The Nonsuch line of catboat

Catboat

A catboat , or a cat-rigged sailboat, is a sailing vessel characterized by a single mast carried well forward ....

s is a series of popular cruising sailboats built between 1978 and the mid-1990s by Hinterhoeller Yachts in St. Catharines, Ontario

St. Catharines, Ontario

St. Catharines is the largest city in Canada's Niagara Region and the sixth largest urban area in Ontario, Canada, with 97.11 square kilometres of land...

. They were popular in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, with over 950 ships built. The Nonsuch class was named after the Nonsuch (ship)

Nonsuch (ship)

The Nonsuch was the ketch that sailed into Hudson Bay in 1668-1669 under Zachariah Gillam, in the first trading voyage for what was to become the Hudson's Bay Company two years later. Originally built as a merchant ship in 1650, and later the Royal Navy ketch HMS Nonsuch, the vessel was sold to Sir...

, the first trading vessel of Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...

, which in turn was named after the Baroness Nonsuch (Barbara Palmer), a mistress of King Charles II of England

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

.

History

In the mid-1970s, Gordon Fisher, a respected Canadian sailor, commissioned designer Mark Ellis to create a design for a cruising sailboat which would have decent accommodations, but still be easy for a singlehander to manage. Ellis designed a Ljungstrom-type rig modified with a wishbone boom

Wishbone boom

thumb|right|300pxThe wishbone boom on sailing craft is most commonly seen on windsurfing boards .The wishbone boom on larger sailing craft is a double-sided boom set at an angle to the mast and typically supported by line stays from the leading edge of the mast to each side of the boom...

, on a 30 foot modern hull with a plumb bow, fin keel and balanced rudder. A beam of nearly 12 feet and cambered house-top created a large interior with accommodation equal to a standard yacht several feet longer. George Hinterhoeller

George Hinterhoeller

George Anton Hinterhoeller was a boat designer and builder. Hinterhoeller was born in Mondsee, Austria on March 16, 1928. He develop his trade as a master boat builder before eventually emigrating to Canada in 1952, where he was employed building powerboats at Shepherd Boats in Niagara-on-the-Lake,...

, after some initial reservations about the design, agreed to build the boats, and the first 30ft Nonsuch rolled out of his shop in the summer of 1978.

Number of boats built, by model

Model	Number Built
22	58
26	258
30	522
33	67
36	70

Additional models were created in 22, 26, 33 and 36 foot lengths, with the 26 and 30 both available in "Classic" and "Ultra" configurations. The original boats were built with an unstayed, two-piece aluminum mast and wishbone boom

Wishbone boom

thumb|right|300pxThe wishbone boom on sailing craft is most commonly seen on windsurfing boards .The wishbone boom on larger sailing craft is a double-sided boom set at an angle to the mast and typically supported by line stays from the leading edge of the mast to each side of the boom...

. In later years, under new ownership, the factory produced new versions of 3 of its models, all with shoal draft keels one-piece carbon fiber

Carbon fiber

Carbon fiber, alternatively graphite fiber, carbon graphite or CF, is a material consisting of fibers about 5–10 μm in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. The carbon atoms are bonded together in crystals that are more or less aligned parallel to the long axis of the fiber...

masts. By the time Hinterhoeller closed its doors in January 1996, a total of 975 of Nonsuch boats had been built.

Today

The Nonsuch series of boats are generally considered to be very sturdily built boats. In his review, Paul Howard states that two Nonsuches, David Philpott's "Serenity IV" and Brian Shelley's "Saci IV", were abandoned at sea, found floating months later, and were refurbished and are sailing today.

Regional chapters of the International Nonsuch association (INA) are organized in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe; with the largest fleets on Lake Ontario, and the Eastern U.S. seacoast.

As of January, 2007, Wiggers Custom Yachts, a Canadian yacht builder located in Bowmanville, Ontario has acquired the molds for the Nonsuch line. Operating under licensing agreements with designer, Wiggers states they will build boats to order. As of October 2009, five Nonsuch 33s have been delivered, with work on another underway.

External links

• The International Nonsuch Association - Detailed information and history on all Nonsuch models
• Nonsuch 30, Good Value for the Money article by Paul Howard, for Canadian Yachting
• Wiggers Custom Yachts - The current licensed builder