-foot 1917 design from C.C. Hanley, builder/designer of some very famous and very fast catboats such as HARBINGER, ALMIRA, MUCILAGE and IRIS. He was a builder in Monument Beach at the head of Buzzards Bay and later in Quincy, MA. This design was drawn at the tail end of his career; most of his boats were built pre-1900. Actually, this boat was more or less designed pre-1900 since Hanley was a 'rule-of-thumb' designer and never drew any plans for his boats, but rather carved a half model. It was said that he used the same basic half model for all of his catboats.
Builder Bill Sauerbrey |
“The plans for this boat were drawn up for Hanley for a customer in South Africa that wanted to build her, though I don't think she was ever built. I found some of the plans (minus the table of offsets) in a 1919 Rudder magazine article and knew right away she was the boat I wanted. She was drawn with a tiller, which is rare for large catboats because they tend to have excessive weather helm. For Hanley to design a big cat with a tiller testifies to the fact that he could design and build big catboats that were actually well balanced. I'm very anxious to see if that is true when we get my boat sailing sometime this June.
“A catboat of this kind has not been built in 80+ years so it'll be a big event for catboaters and traditional boaters to see her actually sailing. I'll be living aboard (hence the reason for such a large catboat) and cruising her around the cape and islands this summer.” - Tim Fallon
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