John,
I sailed Thistles when I was a kid, and I think cats are a lot easier.

Rick is originally from Akron, and a long time ago we raced on a borrowed Prindle 16 at the Berlin Yacht Club, back when they had a Prindle fleet there.

Drysailing just means that you keep your boat at a club, stored on land as opposed to in the water. I don't know of any beach cats that are kept in the water, so the term is kind of redundant.

In the old days, '40's and '50's, everybody at our club kept their Lightnings and Thistles, etc. in the water at docks all summer, which was very convenient, because you could just arrive at the club, jump on your boat and go. But eventually somebody figured out that if he kept his boat out of the water when he wasn't sailing it, it was a lot lighter and he could win races. So then everybody started keeping their boats out of the water. That's when the term "dry-sailing" started, I guess. Too bad, because it was a lot easier the other way. And it didn't matter as long as ALL the boats were heavy.