Kitty Cat

Description

The Kitty Cat (often written as Kitty or Kitty Cat) is a pioneering New Zealand 12-foot plywood catamaran designed by Jim Young in 1958. Jim Young (1924–2020), one of New Zealand's most influential yacht designers and builders, created the Kitty Cat as a rule-beater to compete in the Australasian 12ft unrestricted Silasec Trophy (an open-class event allowing multihulls against monohulls). Built in collaboration with local sailor John Peet (who convinced Young to shrink his earlier 16-foot cat design), the boat dominated the 1958 Inter-Dominion Championship—sailed by John and his son David Peet, it won every race except one (due to a broken mast), outperforming top monohull skiffs and leading to a ban on catamarans in future contests. This made Kitty New Zealand's first internationally competitive racing catamaran and helped spark global interest in small multihulls. It was a lightweight plywood build (thin diagonal skins glued for strength, no keel, twin daggerboards—one in each hull), with an overall beam of about 7 feet (as wide as Young thought feasible for such a short craft without burying the nose). The design built on Young's prior cat experience, prioritizing speed, lightness, and excitement as a day sailer/racer in the 12-foot class.