A catboat (alternate spelling: cat boat), or a cat-rigged sailboat, is a sailing vessel characterized by a single mast carried well forward (typically near its bow). Generally a catboat has a light and shallow draft hull, wide beam approximately half its length, is gaff rigged, and carries a centreboard.
Although any boat with a single sail and a mast carried well forward is 'technically' a catboat, some catboats such as the Barnegat Bay type and more modern designs carry a Bermuda sail. A jib is sometimes added, but this may require a bowsprit, and technically creates a sloop sail-plan.
A typical New England style has a very long boom that extends over the transom and may carry foresails stayed from a bowsprit.
It is generally accepted that the origin of the catboat type was in New York around 1840 and from there spread east and south as the virtues of the type — simplicity, ease of handling, shallow draft, large capacity — were discovered. Historically, they were used for fishing and transport in the coastal waters around Cape Cod, Narragansett Bay, New York and New Jersey. Some were fitted with bowsprits for swordfishing and others were used as 'party boats' with canvas-sided, wood-framed summer cabins that could be rolled up.
They threw it down
To the other
You should be proud
You've been up so long
You'll never be down
I saw you standing there
With a smile in your hair
We're coming down (?)