Review of Sun Cat 17 Mk I

Basic specs.

The Sun Cat 17 Mk I is a small dinghy designed by the American maritime architect Clark Mills in the early seventies.

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Hull

The hull is made of fibreglass. Generally, a hull made of fibreglass requires only a minimum of maintenance during the sailing season. And outside the sailing season, just bottom cleaning and perhaps anti-fouling painting once a year - a few hours of work, that's all.

Keel

The Sun Cat 17 Mk I is equipped with a centerboard keel. A centerboard keel is a pivoting lifting keel, allowing to sail both coastal and inland waters.

The boat can sail close to the beach as the draft is just 0.23 - 0.33 meter (0.75 - 1.05 ft) dependent of the load. See immersion rate below.

Sailing characteristics

This section covers widely used rules of thumb to describe the sailing characteristics. Please note that even though the calculations are correct, the interpretation of the results might not be valid for extreme boats.

Immersion rate

The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level. The immersion rate for Sun Cat 17 Mk I is about 67 kg/cm, alternatively 378 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 67 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm. Alternatively, if you load 378 lbs cargo on the boat it will sink 1 inch.

Sailing statistics

This section is statistical comparison with similar boats of the same category. The basis of the following statistical computations is our unique database with more than 26,000 different boat types and 350,000 data points.

L/B (Length Beam Ratio)

What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?

The l/b ratio for Sun Cat 17 Mk I is 2.28.

Compared with other similar dinghies it is more spacy than 85% of all other designs. It seems that the designer has chosen a significantly more spacy hull design.

Maintenance

Boat owner's ideas

This section shown boat owner's changes, improvements, etc. Here you might find inspiration for your boat.

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Finally

We are always looking for new photos. If you can contribute with photos for Sun Cat 17 Mk I it would be a great help.

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References

[Ref 1]: ISO 8666 Small craft — Principal data.
[Ref 3]: ISO 12215-5 Small craft — Hull construction and scantlings.