Herreshoff 38 Cat Ketch Buyer's Guide
The Herreshoff 38 Cat Ketch is a fiberglass cruiser designed by Halsey Chase Herreshoff in the early eighties through the Cat Ketch Corporation partnership, built with a ketch rig and a fin keel on an Airex-cored fiberglass hull. For a shopper on the brokerage market, the boat presents as a moderate-displacement unstayed-concept cruiser with 5,500 pounds of lead ballast and 13,080 pounds displacement, a 42% ballast ratio, and a draft near 1.37 to 1.47 meters dependent on load. What follows is a buyer-oriented read of the documented facts and the used-market frame, without price or listing data.
Layouts on the Used Market
The only accommodation fact established for the 38 is above-average headroom, supported by the 11.5-foot beam and 37.79-foot length overall. No berth count, galley arrangement, or head location is documented in the sourced material, so used-boat shoppers should treat interior plans as variable by individual boat rather than fixed by class spec. The fin-keel, ketch-rig configuration is consistent across the model, but cabin execution must be verified aboard.
Equipment and Common Upgrades
The market brief records no commonly fitted or often-seen equipment tiers for this model, and no sometimes-seen owner upgrades are listed. In the absence of documented prevalence, equipment on any given brokerage example should be assessed individually. The Nanni diesel of 32 horsepower appears in background specifications, and the ketch rig with unstayed masts from the Cat Ketch lineage is the defining standard equipment, but no auxiliary winches, electronics, or sail inventories are described in the sources as prevailing market fittings.
What to Inspect
Documented known issues for the Herreshoff 38 Cat Ketch are limited to maintenance scope rather than defects. The surface of the wet bottom is about 38 square meters (409 square feet), which sets the bottom-area maintenance load for any owned example and should be factored into survey and haul-out planning. No structural, rigging, or systems failures are recorded in the sources, and the Airex-cored fiberglass hull from the Cat Ketch transition is described without cited degradation. A buyer should still commission a standard survey, but the sourced record raises no model-specific red flags.
Availability and Buyer's Takeaway
Typical markets for the Herreshoff 38 Cat Ketch are the United States. For a shopper, the takeaway is a boat of light-racer displacement categorization (DL-ratio 149, with 88% of similar designs heavier) yet a ballast ratio beating 62% of peers, a ketch rig with shallow draft, and above-average headroom. Inspect the bottom area scope, confirm the unstayed ketch rig and fin keel are intact, verify interior layout per individual boat, and treat all equipment as example-specific given the lack of documented market tiers.
- Confirm 1.37–1.47 m draft and fin keel configuration
- Note 38 m² wetted-surface area for haul-out cost planning
- Verify above-average headroom and individual cabin layout
- Check ketch rig completeness; no model-specific defects are on record
Price & volume trends
Monthly asking-price and listing-volume trends for the Herreshoff 38 Cat Ketch. The line shows the median ask each month; the bars show how many listings appeared.
Comparable models
Similar length, displacement, and era. Open a row to compare that model's market page.
Similar boats to compare
10 similar designs| Model | LOA | Median ask | Listings · 12 mo | Active · 90 d |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hallberg-Rassy 38 | 37.96' | $ 77,472 | 28 | 5 |
| Freedom 38 | 37.92' | $ 70,158 | 18 | 8 |
| Bristol 38.8 | 38.25' | $ 62,900 | 16 | 5 |
| Beneteau Moorings 38 | 38.25' | $ 44,900 | 15 | 4 |
| Nicholson 38 | 37.83' | $ 33,694 | 13 | 7 |
| Ohlson 38 | 37.06' | $ 52,613 | 12 | 7 |
| Kadey-Krogen 38 | 38.16' | $ 74,900 | 9 | 4 |
| Catalina Morgan 38 | 38.42' | $ 74,900 | 9 | 0 |
| Nonsuch 33 | 33.42' | $ 69,900 | 9 | 4 |
| Morgan 38 | 37.67' | $ 75,000 | 5 | 3 |