Rebuild of 100 year old catboat "kitten"

On top of TIKY my 1961 62ft FEADSHIP, and CHRIS my 1938 26ft Chris-Craft, I also have a very interesting 14ft Catboat called “KITTEN”

I not sure exactly when I bought Kitten but it was sometime around the Millennium. My friend, the celebrated author and yacht historian, John Leather – sadly now deceased - told me about her as he had come across her in his travels in Norfolk and thought she might be of interest to me.

She was afloat , but barely so , in a local wetshed and I thought she would make an interesting, inexpensive (hah!) and worthy restoration project which might be fun and easy for my 3 young sons to sail on the Broads. She was rebuilt by a retired local shipwright who worked part-time at Woods Dyke yard in Horning, where we normally spent our weekends at my wife’s family home. Because the shipwright only did a 2-day week, the work took forever but over the months we replaced the mast, most of the steamed frames, a number of hull planks, the C/B and case, rudder, tiller, deck and the horseshoe seat. In fact, only the bamboo boom was in good condition, only needing a coat of varnish.

Sadly, my boys were mainly interested in Xbox and BB guns and never learned to sail or even share my interest in boats, although one of them has recently become somewhat curious about the prospect of my next "project" - a fast support "tender" for my lovely 1961 62ft Feadship "Tiky" (check out “FEADSHIP RESTORATION ALTO” on Yachtforums where I have posted quite a lot of info and photos) . Incidentally, this "tender" will be based on a 1960s 22ft Tollcraft offshore powerboat deep V racing hull that is apparently capable of 50knts with the right engine. I acquired the hull a few years ago - having been hacked about by a previous owner, it is beyond restoration to its original "cruiser" form and it is now sitting in a Norfolk yard with its original Volvo, while I figure out what I want to do with her.

In any event, Kitten is a special little boat - definitely a Cape Cod inspired catboat but in my view with more than a hint of a Norfolk wherry (a large double-ended trading boat, once common on the Norfolk Broads and rivers and that first appeared in the Middle Ages but the design probably went back to the Viking invasion) having a distinctive gaff rig with a single, high-peaked sail and heavy unstayed mast stepped well forward and a beautiful bamboo boom. Although she hasn't had the use I'd planned for her I don't regret the not inconsiderable time and expenditure that was involved in restoring her. Maybe my grandchildren - if and when one or other of my sons gets around to extending and preserving the family lineage - will enjoy her. In any event I'm hoping to launch and her ready for what I believe will soon be her 100th birthday.

I understood from a previous owner that Kitten was built by the renown boat builder Herbert Woods in the years immediately before WW1, for a man who retired to Norfolk after working on the US East coast - hence the catboat influence but of course that may be hearsay.

I don’t know her exact age but I have a photo dated 1917 (attached) as well as several others from the l1930s including a very poignant one dated 1936 showing 2 young men aboard enjoying a picnic, one of them described as "German exchange student” – a nice looking young man who, almost certainly, and within a few years of that photo being taken, would have joined the German army and fought in WW2. I wonder what became of him?

Im hoping to get Kitten rigged and sailing this summer and will post further pictures of her as he is now

what a lovely little boat you have .. ..v. interesting to see the long slats in the sail which gives her an almost Junk-rig look. ...we are in the UK and will keep Kitten in the Norfolk Broads which is a flat and low lying area on the East coast approx 120 miles NE of London, where there are many rivers and Broads (man-made lakes dating back to pre-Roman times, excavated over hundreds of years for peat)

thanks - will do but as mentioned she was built in the UK..