Spring! I Lightly Turn To Thoughts of Launch

Ah, March is here.  "Ninas" has spent the winter wrapped tightly in a cacoon of tarps, resting on her trailer in my driveway.

"Nincas" is my 16 ft. Marshall catboat which I purchased 4 years ago as an antidote to no boat-itus.  This concition occurs when a life long sailer decides that boats are too much of a bother and foolishly desposes of one of the few things that he truyly enjoys - sailing a small boat on Narragansett Bay.

I found her in S. Dartmouth MA sitting in the Marshall Caboat yard; the victim of a divorce and subsequent dispbursement of property.  She's an older boat, built in 1976 but her hull and rigging are sound and the Oak trim is in modestly decent shape.

I've sailed her for the past four summers and despite my problems with low vision (I am legally blind) I single hand Ninas with relativel ease.  Just writing this gets me excited about the prospect.

I'm anxious to start preparing for launch day but March may be a bit too soon to start scraping and saning.  But the weather turns fairer every day and launch day is just around the corner.

Why A Catboat

First of all catboats by their nature are simple.  That is they have hardly any standing rigging i.e. wires and supports for the mast and secondly, they have only one sail.  Granted its a big sail, stretching from the bow  to a little past the stern.  More about that later.  The catboat's single sail makes it easy to tack and its moveable centerboard means it can sail in shallow water.  It can even be beached!

My catboat is typical of the design.  Its width is about half of its length or in the case of "Ninas". 15 1/2 Ft. X 7+ Ft. Mast palced well forward, centerboard keel and big "barn door" rudder.  Sail is gaff rigged so there is a spar attached to the top of the sail as well as the boom along the bottom of the sail. 

Sailing a catboat can be heaven or it can be hell.  But mostly it's heaven.  I often think of the biblical fishermen when sailing my catboat.  Afterall it was the basic workboat for east coast firshermen more than a hundred years.  The not so great parts of catboat sailing have mostly to do with too much wind.  Most sailing craft have to deal with gusty winds but a catboat has no real keel to keep her upright in a blow.  She is beamy and that helps in a puff but when the wind gets above 15 knots things can get scary.