Backyard Adventure

A Catboat Sail on the Gato Feliz

STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN MILLER

Jeff Peterson built his first sailboat when he was a 12-year-old boy living in Maine. “It was a 9-foot catboat and only had one sail,” remembers Jeff . “The boat’s name was Punkin’ Seed, a take on its wide beam, typical of most catboats. Th ere were small fleets of these boats all over New England, and we raced on the weekends. We learned a lot about small boat sailing back then!”

Indeed, Jeff was born to sail, and spends many a weekend with his wife, Teen, and their family, sailing about Amelia and Cumberland islands. Imagine our excitement when they invited my husband, Troy, and I to join them on a sail down Egans Creek, then up the Amelia River.

We don’t know much about sailing, but Jeff is a great teacher. Their boat, named Gato Feliz (Happy Cat) is an 18-foot Marshall Sanderling built in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. “She was built in 1971, making her a sweet 50-year-old beauty,” says Jeff . “Marshall has built over 750 Sanderlings. They’re very popular in New England, especially Cape Cod, where in many of the towns there are small fleets that race on the weekends. It’s not a high-performance boat, but a fun, family sailer!”

No one really knows the origin of the word “catboat.” It’s said that it might be because the boat sails fleet as a cat. But more likely it’s because of the numerous cats that hang around the boats after they’ve come back from a fishing trip, looking for handouts. From the 1850s to the early 1900s, catboats were the dominant inshore boat on the New England coast, both for work and for pleasure. They were used for fishing and coastal transportation. Their popularity eventually declined in the commercial world, where they were eventually replaced by motorized boats.

Teen and Jeff acquired Gato Feliz from a friend, whose father had brought it down from New Jersey. Th e former owner didn’t use it much as he had expected, and as Jeff had helped him with some maintenance, he came to Teen and Jeff ’s house one day and said, “She’s yours!”

Teen and Jeff lived in Ecuador for 12-years, where they learned Spanish. They felt the name Gato Feliz, captured both the personality of the boat and the fun they had sailing her. They fixed her up a bit through the years and have shared their sailing trips with numerous friends on Amelia Island. Our time on the water with Gato Feliz was exhilarating, with perfect wind and Jeff ’s expertise. He even let Troy take over the tiller, which controls the rudder, giving him an onshore landmark as a visual heading.

Something we didn’t realize at the time, was that this would be one of Gato Feliz’s last sail with the Petersons. Th e couple decided to downsize, selling their large home on the marsh, and buying a smaller home with less maintenance so they could spend more time in Maine.

“We decided to sell Gato Feliz to a man who took her up to Beaufort, South Carolina, where she will join a fleet of five other Sanderlings for weekend racing and general sailing fun,” says Jeff . “We will miss her, but she will be put to good use, doing what she does best!”

Troy Lair (l) with Jeff Peterson