Reminded by Simon Pride's visit to Mystic, I went looking for examples of the boat I sailed in Mystic Seaport Museum 15 years ago, and found a couple of images. The one on the right shows the Cape Cod Cat sailing in the Mystic Seaport museum itself - exactly the same as the craft I took out.

And the one below, although less well focused, does at least show that boat sailing in something of a wind! There's not much more frustrating that taking a sailing craft out on the water only to find that the wind isn't paying attention, and the sail is pretty much hanging out to dry on the line - as in the pic on the right!

Both images give you a pretty good view of how little you can do to sail her. Normally, on a boat of this size, you sit on the side, and lean back to balance the weight of the wind on the sail.

This design has a sort of well. It probably keeps waves out at sea, but it also means you sit inside the boat. When it tips over, you can't do a thing except let the sail out.

Check out this site for several designs along the same lines; single sail, gaff-rigged, mast set way forward.

The term "catboat" is nothing to do with the normal contraction of "catamaran" as you can see. Cats have two hulls. Catboats have one sail. You could have a catboat catamaran, so to speak...