Setzer the Boat Cat: The Quiet Rise of a Legend

A water-rescue kitten, two hurricanes, and the beginning of life aboard S/V Mearr

Two days before Hurricane Helene arrived, I went out for supplies.

And by supplies, I mean snacks.

As one does.

How very Southern I have become.

I knew for a long time that a cat would one day be part of my sailing life. Cats had always been part of my life. Seeing two of them living on a sailboat in Titusville had confirmed that it was clearly doable, and I’d found entire online communities dedicated to sailors with cats, including one called Gatos del Mar.

Apparently, boat cats were a whole thing.

My family line clearly traces back through France. Somewhere farther back, Norway and the Vikings enter the picture, though exactly how is a little murky. Seafaring people with cats aboard.

Was this ancestral destiny?

I chose to believe it was.

Still, I needed a sailboat before I needed a boat cat.

Once I bought Mearr and moved aboard, I spent some time getting organized. Then I started looking around for where a litter box could go without becoming the centerpiece of my salon.

There was one spot.

The spot.

I measured it, found a litter box that fit, and started buying everything else a cat might need. Food and water bowls, a brush, toys, and sisal rope scratching pads.

I didn’t buy food yet because I didn’t want it sitting around indefinitely. I also held off on collars and harnesses because I had no idea whether my future cat would be tiny, enormous, or somewhere in between.

In a perfect world, I wanted a big, long-haired cat. A Maine Coon would have been amazing, although I couldn’t afford one and wasn’t especially fond of the whole cat-farm situation anyway.

So I visited the local shelter here and there, hoping to find my cat.

Or, more accurately, to have a cat pick me.

Every time I left without one, I felt heartbroken. Not because I was disappointed that I hadn’t found mine, but because there were so many cats that needed homes and I obviously couldn’t adopt all of them.

Which brings me back to Helene and my extremely serious hurricane preparations. I bought my snacks and started driving back toward the marina.

Somewhere along the way, the cat shelter popped into my head. I have no idea why. It was not exactly the most pressing item on the hurricane-preparation checklist. Still, I took the long way home.

The shelter had a few different sections. One was almost like a cat playground, where they could roam freely. I started there because I liked getting to know the different personalities.

The curious ones and playful ones.

The cautious ones.

And the ones who wanted you dead.

I stayed in the room for a while, playing with them and seeing whether anything clicked.

Nothing did.

Then I went into the area with the cages.

One of the volunteers recognized me and told me they had a few kittens that had been brought in a couple of days earlier. Someone had found them struggling in the water and close to drowning. A Good Samaritan pulled them out, dried them, fed them, got them their shots, and cared for them for a few days before bringing them to the shelter. They were about twelve weeks old.

I got excited.

Who doesn’t want to be surrounded by kittens?

Bring them out!

Soon, I was sitting on the floor with three tiny kittens meowing, climbing, and playing around me.

What hurricane?

Oh, right. I was gathering supplies.

Hi, neurodivergence.

One of them stayed closer to me than the others. Nothing dramatic happened. It was not one specific thing he did. There was simply a feeling.

He felt right for me.

I knew we would be a team.

He was not the Maine Coon-shaped cat I had imagined. This was a little black-and-white gremlin with tufts between his toes, oversized paws, and a ridiculously long tail. He looked like he had been assembled from parts he still needed to grow into.

Those paws and that tail told me he was probably going to be a big boy. The tufts between his toes suggested that his fur might grow longer too.

Close enough.

I was smitten at first mew.

I filled out the paperwork, grabbed some food from the shelter, and carried him out to the car. He was completely calm on the drive back. No meowing. No complaining. Seemingly not an escape artist… yet.

Every time I turned my head to look at him, he turned his to look back at me. Then I’d return my attention to the road ahead. A few moments later, I’d glance over again. He would still be watching me. Those quiet exchanges in the car made that certainty feel even more real.

We were a team now.

I had my snacks.

He had his snacks.

We were all set.

When we reached Mearr, he spent about ten minutes exploring the boat before deciding that everything belonged to him. There was now an Admiral aboard. Once he was comfortable, I let his name simmer in my subconscious for a while.

Eventually, he became Setzer.

The name came from Setzer Gabbiani, a character from Final Fantasy VI, which was released as Final Fantasy III in the United States. Setzer is an airship captain, a risk taker, and a gambler who relies heavily on luck and fate. After losing his closest friend and rival while racing airships, he spends much of his life taking chances and hoping they work out. He even has a casino on his airship.

How very catlike.

Take a chance. Leap first. Assume it’ll probably be fine. That counter only goes up.

The character also wears a long black-and-white trench coat, so the name felt even more appropriate.

He came aboard, and Helene arrived.

I was concerned that the noise and movement might scare him. He had barely settled into a new home, and now the rain was hammering the boat while the wind howled through the marina.

I spent the night moving in and out of Mearr, patrolling the dock and checking dock lines. I watched my boat and the others nearby, making sure everything remained secure.

Every so often, I went back inside for a short break.

Setzer was always in the same place.

Curled up on a little yellow-and-orange blanket.

Sound asleep, without a care in the world.

I knew I’d picked the right cat, and Helene confirmed it. He trusted me completely, even though we had known each other for only two days.

The next morning, I brought him onto the dock with me. He walked to the edge and looked down at the water. Then he leaned forward to get a closer look.

A little farther.

And a little farther.

Splash!

In went the kitten, headfirst. I laughed because I had been watching him closely the entire time. I scooped him out immediately and wrapped him in a towel.

Silly boy.

He wasn’t terrified. Mostly grumbly and annoyed. As though falling into the water had somehow been my administrative failure.

That became Setzer’s first official unintentional swim. I’m not counting anything that happened before he came into my life. It was a great way to begin the morning and his new life aboard S/V Mearr.

In the days after Helene, I started training him. “Training” might be a generous word at first. Mostly, I wanted to discover what this little feisty boy could do. I worked on jumping, then started playing with him using one of those finger-trap spring toys. I threw it across the boat so he could chase it. He ran after it and brought it back.

I threw it again.

He brought it back again, so I gave him a treat.

Apparently, we had a system. He still plays fetch all the time.

I also introduced ropes into our games.

Before anyone gets excited, this is still the cat story. DMs are open, though…

He never became especially talented at climbing a loose rope, but netting and sisal mats wrapped around the mast are another matter entirely.

He races straight up those.

Tiny furry rocket.

Harness training started early too. I didn’t want a cat who powered down with a .exe error the moment I put one on. Better to make it normal before he decided wearing anything was an offense to His Royal Highness.

Two weeks after Helene, Hurricane Milton arrived.

Once again, I wondered whether the noise might finally bother him. Once again, he curled up and slept like a baby while the rain pounded the boat and the wind howled outside.

Because he is my little baby boy.

Storms still don’t seem to bother him much. Fireworks are another matter. He isn’t terrified of them, but he is clearly uncomfortable.

Apparently, a hurricane is perfectly reasonable.

Fireworks? Very sus.

That tiny water-rescue gremlin became exactly the adventure cat I had imagined.

He fetches, climbs like a champ, and swims remarkably well, despite occasionally entering the water without planning to. He has even joined me on the paddleboard, although we still need more training before he fully embraces that particular adventure.

Baby boy is unsure about it.

I remain optimistic.

This is only Setzer’s origin story.

The quiet rise of a legend.

There will be plenty more under his very own Setzer tag.

Of course he gets one.

P.S.: Because apparently rescuing him, naming him, and documenting his rise to power wasn’t enough, I had his DNA tested. The results included Ragdoll, American Shorthair, Abyssinian, Persian, Siberian, Russian Blue, Egyptian Mau, Bengal, and a mighty 3.46% Maine Coon.

The Ragdoll made immediate sense. Just look at that face.

So the oversized paws, ridiculous tail, and Maine Coon-shaped ambitions were not entirely imaginary.