Catamaran - Prout brothers - Cougar Mk III and Jaguar (the hard chine version)

For a while in the 1960s there was an association of Cougar catamaran owners in USA.





Note that the editor of this newsletter is very likely Edward F. Cotter
who wrote and published 3 books on catamarans and on on generall offshore sailing.
Sailing and racing catamarans - 1963 - With an introd. by Everett B. Morris. Chilton Books, Philadelphia
The International Book of Catamarans and Trimarans - 1966 - Crown Publishers
Multihull Sailboats sailing, cruising, racing � 1971 - Crown Publishers
Offshore game : todays ocean racing - 1977 - Crown Publishers

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The Prout Brothers, Roland and Francis, experimented with catamarans in 1949. They converted their 1935 boat factory in Canvey Island, Essex (England), to catamaran production in 1954. Their Shearwater catamarans won races easily against the monohulls. Yellow Bird, a 1953-built Shearwater, raced successfully by Francis Prout in the 1960s. They also designed the Cougar catamaran and went through 3 improvement designs. The original Cougar design hulls were soft chine (had rounded bottoms) for production hulls. They also designed a hard chine version (with angles at the chines defining the bottom from the sides) for home builders which they named the Jaguar catamaran.
As that design had hard chines it could be easily be built from plywood.
The Prout brothers designed other catamarans, but the Shearwater was by far the most popular.


Photo of a Cougar catamaran
This was the photo on the NOAA (USA) chart catalog for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts
published and in effect 1 July 1074

Shearwater Catamarans class website The fleet which carries on the Prout catamran heritage.

Jaguar Catamaran page - the boat my father and I built and sailed.

Small Boats index page

S Tex Boat - Main page