E V E R Y O N E ’ S
H I S T O RY
Hooray for the
Quincy Cats!
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The catboat Dorothy (shown here with a Bermuda rig) sails in Quincy Bay in the mid-1930s. Tickets admitted Quincy Yacht Club members and their families to community events. ABOVE
Photo courtesy Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Leslie Jones Collection. Ephemera courtesy Quincy Historical Society.
ounded in 1874, the Quincy Yacht Club, in Quincy, Massachusetts, emerged as a dominant force in the Massachusetts Bay regatta season, thanks in part to the club’s Challenge Cup, proposed in 1898. Calling for boats no longer than twenty-one feet, which might require only a three-man crew, the Challenge’s smaller specifications brought the luxury sport of yacht racing within reach of people who were not extremely rich. By contrast, yachts built for the America’s Cup races were often one hundred feet long with crews of seventy, making that prize something only the world’s wealthiest men could pursue. In 1916, Quincy Yacht Club member Carl Snow created the first onedesign racing class yacht, a fifteen-foot catboat—a type of sailing vessel with one mast set far forward, typically with a gaff-rigged sail. The design was so innovative that it caught the attention of the Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels. Before Snow could deliver the first order of these compact and agile “Quincy cats,” Daniels cabled the yacht club, “You will appreciate that these small crafts would be very efficient in case of difficulties with any foreign powers in the destruction of undersea boats that might threaten our coast.” The government commandeered the fleet and held it at the ready to patrol Boston Harbor for enemy submarines. Fortunately, the catboats were never needed in that capacity and returned to race from 1917 to 1940. With their masts down, the Quincy catboats looked a little bit like bathtubs. When the fleet took part in regattas, competing yachtsmen would tease good naturedly, “Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub—hooray for the Quincy cats!” By the 1930s, many Quincy cats had been handed down to members’ children in favor of newer designs. As powerboats increasingly came into favor, the Quincy cat fleet eventually disappeared. Today, the club no longer hosts regattas but remains active in the Quincy Bay Race Week Association, while several other local clubs continue to compete for the prestigious Quincy Yacht Club Challenge Cup. —Kris Bierfelt Editor and Publications Manager
To learn more about the Quincy Yacht Club and to view an online exhibition, visit HistoricNewEngland.org/EveryonesHistory.
Summer 2014 Historic New England
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