Sun cat sail area

[Niantic Mike]

Why does the sun cat have such a small sail area? There are boats with 1/2 - 3/4 displacement with the same or more sail area (Beetle cat, marshall sandpiper) and then similar size boats tend to have 50-100sqft more.

Also, aside from a job, has anyone looked into increasing sail area?

[bruce]

Com-Pac catboats all have their boom set high, reducing sail area. Many like the tall, upright benches, not having to duck under the boom on every tack, and prefer the boom gallows over a removable crutch.

They also have the gaff set very steep, almost vertical, maximizing sail area up high. I haven't compared the mast height and gaff length with comparable catboats, there may be some room there to play around with. Com-Pac was designing catboats to be easily trailered, long spars overhanging the transom is a negative.

We liked the PC over the Sandpiper and Menger 15 for all of these reasons.

Some have played with larger sails. Com-Pac was against it. Capt Nemo did some sail mods, search the archives for more. When the TSBB Catboat forum was active a lot of SC experimentation, by Cape Nemo and others, was posted there. Unfortunately those archives aren't accessible these days.
https://cpyoa.com/forum/index.php?topic=5284.msg37141#msg37141 (Scott had a larger sail)
https://cpyoa.com/forum/index.php?topic=4257.msg29698#msg29698

[Niantic Mike]

Interesting! Thanks. The thought of finding a horizon cat rig had crossed my mind as well...