Kathryn otherwise follows the pattern of a Chesapeake Bay skipjack, with a clipper bow-style cutwater, a sharp convex bow, beamy middle, and a flat transom stern.

[5] Kathryn was built at Crisfield in 1901, using fore-and-aft planking characteristic of early skipjacks, and may have been the first to use the herring-bone technique.

Her early history is unknown, as the Reedville, Virginia custom office records were destroyed by fire.

She received a major rebuild in 1954 at the Krentz Marine Railway in Harryhogan, Virginia, which was published in Chesapeake Sailing Craft.

She was sold in 1981 to Herman Russell Dize (whose father had worked aboard Kathryn 70 years before) and William James Roe, Jr.[4] Capt.

Harold "Stoney" Whitelock of Dames Quarter, Maryland purchased Kathryn in 2008 and is currently working to restore her.