A catboat 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 fitted with a centreboard, although some have a keel. The hull can be 3.7 to 12.2 metres long with a beam half as wide as the hull length at the waterline. The type is mainly found on that part of the Eastern seaboard of the USA from New Jersey to Massachusetts.
Winslow Homer's 1870s painting Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)
The Breck Marshall, a 20-foot (6.1 m) Crosby catboat design open for public use at Mystic Seaport
Cruising catboat showing classical rudder design and wire stays supporting the mast
Painting "Oyster Bay Catboats" (circa 1865) by Archibald Cary Smith
A Bermuda rig, Bermudian rig, or Marconi rig is a configuration of mast and rigging for a type of sailboat and is the typical configuration for most modern sailboats. This configuration was developed in Bermuda in the 17th century; the term Marconi, a reference to the inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi, became associated with this configuration in the early 20th century, because the wires that stabilize the mast of a Bermuda rig reminded observers of the wires on early radio masts.
1671 woodcut of a Bermudian vessel with early Bermuda rig (before the addition of a boom)
The 1831 painting, by John Lynn, of the Bermuda sloop of the Royal Navy upon which the Spirit of Bermuda was modelled
The sail training ship Spirit of Bermuda.
A 19th-century race in Bermuda. Visible are three Bermuda rigged and two gaff rigged sloops.
