Catalina 30 what a great boat

[kingfish]

Here I am again bragging about my boat, She never seems to let me down. I just got back from going no ware. 3 days out of the golden gate and 3 days back, no stops, just heading sw out. I just wanted to get some deep blue water under me.
Everybodie says that a cat 30 is limited to protected water and weekend coastals. I still dont belive it, I averaged 115 miles a day which around 5-6 knots in light to moderate winds. This week was the first time I flew my big kite and left it up for 2 days strait.
So what i am begining to learn that a good boat now is better that the perfect boat never. I am now planning on departing for the south pacific in oct. after the haha. and my cat is going to take me there!
cheers
D.

[ssullivan]

I love reading stories like this. I always wonder why certain boats get a reputation for being able to go long distances while others don't get that reputation. In a lot of ways, it would seem theoretically possible that any boat could really go anywhere if well equipped. Having sailed my old 30 O'day 302 for extended periods from New York to Maine, where you do some offshore work, I often wondered what it would be like to just head futher East until Europe.

I would love to be able to just buy a boat for less money and go now rather than wait for many more years (which is what we are currently doing). We looked at another boat today, a 44 foot Gulfstar the guy was asking $95K for (this means years of living aboard and working corporate if we took that plunge). I kept wondering why I couldn't accomplish the same thing with a Morgan Out Island or some other "lesser" boat. In an ideal world, we'd all have a Hinckley, Shannon, or Hallberg Rassey. Unfortunately, I'd like to go sailing now rather than wait until I'm too old to enjoy it.

Please do post and let us know how you make out. I'd love to hear someone prove conventional theories wrong and make some serious passages in an alternative boat.

[kingfish]

Thanks for that comment, It is great to hear other people that think alike.Your right if I had 100.000 to buy another boat I would in a heart beat but for me to get that is going to take a while then its back to building the kitty all over again. Ive seen and read about people doing long cruises in much less a boat. Just look at tania aebi who took her columbia 26 around the world with limited sailing knowledge. The more i study other boats that are suposidly made to cruise The more comfertable I am in my boat. Lots of mods. have been made, and more are still to come But I'd feel comfertable leaving today. Ive alredy made a few extended coastals and each time I do an overnighter I feel more and more confident in her.
Cheers
D.

[David W]

a point of clarification

[Euro Cruiser]

I think ssullivan's statement zeros in on how Catalina, Hunter, Jeanneau et al. sell so many boats to folks who are motivated to go cruising:

"I would love to be able to just buy a boat for less money and go now rather than wait for many more years."

Of course you would; we all would. This is why all these BB's constantly feature threads on the suitability for open-ended cruising of either an earlier era production boat or one of the affordable, high volume mass manufactured boats that come off an assembly line today.

One of the main reasons production boats (and their reputations) survive when purchased for 'cruising' is that most actual cruising is very benign and the boats face modest challenges. This is because a) most buyers don't end up cruising them at all beyond family vacations; b) those that are cruised are taken down to Mexico from SoCal or out to the Caribbean from the East Coast, or down to Spain from somewhere near or above the Channel (in balance, short and not terribly challenging routes for most boats when sailed in season); c) the cruising period, when trips home are factored out, only lasts months or perhaps a year or two, and d) because the tough piece of the route is sometimes done by a trucker or Dockwise, not that this is a bad thing in itself. (WRT this last point, getting a Catalina 30 down to Oz really is pretty much a milk run. Getting it from there back to the U.S. is where it gets challenging, and where the suitability of the boat for blue water cruising is better tested).

"We looked at another boat today, a 44 foot Gulfstar... I kept wondering why I couldn't accomplish the same thing with a Morgan Out Island or some other "lesser" boat."

Whoa...let's back up a minute. First off, Gulfstar and Morgan boats were built in the same city, by the same workers (who would oscillate back and forth as production volumes changed and as someone was fired at one place and sought out work at the other), relying on the same suppliers (e.g. JTR still makes stainless hardware for boats in a huge facility but with only one worker as it's now supporting those of us who remodel/refurb/mod our older boats), built to the same basic standards using the same first generation GRP technologies and with the same audiences in mind (principally sailors in shallow coastal waters and the charter trade). When you are looking at a OI, you are looking at a Gulfstar in a different suit of clothes. Second, if you would like to go sooner rather than later, why are you looking at a 44' boat? No matter what price you pay for the boat, this size preference drives up the cost which the cruising kitty will ultimately see tremendously. I think it's elsewhere on this BB where a Canadian chap is looking at a 36' sloop for a Pacific run that is very ruggedly built, has a functional layout, good offshore gear, and a decent rep out in the Pacific; the asking price is half of the Gulfstar you looked at. Why would a 36' sloop unsuitable?

"In a lot of ways, it would seem theoretically possible that any boat could really go anywhere if well equipped."

This is logic supported by the advertising in magazines because much of the commercial activity in recreational boating these days is in selling systems (and then newer systems, and then more systems), all of them supposedly necessary for 'safe', 'comfortable' cruising. And pushing equipment is also an understandable way in which boat builders can convey their product to be fully found and also attractive (even if the hull laminate is marginal or the mast not properly supported). Boats that are 'well equipped' may or may not make it anywhere because there are more fundamental issues involved: structural integrity, the seaworthiness of the design, the skill of the crew and the routing & timing chosen.

Catalina 30's have been circumnavigated but, like other selective anecdotal data, that hardly suggests they are suitable for that purpose. Unsuitable boats and/or crews of abysmal competence manage to get themselves to many parts of the globe, and this usually has to do more with stamina, money, luck and the odds than with seamanship or sound build practices. One Catalina 36, made somewhat famous on the Web now, left SoCal for Hawaii but had to be abandoned after a flooding incident due to an underspec'd hatch was pulled off by a jib sheet and the loss of steering because the quandrant attachment was poorly engineeered. Both of these failures illustrate that the details matter, both were addressed by Catalina in subsequent models, and then another Catalina 36 won its class in the Pacific Cup a few years back, about the same time that a Catalina 36 owner found he couldn't turn his wheel when sailing in Charleston Harbor on a blustery day. (His hull laminate was inadequate and the hull flexed so much it blocked the quadrant swing).

To my knowledge, there is no way to fair a curve between these data points and one can only, as Kingfish appears to be doing, use your boat thoughtfully and thoroughly, get to know it well, manage it at sea as best you know how, and not try to do more than she seems capable of.

Some day I'm going to finish a draft I've started on the fool's errand of trying to discuss, in some generic but accurate way, whether production boats are suitable for blue water cruising. It's a question easily stated but all but impossible to answer.

Jack
WHOOSH, currently lying Plymouth, England after visiting the Channel Is. on their Liberation Day...and yes, WHOOSH is a 'production boat'

[David W]

I think you present a very balanced and fair perspective on the subject. I would love to read your draft!

David