Bolger 7' Cat Boat
Description
The Bolger 7' Cat (design #494, also known as the "7' Catboat" or "Teal Cat") is a diminutive, plywood daysailer designed by prolific American naval architect Phil Bolger in the early 1980s as part of his "Instant Boats" series. Featured in Harold "Dynamite" Payson's 1989 book Build the New Instant Boats, it's an ultra-simple catboat optimized for amateur builders using minimal materials (one 4x8-foot sheet of plywood), emphasizing portability, affordability, and fun for solo pond or calm-water sailing. With its flat-bottom hull, kick-up centerboard, and gaff-rigged sail, it offers surprising stability and speed (up to 5 knots) for its size, making it a playful "pocket catboat" for beginners, kids, or as a yacht tender. Dozens have been built worldwide, often in a weekend, and it's praised for its forgiving nature and zero-waste construction.
The standard boat dimensions
| i | - |
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| j | - |
| p | - |
| e | - |
| p2 | - |
| e2 | - |
| i2 | - |
| j2 | - |
| I | J | P | E | P2 | E2 | I2 | J2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Sails
| Sail Type | GAFF MAIN |
|---|---|
| Luff | 3.979 ft - (1213 mm) |
| Foot | 6.33 ft - (1929 mm) |
| Leech | 8.67 ft - (2643 mm) |
| Tack Angle | * 81.79 ° |
| Diag (clew/throat) | 6.979 ft - (2127 mm) |
| Head | 5 ft - (1524 mm) |
| Area | * 29.9 ft² |
Disclaimer. Boats are not all the same -- even when produced in the same factory of the same model. Sailrite does its best to publish accurate dimensions, but we often find it worthwhile to have our customers measure their boats carefully before we produce kits for them. You should take the same precautions, especially when the data is not from Sailrite. The information on this site is not guaranteed to be accurate. Sailrite offers this content as a service to our community, but takes no responsibility for the reliability of the data provided.