Beetle Cat - Construction

Construction

The small cedar-hull and fir-spar boat has a sail of approximately 100 square feet (9 m2) and an 8-inch (200 mm) draft (board up). A new one costs nearly $17,000 (less sail), while older ones come on the market from time to time. Beetles are built as planks of Atlantic white cedar over white oak frames. The seams are caulked with cotton. Though hull colors, and to a greater extent, sail colors vary, the classic colors are a white hull, green below the waterline, a natural cedar cockpit (or on older boats gray), and "Beetle Buff," a sort of burnt orange, for the canvas-covered deck. The spars are varnished.

Beetle Cats in Massachusetts are often compared to the Herreshoff/Haven 12.5s, designed in 1914 by Nathanael Greene Herreshoff. Both vessels share old-school style, boat handling, and aesthetic qualities and both attract similar classic wood-boat enthusiasts. Both craft have been included in coffee table picture books about classic wooden boats. A travel writer in the New York Times noted in a 2002 article that "over the years, the Beetle Cat has acquired an unlikely cachet, as Jacqueline Onassis had one shipped to Greece in 1969 for John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Kennedy to learn sailing in, and current Beetle Cat owners include Steven Spielberg, Calvin Klein" and the glass artist Michael Glancy.