Also catt. Obs. exc. in Comb. [Originally, the same word as prec.; Du Cange has catta ‘navis species,’ also gatus of date c. 1175; OF. chaz, chat, catz (see Jal, and Godef.); but the relation between these and the Eng. word, and the reason of the name, do not appear.]
A name given to a vessel formerly used in the coal and timber trade on the north-east coast of England; see Falconer’s description (quot. 1769).
1699. in Dict. Nat. Biogr., VIII. 305/1. I was made a lieutenant by the lords of the admiralty for boarding a cat that was laden with masts.
1747. (Dec. 4) J. Gambier to Secretary Adm’lty (MS.). Drove a new catt of near 500 tons on the Barrough Sand.
1759. Adm. Saunders, in Naval Chron., XIII. 439. Two Cats, armed and loaded with provisions.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Cat, a ship employed in the Coal trade, formed from the Norwegian model. It is distinguished by a narrow stern, projecting quarters, a deep waist, and by having no … figure[head]. These vessels are generally built remarkably strong, and carry from four to six hundred tons. Chatte, a small two-masted vessel, formed like a cat or Norwegian pink.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, I. 236. Cat, a vessel, used by the Northern Nations of Europe, with three masts and a bowsprit, rigged similar to an English ship; having, however, pole-masts and no top-gallant sails.
c. 1825. J. Dugdale, New Brit. Trav., iv. 303. Certain vessels, called Ipswich Cats of large tonnage … formerly employed in the coal-trade here.
(The name is unknown to the oldest of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House, Newcastle (aged 82), and to the oldest North Sea pilots there. One of the latter, however, remembers to have heard as a boy the joke ‘Do you know when the mouse caught the cat’ (the Mouse being a sand-bank in the Thames); and several remember the expression cat-built in the early part of the century. The last ‘cat-built’ ship is said to have been lost more than 30 years ago [c. 1860].)
Hence (perh.) cat-boat, a kind of sailing-boat having the mast placed very forward and rigged with one sail; cat-rig, a rig of one fore-and-aft mainsail, used for pleasure-boats in smooth water; so cat-rigged adj.; cat-built (see above).
1867. F. Ludlow, Little Bro., 96. The cat-rig boat … carries a main-sail only and is a favourite on the Shrewsbury river.
1883. J. D. Jerrold Kelly, in Harper’s Mag., Aug., 444/2. We were contented with victories of which cat-boats might be ashamed.
1885. Sat. Rev., 3 Jan., 11/1. Open boats of one jib and mainsail and cat-boat varieties.
1887. Daily Tel., 10 Sept., 2/5. A couple of trim-looking catboats … were dropped astern at a great rate…. The catboatman is ambitious.
