The Com-Pac Sun Cat, also called the Com-Pac Sun Cat 17, is an American trailerable

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 terminology ...

that was designed by Clark Mills as a

pocket cruiser A pocket cruiser is a sailboat designed for recreational cruising and club racing, under in length. Like the similar and usually smaller trailer sailer they have design features to make it possible to tow them with passenger vehicles, such as ...

and first built in 2000.Henkel, Steve: ''The Sailor's Book of Small Cruising Sailboats'', page XX.

International Marine S&P Global Inc. (prior to April 2016 McGraw Hill Financial, Inc., and prior to 2013 The McGraw–Hill Companies, Inc.) is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Its primary areas of business are finan ...

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referen ...

, 2010. The boat is a derivative of the earlier, 1972, smaller and lighter

Dilks Sun Cat The Sun Cat, now referred to as the Sun Cat 17-1 or the Dilks Sun Cat, is an American trailerable sailboat that was designed by Clark Mills in 1960 as a daysailer. Sun Cats, in their original form, can be distinguished from the Com-Pac Sun C ...

Mills drew for Dilks & Company. The Com-Pac Sun Cat design was developed into the

Com-Pac Sunday Cat The Com-Pac Sunday Cat is an American trailerable sailboat that was designed by Clark Mills, who had previously designed the Optimist. The Sunday Cat is a development of the Com-Pac Sun Cat. The Sun Cat comes in both cabin and open day sai ...

daysailer A daysailer, day sailer, or dayboat is a small sailboat with or without sleeping accommodations but which is larger than a dinghy. Dayboats can be mono hull or multihull, and are typically trailer-able. Many dayboats have a small cabin or "cu ...

in 2008. The Sunday Cat trades a smaller cabin for a larger cockpit.

Production

The design has been built by

Com-Pac Yachts Com-Pac Yachts is an American brand of sailboats, made by the Hutchins Co., Inc., a boat builder based in Clearwater, Florida. The company specializes in the design and manufacture of fiberglass sailboats. Over time the brand and the company h ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

since 2000 and remains in production.

Design

The manufacturer describes the design's goals as easy to rig, sail and transport on a trailer for use as a daysailer and overnight cruiser in shoal waters and coves. The Com-Pac Sun Cat is a recreational

keelboat A keelboat is a riverine cargo-capable working boat, or a small- to mid-sized recreational sailing yacht. The boats in the first category have shallow structural keels, and are nearly flat-bottomed and often used leeboards if forced in open w ...

, built predominantly of

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 cl ...

, with wood trim. It is a

gaff rig 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 s ...

ged

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 f ...

, with a

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 to ...

, an angled transom, a 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 adverse yaw a ...

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 fixed stub

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in B ...

with a stainless steel

centerboard A centreboard or centerboard (US) is a retractable hull appendage which pivots out of a slot in the hull of a sailboat, known as a ''centreboard trunk'' (UK) or ''centerboard case'' (US). The retractability allows the centreboard to be raised to ...

. It displaces and carries of ballast. The boat has a draft of with the centerboard extended and with it retracted, allowing operation in shallow water and ground transportation on a trailer. The design is equipped with a transom-mounted boom gallows on which the mast, boom and gaff may be stowed during ground transport. The boat is normally fitted with a small

outboard motor An outboard motor is a propulsion system for boats, consisting of a self-contained unit that includes engine, gearbox and propeller or jet drive, designed to be affixed to the outside of the transom. They are the most common motorised method o ...

for docking and maneuvering, mounted on a bracket on the port side of the transom. The design has sleeping accommodation for two people, with two straight settees in the main cabin. Cabin headroom is . There is an

anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ...

locker on the bow. The boat has a

hull speed Hull speed or displacement speed is the speed at which the wavelength of a vessel's bow wave is equal to the waterline length of the vessel. As boat speed increases from rest, the wavelength of the bow wave increases, and usually its crest-to-t ...

of .

Operational history

In a 2010 review Steve Henkel wrote, "best features: The Hutchins Company generally does a good job on finishing their boats, even the small ones. The Sun Cat's hull is configured to make trailering and handling at a ramp easy; short spars make striking her rig easier, and give good clearance under low bridges ... Worst features: Low SA/D restricts performance under sail. Space below is limited by her relatively narrow beam, low cabin height, and short waterline length. Her stern is narrow compared with her comps, making it likely that she will sail somewhat down by the stern with more than a pair of light-weight people sitting at the forward end of the cockpit. Her melon-seed hull shape and low ballast tend to limit her use to the light-air end of weather conditions." A 2010 review in ''Tropical Boating'' noted that the design is "a delight from beginning to end." The review concluded, "the Sun Cat is a great choice for anyone who wants a small sailboat that is both comfortable and easy to sail, and it also has enough responsiveness and trim adjustments to please and challenge even very experienced sailors."

References

External links

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Official photo gallery
{{Trailer sailers and Trailer yachts worldwide Keelboats 2000s sailboat type designs Sailing yachts Trailer sailers Sailboat type designs by Clark Mills Sailboat types built by Com-Pac Yachts

Production

Design

Operational history

See also

References

External links