My boy Oliver has a crooked tail, it has two point bends and it looks like a hook sticking out side ways. He was born with it (I suspect his tail was stuck in some weird position while he was in his mother´s womb.) and evidently he doesn´t suffer from it in any way, consciously. He is an extremely robust, healthy, athletic boy but he is also extremely clumsy. It makes me wonder whether his bent tail affects his sense of balance or something.

He regularly falls off from a chair or edge of the bed when he gets excited playing, or comes down with his bum or his side first after leaping up, not on his paws like cats are supposed to do. He also often bangs his head on a furniture or other objects while he is trying to get at his toy.
He isn´t bothered by this and he either leaps right up and continue to play, or starts one of those vehement self-cleaning as if to say "what´s so funny? Has anyone done something silly?"

Observing him, I don´t think it is anything to be overly worried about, I just have to be careful to remove any possible danger out of the way when we play, and supervise him closely when he is out on the balcony (lately he is very keen on trying to jump up on the edge!). I am just curious, is clumsiness a typical trait of a bent tailed cat? Or he is just this way, nothing to do with his tail?

It could be down to his tail, the tail is used as a balancing mechanism. I would not worry about it too much, he may learn to compesate for it. If you in time become convinced, that the tail is the cause of his clumsines, you could have it amputated.
I used to have a cat who suffered a bad injury to the tail and the vet at the time said, that a tail amputation is not such a bad operation. I did not have it done and saved the tail, which remained kinky, but it did not seem to affect the cat.

Amputate the tail? Oh I do hope it will not come down to that, I find his crooked tail rather charming... he is an indoor cat and he remains in fairly safe environment, so I do hope he will get to keep the tail!!

His tail is pretty clearly seen on this pic

http://www.unitedcats.com/cat/OllieRome/pic/148226

I had a look at Ollies picture. His tail does not look too bad. It is rather cute I did not want my cat´s tail amputated either and neither was I for a minute suggesting that you should do it. The amputation is only a possible solution, if the tail caused problems.

I read up a bit on the internet about the function of the cat´s tail. It seems, that it is used mainly when the cat falls, so that it can right itself. It is also used to some extent during other fast movements.

But I am sure, that Ollie is OK at home with you

Thanks for the assurance Oldwoman!! I was just being curious if his tail had something to do with his his goofiness or if he is just that way. I think I am gonna do some studying on the functions of the tails like you did!!

I once had a cat with a fractured tail-when he was young he was runing all the time and i landed on his tail.But i never noticed problems with balance.My cat Fjodor never had problems with tail but when he was younger he was very clumsy, he also banged his had to furniture while he was playing, he was falling of the furniture...I think that is common thing for young cats while thay are playing,and you dont need to be concerned about that!