Also known as the Sun Cat or Dilks Sun Cat, this 16.5-foot monohull began as Mills’s personal strip-planked centerboard daysailer. He built Hull #1 for himself; it is now on display at the Mckay Creek Boat Shop in Heritage Village, Largo, Florida.
Design and Construction
The Sun Cat measures 16.5 feet overall and 15 feet on the waterline, with a beam of 7.25 feet and a displacement of 1,200 pounds. It was offered in bilgeboard, centerboard, and fixed-keel versions. Draft ranges from 0.75 feet with the bilgeboards up to 2.58 feet with them down. Steering is by a transom-mounted rudder.
Mills designed the boat as a catboat with a Bermuda rig and a single 165-square-foot mainsail. That rig distinguishes the original boat from the Com-Pac Sun Cat developed in 2000, which uses a gaff rig instead. The original Sun Cat’s sail emblem depicts a sun with a C in its center.
Mills’s strip-planked Hull #1 was a one-off personal boat and isn’t representative of production fiberglass construction.
Rig and Handling
The cat rig relies on one large mainsail, keeping crew work simple on a boat of this size. The open daysailer carried a roller-reefing boom, allowing the crew to reduce sail without leaving the cockpit.
Bilgeboards gave the daysailer shoal-draft capability suited to trailering and gunkholing. Pocket-cruiser versions with enclosed cabins were available with either a centerboard or fixed keel, trading some simplicity for cabin accommodation.
Cockpit and Accommodation
Sun Cats were built in two broad formats. The open daysailer had an 11-foot self-bailing cockpit and an optional removable cuddy cabin. This flexible arrangement allowed owners to sail without a cabin or add shelter as needed.
The alternative was a pocket cruiser with a proper enclosed cabin, offered with either a centerboard or keel for sailors who wanted overnight capability in a 16-foot hull. Dilks & Company sold the open daysailer as either a kit or a complete boat, making it available to amateur builders as well as buyers seeking a finished boat.
Variants and Identification
Configuration is the main source of variation among surviving boats. Buyers and owners need to distinguish among the bilgeboard, centerboard, and fixed-keel versions, as well as between open and cabin hull forms. Each has different handling and trailering implications.
Ownership can therefore involve anything from a kit-built open daysailer to a factory-complete pocket cruiser. The original boat’s Bermuda rig also provides a clear point of distinction from the later gaff-rigged Com-Pac Sun Cat.
Refits and Ownership
The roller-reefing boom and removable cuddy on the open version are period features worth preserving. As a trailerable sailboat, the Sun Cat was designed with transport and storage in mind, while its shoal draft with the boards raised suits yard storage and shallow launch sites.
The Verdict
The Sun Cat 17-1 is Clark Mills’s exercise in minimalist trailerable sailing: a 1,200-pound catboat carrying a single 165-square-foot mainsail, built in open and cabin forms and with several board or keel arrangements. Its appeal is historical and practical rather than luxurious, and its simplicity remains its strength.
Pros
- Clark Mills design with a documented 1960 pedigree and surviving Hull #1 on public display
- Catboat rig and roller-reefing boom simplify sail handling
- Bilgeboards provide a 0.75-foot trailering draft and a 2.58-foot sailing draft
- Offered as a kit or complete boat, in open or cabin form, and with centerboard or keel configurations
Cons
- The 16.5-foot length limits accommodation to daysailing or minimal pocket cruising
- Three board and keel configurations complicate used-boat identification
