Inland Cat is a class of one- or two-man sailboats, almost exclusively found on Lake George, Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

/Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. The craft is approximately 14.5 feet in length, with a 4.5 foot beam. The sail is a Marconi rig (aka Bermuda rig

Bermuda rig

The term Bermuda rig refers to a configuration of mast and rigging for a type of sailboat and is also known as a Marconi rig; this is the typical configuration for most modern sailboats...

), with the mast far forward on the hull, as is the norm for a cat boat. The boat has a retractable galvanized steel centerboard, and a shallow-draft aluminum rudder similar in shape to New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

-style cat boats. The design was created by Norm Bell and John Larimore in the mid-1950s and used then-current polyester resin

Polyester resin

Polyester resins are unsaturated resins formed by the reaction of dibasic organic acids and polyhydric alcohols. Polyester resins are used in sheet moulding compound, bulk moulding compound and the toner of laser printers...

 and fiberglass

Fiberglass

Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...

 construction techniques. The boat was perhaps over-engineered, and is quite robustly built. Many examples, including hull #2 (the second production boat) continue to race every Saturday during the Summer months. There were 250+ Inland Cats built by Bell/Larimore and a nearby boatbuilder in the 1950s thru early 1970s. The only concentration of boats is on Lake George proper, which has a few dozen surviving craft. Of these, 20+ come out to race in the "Gold" and "Silver" fleets each week during the Summer.

Due to its heavy construction and wide beam, the Inland Cat is very stable in heavy air, and not particularly fast. The Class has a PHRF

PHRF

Performance Handicap Racing Fleet is a handicapping system used for yacht racing in North America. It allows dissimilar classes of sailboats to be raced against each other...

 rating of 107. It is not uncommon on balmy summer days to see the entire fleet bobbing in light air, tossed about by Jet Ski

Jet ski

Jet Ski is the brand name of a personal watercraft manufactured by Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The name is sometimes mistakenly used by those unfamiliar with the personal watercraft industry to refer to any type of personal watercraft; however, the name is a valid trademark registered with the...

and other boat wakes.

The Inland Cat logo is a black silhouette of a cat's head (facing viewer) with a red "I" centered over it.