Whether Cape-born or just Cape-loved, these boats remain critical to telling the story of Sailing on Cape Cod. What’s here is only an overview of the rich history of each of these special designs
Sailboats of the Cape and Islands
Looking for one in particular?
Woods hole Spritsail
Sometime near the 1870s, fishermen in Woods Hole began using a boat called the ‘Spritsail’ to go fishing. These boats were strong and seaworthy and handled well when the water currents went opposite the wind direction. The boats could be rowed and handled by one person, an advantage for the lone fishermen.
The fishermen had an unusual challenge: a low, stone bridge across the entrance to the protected harbor of Eel Pond. Their solution was the “spritsail” rig. There is no boom, so the mast is ‘loose-footed’. The lightweight spars allowed them to quickly lower the mast & sail to get under the bridge. After drifting or paddling under the bridge, they could easily raise the rig on the other side. Some of them go so god at this maneuver, they could come within mere feet of the bridge before doing it.
Josh AndersonThe boat that came in second in this race was called Spy, raced by E.E. Swift. Swift built three Spritsails, including Spy and our museum’s Spritsail, Susie.
Josh Anderson
Woods Hole Historical Museum
Woods Hole Historical MuseumSpritsails didn’t race much until summer-only residents wanted their own spritsails to sail and race. They didn't want the heavy, sturdy boats of the fishermen, so theirs were built with lighter hulls and other small differences. In order to keep races fair, they split these working and non-working boats into two classes.
Catboat
Catboats are easy ‘daysailers’ between 12 and 40 feet long. The beam (width) could be as much as half the boat’s length, and could navigate well in shallow water. In the 19th century they were the most common type of small fishing boats, especially in the shoal waters of New Jersey, Long Island and Cape Cod.
On Cape Cod, Catboats got their start mostly as working boats sometime in the 1830s or 40s. They were stable enough to not tip when lobster traps were hauled aboard but also fast enough to sail from harbor to fishing grounds and back in a single day. This allowed lone fishermen in the 19ths century to fish local waters year round.
‘Cats” lost popularity as working boats, but as tourism on Cape Cod exploded in the 20th century, they found new uses. Tourists hired Catboat captains to take them on pleasure cruises. Some cats acted as small ferries. Others were modified or specifically designed for racing.
Winslow Homer’s famous painting Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) features a small catboat, but with an an unusual rig - Not a ‘cat’ rig as they usually have, but a spritsail rig.
Cecil Stoughton, White House / John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.President's Collection Photographs / John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
The Wianno Senior
The Wianno Senior was designed by H. Manley Crosby for members of the Wianno Yacht Club in 1913. Wiannos are stable and powerful gaff-rigged sloops; well suited to strong breezes and shallow waters. “Senior” was added to her designation when the Crosby yard developed the Wianno Junior, a smaller and similarly popular boat.
Shortly after the Kennedy family bought their home in Hyannisport, they purchased a Wianno Senior: # 94 Victura. John F. Kennedy was an avid sailor and a successful racer. Victura is believed to be the muse behind many of his ‘doodles’ on important presidential documents. Today she rests seasonally outside the JFK Presidential library.
In the 1980s, Seniors began to be built from fiberglass. They have been competing in inter-club races in Nantucket Sound since 1928.
Michael Berwind
Cotuit Skiff
The Cotuit skiff, formerly known as the Cotuit Mosquito, is a ‘flat iron’ boat. This means it's shaped like a flat iron used for clothes: They have sharp, pointed bows, and flat bottoms. The mast is towards the front, and the sails are gaff-rigged.
In 1905, Stanley Butler designed a skiff at the request of a local father named Walter Woodman. In Cotuit Bay, flat-bottomed skiffs had been used by oystermen and clam diggers for a long time. This new design was adopted by the Cotuit Mosquito Yacht Club, but issues arose when Butler refused to make the same exact design twice. Butler experimented with the centerboards, ‘impossibly big’ sails, and other key components.
In the 1920s and into the early 1930s, the Cotuit Mosquito Yacht Club established a system of handicap rules for timing and scoring their races. In the mid-1920s, a naval architect named Edwin Mairs took measurements from a Bigelow skiff, and created plans for a standard design of Cotuit Skiff. These are called the ‘Mairs Plans’ and serve as the ‘standard’ for the boat class.
Despite being one of the oldest continuously raced one-designs, and being so well-loved and long-used in Cotuit, “Mosquitos” have never caught on anywhere else. There are no other active fleets.
Images Courtesy of the Cotuit Mosquito Yacht Club, and the Association of the Cotuit Mosquito Yacht Club
Prior to 1921, the Beetle family of New Bedford were known for building Whaleboats. these small sailboats left the ‘mother ship’ and went after the whales they spotted. They had constructed a small, 12-foot sailboat for their children to learn to sail on out of some of the same materials as the whaleboats.
Beetlecat
As the whaling industry and orders for new whaleboats declined, the Beetle family shifted production to make these new ‘Beetle cats’ (after catboat). Nearby folks had seen the children’s boat, and thought it would be good for their own children, and good for day sailing.
More than 4,000 Beetles have been built since then. They were known as a children’s sailboat in the first few decades of the 20th century. After WWII, many were ‘commandeered’ by adults and orders for new Beetles increased.
A typical Beetle has no seats. Any crew and passengers sit on the floor of the boat, towards the back, which helps the balance of the overall boat. This low position also helps keep heads clear of the swinging boom. The lines (ropes) used to control the gaff’s height can be handled from down low.
Beetle Cat boats are distinguished as one of the oldest one-design boats. They have been continuously built out of wood and actively raced for about 103 years. The Beetle family gained notoriety as builders of whaleboats in the 1800s, and the first Beetle Cat was built from the same materials: Atlantic White Cedar, and White Oak.
“Beetlecat” or “Rainbow”?
On Nantucket, Beetlecats are called Rainbows. In 1920, John Beetle designed a 12-foot, gaff rigged, shallow draft, wooden sailboat. In 1926, the Nantucket Yacht Club purchased a small fleet to start a racing program for children. In order for their parents to find their particular child’s boat apart from the others, every sailboat was given a different color sail. Thus, they were the ‘Rainbow Fleet’. The name persists on Nantucket in place of ‘Beetlecat’.
There is an annual Rainbow Parade around Brant Point on Nantucket on the morning of the Opera House Cup Regatta.
Images:Norman Fortier (American, 1919-2010), “Two Boys Sailing Beetle Cat Number 13. In the Background Another Beetle Cat With Two Girls and a Herreshoff 12-1/2 with Two Boys on Board,”1948. Acetate negative, 4 x 5 in. New Bedford Whaling Museum Photography Collection, 2004.11.449. Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.Norman Fortier (American, 1919-2010), “Beetle Cats Racing in Close Quarters at Beetle Cat Championship Regatta held at New Bedford Yacht Club,”1948. Acetate negative, 4 x 5 in. New Bedford Whaling Museum Photography Collection, 2004.11.2206. Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library.Images of John and Ruth Beetle, and ‘Racing at Padanaram’ courtesy of the Beetle Cat Boat Shop
John Beetle, and his daughter Ruth. John was a surveyor and ran the Beetle Cat shop until his death in 1928. Ruth Beetle was the company bookkeeper until 1936, when her uncle and cousin passed away leaving her in charge of the company.
Courtesy of the Peary-MacMillan Artic Museum, Bowdoin CollegeCourtesy of David Mayo
Provincetown History Project
Provincetown Eskimo
Small built nine ‘Eskimo’ boats between 1928 and 1933:
Akpah, Karnow, Tarkoo, Arguy, Belapadoo, Ipah, Mickyook, Suo, Imarhar
These boats were raced extensively in Provincetown. Newspapers printed race results.
Johnathan ‘Jot’ Small was born in Provincetown in 1876 and spent his early career as an arctic explorer with Donald MacMillian’s Crocker Land Expedition. When he returned to Provincetown, he was a mechanic, restaurant owner, and member of the US Lifesaving Service. He had seen Inuit boats in the Arctic and thought that the shallow keel and flat bottom designs would work well in his home waters.
Provincetown History Project
Courtesy of David MayoWhen the US entered WWII, many boats and boatyards fell out of use and no one was racing. Between the 1940s and 1960s, most of Jot’s original nine boats were either scrapped or sunk. Only two were repaired and that was done with pieces from the decommissioned boats. By 1990, the last remaining, Ipah II, was dismantled.
Courtesy of David MayoThe term "Eskimo" Is considered offensive by Indigenous peoples of the Arctic Regions. We use it only to give proper context to the history of this design of sailboat. Cape Cod Knockabout
A Cape Cod Knockabout (also called a Cape Cod ‘Baby’ Knockabout because of its size) is a one-design sailboat, usually 18 feet long (15’6” in at the waterline) They are very light, shallow boats which are also very stable. This makes them very good racing boats and very popular daysailers. Active racing fleets exist at at least five yacht clubs on Cape Cod, and a few beyond.
Images courtesy of the Woods Hole Historical Museum
“Knockabout” is also a general term used for sloop-rigged sailboats that are fore-and-aft rigged (pictured) and generally sturdy enough to be used for rough or casual sailing.
Cape Cod Knockabouts were designed by Charles S. Gurney, one of he founders of Cape Cod Shipbuilding Co., in 1925. The design became popular on Cape and in southern Massachusetts between 940 and 1970.
Courtesy of the Chatham Historical Society
The Crab Marches On: A History of the Stage Harbor Yacht Club 1932-2007. Richard D Batchelder, Jr., Drew CarlsonCatabout
In the early 1930s, the Stage Harbor Yacht Club was looking for a one-design boat to build a racing program around. F. Spaudling Dunbar, an active member of the club and an MIT-trained naval architect, designed the the Corsair at his Old Sail Loft boatyard.
The Corsair proved too difficult for beginner sailors, so Dunbar tried something new: A sailboat which could be sailed either as a traditional Catboat-mast far forward and carrying a single, gaff-rig sail, or as a knockabout-style sloop, with the mast farther back and a (triangular) mainsail and jib. The combination of these two options in one boat gave it its name.
At the time, they were usually sailed as sloops by the kids (a little more exciting that way). Around 41 boats were built at the Old Sail Loft.
Vineyard Haven 15
In 1933, Erford Burt designed the Vineyard Haven 15, an elegant boat known for being perfectly suited to its native waters.
The ‘VH 15’s are 15 feet at the waterline, and 21 feet overall. They have a Marconi rig and a 1,000 lbs weight attached to their keel. This weight makes them uncapsizable: even if turned completely on their side in the choppy seas around Martha’s Vineyard, they will right themselves instead of flipping or sinking. They have also been called unsinkable; they could face very rough waters and high waves and not fill with water.
Images Courtesy of the Martha's Vineyard Museum
The first Vineyard Haven 15 was called Silverheels and was launched in 1934. By 1940 there were 24 and by the early 50s there were around 35. The first 37 boats had wooden hulls. In the mid-1950s, Martha’s Vineyard Shipyards began to make fiberglass hulls and even offered a discount to the wooden-hull VH15 owners to buy a new fiberglass hull and transfer the spars, keel, and fittings from their old wooden boat.
The Vineyard Haven Yacht Club had a racing class for Vineyard Haven 15s from the 1930s until 1979. They had been very fast boats in the 30s, but that meant by the 70s they were comparatively slow against the other available sailboats at the time.
Herreshoff 12 1/2 or, Buzzards Bay Boys Boat
Nathanael “Nat” Greene Herreshoff, well-known yacht design and naval architect, was asked by the manager of of one of his America’s Cup-winning boats to design a small sailboat which could be used to teach young boys how to sail, but could also hold up to the choppy waters of Buzzards Bay.
Courtesy of the Herreshoff Marine Museum
Herreshoff created the ‘Buzzards Bay Boys Boat’, or the 12 ½. The Herreshoff Manufacturing Company built 364 wooden-hulled 12 1/2s through 1943.
These well-mannered boats have remained popular world-wide for over a century. The H-Class organization is dedicated to the boat’s preservation and promotion, and they hold a championship regatta every year. 12 1/2s are still built to this day in both wood and fiberglass.
Tyler Fields photography
Courtesy of the Herreshoff Marine Museum
Frostys were designed to be built at home using two sheets of ¼” plywood put together using the stitch & glue method and epoxy. Masts were originally household closet poles. The concept was to keep it simple, learn basic boat building skills, and have fun.
Cape Cod Frosty
The Cape Cod Frosty is a one-design, racing sailboat designed in 1984 by Tom Leach, former harbormaster of Harwich, MA. The Frosty is a ‘frostbiting’ boat, meaning it is intended to be raced in the winter. Frostys are simple, lightweight boats which can be strapped to the top of a car or put in the bed of pickup truck, and easily transported to the nearest harbor to sail.
Over 1,000 Frostys have been built, and there are around 15 fleets established between Canada and Maryland. They may be the smallest one-design boat in the world.
This symbol is the sail logo of the Cape Cod Frosty, and appears at the top of the sail above the registered number of the boat. It’s the shape of Cape Cod with icicles below.