Florida Cates Moth Offsets

George Albaugh, fellow blogger and Moth class keeper of plans, kindly lent me the Florida Cates Classic Moth plans to look over. Jeff Linton got his start in the Classic Moth class in a somewhat tired fiberglass Cates and just recently, Gary Gowans, shown in the photo below, won the Gen I division in the 2014 Classic Moth nationals with his home-built modified Cates.

George provided more details on the history of the Florida Cates Moth in the comments section, which I have dragged over to the main post:

"Warrens 1954 World Champ boat was Mach One, NOT Mach Two. After Harry Cates modified the design of Mach One to make the boat easier to build and less tippy, Warren ordered one from Harry and named that particular boat Mach Two. The modified boat is alternatively referred to as a "Cates" a "Florida" or a "Mach Two" design, depending on whom youre taking to and to an extent where you are geographically up and down the eastern seaboard.

"As a footnote, only a handful of Mach One type Moths were built. The Mach One has more keel rocker and a much deeper vee. This makes a Mach One type almost as evil to sail as a Mistral. This also means that the bow sections on the Mach One have to be pulled up pram style rather than planked as in the case of the Mach Two/Cates/Florida derivative. Warrens Mach One had a false nose, made of fiberglass, glued on the front of the hull to achieve the sharp stem seen in most surviving photos of the boat.

I scanned parts of the plans and was also able to convert the Florida Cates lines into an 8-station offset table incorporating Gary Gowans wider transom. Ive made up a small PDF file, which, while not the complete plans, gives you the flavor of how they built this 1950s design. If you were an experienced builder, you could probably make something out of this PDF. If not, contact George for the complete set of plans (see PDF).

To print or download this PDF, click on the right-facing arrow icon on the top right of the PDF window. This will open the PDF into another tab.

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