Looking at a CAT 30, chime in please

[iyamwhatiyam]

Hi, my first recent post, kindly forgive any transgressions. Quick bio, 1st boat a Lido 14 used to bomb around San Diego. In the North East, much time on J-24s, crewing for the CAN ONE races on the Sound and crewing on Caribbean Regattas doing bareboat charter. Had fun on an overnight passage from Martinique to Bequia with 35 kt gusting 50 on a 50" Beneateau. Fortunately we were either running or on a reach the whole time, (so not too beat up), and actually had to heave to in order to not arrive at Bequia ahead of the Customs schedule.
All that said, I now live in NE Florida and have 40K in my boat budget. My wife loves to sail and so we are looking at something we can use to take off south and go island hopping for 3+ months out of the year. The longest passages look to be 50-60 NM at a glance. We are having a 1989 Cat 30 MKII surveyed day after tomorrow. After reading many posts, I get the impression it is the Cessna 172 of the seas. (The Cessna 172 being the Volkswagen of the skies). This particular boat is very well equipped, but I get the impression you do not want to get into any kind of heavy seas in it for reasons stated in many posts here. However those threads are old and besides I'm excited to start doing that Jimmy Buffet thing as close as possible since a Grumman Albatross is outside my current budget. Feel free to chime in please, love to hear from all of you.

[Vipervenom]

Sorry I am pretty new to sailing,so my opinion wont carry much weight, my son has a cat 30 and he loves it, but it is used in the Chesapeake bay,though he does plan on using it to go to the Bahamas,other than that I guess it really depends on how secure you feel with your boat and how well a sailor you are......Others will have more better info for you.......Welcome To CF.

[jeepbluetj]

Catalina 30 is a great boat for what it is.- I own one. Passages of 50-60km will be a very long day, I generally plan on 5kts for passages. The MKII's were a much better boat than the MK1s.

They're big for a 30 foot boat.
They sail fine, if a bit slow (PHRF around 170 or so)

But it's pretty much a weekender. Tankage is very small for anything over a couple of days. Both Fuel and Water are pretty small. Some of them had some extra water under the stbd settee in addition to the tank under the V-berth.


You should be able to get a MKII for quite a bit under 40K. For that price range you should be able to find something with decent sails and rigging.

You may be able to find a Catalina 34 for under 40K - and it's quite a bit more boat.

[The Garbone]

With 40k you should be able to buy a C30 and make it what you want provided you do not want it to sail outside a weather window.

Another plus is Catalina Yachts is still in business and is a good source for parts.

We love ours and even if it is a work in progress.

The good thing is an 89' may have been after they stopped using plywood in the keel stub.

[lifeofreilly57]

Had an 81 Cat 30, it was a fun boat but definitely a coastal cruiser for many of the previously stated reasons. Mine had water tanks under both settees and under the forward vberth, but still limited, my exwife, daughter and I needed to refill with water about every 5-7 days. Fuel was 20 gallons, when I went on extended cruises in the NE I usually carried an extra jerry jug or two. That said I took that boat all up and down the east coast from New Jersey to Maine and never had a problem. Also, what engine did it have? The base engines were usually underpowered.
Easy boats to sail, better if it has the tall rig, lots of living space for a thirty. But I agree, you could find a Cat 34 for 40 or under if you look hard, those were a generation newer and a lot more boat for the price.
You're in the range of a few good 30-34 foot boats at $40,000.00 so you might want to look around a bit, it depends on what you plan on using it for.
I saw a Sabre 34 for short money a little while ago, great boats and worth fixing up.

[lifeofreilly57]

GO to Yachtworld, go to the advanced search, put in your price range, size 30-36 and age between 1980 and 2010, type "cruiser" and you'll find some very nice boats in your range, including a C&C landfall 35 pretty nicely equipped, they were a nice mix of comfort and perfomance. I beleive they're asking $37,500.00 in Ft Lauderdale. Worth a look. And it's just an asking price.
There's a few nice boats listed.

[The Garbone]

I get tired of the "Bluewater" thing.

You can get a nice 30' or smaller "Bluewater" boat and have all the proper gear on paper but if you don't know how to use your ground tackle or isolate and fix a bad electrical connection it is all just pissing in the wind.

C30s do have one thing that a lot of the Bluewater craft do not and that is a very large user base and ample support.

A good skill to employ is to learn to understand weather and stay out of trouble. A C30 will do fine in a summer squall as long as you do what everyone else does, pay attention and shorten sail.

I myself know that I have yet to develop the skill set to adequately utilize a "Bluewater" boat and probably will not be to that level for a few more years of sailing. Maybe then I will buy a better boat, but until then it is added expense for no appreciable gain and a few additional headaches.


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[iyamwhatiyam]

Thank you for all the responses, I'm afraid I've read them after the fact as we have purchased her, I think with no regrets. Well maintained and outfitted, exceptional really, just look at the sewing kit as an example. 3gph water maker, Universal 25HP, radar w/ AIS. And judging from the nick-naks it's been at least as far as Venezuela. More later, she is on the canal east of Lake Okeechobee and heading to Jacksonville in a week. Cheers!

[Vipervenom]

I hope she turns out to be a good choice for you, the important thing is that you got a boat and that gets you out on the water, in time you may find that it fits you and the family well, or you may feel the need to look for something else either way, only you know what is best for your circumstance, Enjoy,and never look back "Tomorrow hold's promise, yesterday Holds Memories"

[The Garbone]

http://sailpanache.com/blog

A C30. Good reading.


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[iyamwhatiyam]

Well, the winds gusting out of the NE were unfavorable, (THAT'S what they mean by Fair Winds), so we ate a couple of cheap plane tickets and re-scheduled the delivery to start Monday of next week. I signed a stack of papers for the privilege of docking my boat at the marina for a week, they basically said anything that can go wrong will go wrong and the marina is in no way responsible when it does. Transport Canada informed me that certain items were missing or incomplete, something to do with them not realizing this boat belongs to an American now.

Up late, hard to sleep when I know that tomorrow I am putting an end to 34 years in IT, that's enough. Plenty of time to work on the boat.

[iyamwhatiyam]

Oh yes, this boat is named "Allie Cat", (it's a Catalina, not a catamaran). It's a fine name, but nothing to do with us, so I want to rename it. I came up with what I thought was a great name, and my wife likes it. However, having been doing some reading, there is an opinion out there that certain boat names are silly, hackneyed and/or overused. I doubt anyone will disagree with that. The major flaw in my name is that it uses the word "Sea" as part of it. I've searched BOATUS and all the names they've ever produced the graphics for, and no one there has used the name I am thinking of. I've searched the web, and it came up once, but in a gamer context, nothing to with boating.

[iyamwhatiyam]

We left Indiantown at noon on Monday, out the waterway to Port St Lucie and out to sea. Arrived Jacksonville early Wednesday. Only had to clear years of accumulation out of the head output at one point.

[iyamwhatiyam]

Learning systems. The bilge switch float backend extends outside the housing so by pressing on it , the float raises and tests the system. Always leave the master on 1 or 2 so it has power to it. Solar panels keep batteries charged. Determined that not much, but enough water to wet the propeller shaft is getting past the gland nut. Found two custom made stainless steel wrenches for the gland and lock nuts next to the diesel along with plugs for the seacocks. Looking through the engine docs, a card from a hotel in Guatemala fell out... I wish she could talk.

[lifeofreilly57]

Originally Posted by iyamwhatiyam

Learning systems. The bilge switch float backend extends outside the housing so by pressing on it , the float raises and tests the system. Always leave the master on 1 or 2 so it has power to it. Solar panels keep batteries charged. Determined that not much, but enough water to wet the propeller shaft is getting past the gland nut. Found two custom made stainless steel wrenches for the gland and lock nuts next to the diesel along with plugs for the seacocks. Looking through the engine docs, a card from a hotel in Guatemala fell out... I wish she could talk.

If your nor not sure of the age/condition of the packing in the prop shaft packing gland I suggest pulling it and replacing the packing the next time the boat is out of the water. I've found that on just about every boat I've owned with a packing gland that the packing was probably the original factory packing with extra rings added as the originals could not be tightened enough to stop leaking profusely. That includes a Catalina 30 I owned many years ago. Fortunately the packing gland on your 30 is pretty easy to get at. While your at it, change the flexible rubber hose attaching it to the hull if it hasn't already been replaced, it's got to be a bit aged and hard by now.
The gentleman who bought my Cat 30 was about half my age, he bought it mainly to keep at the dock and bring girls to, it sat so long at the dock that the first time he took it out for a sail he called in a panic. It had sat so long the packing had adhered to the shaft, when he motored out to the bay it sheared some of the packing away and leaked a good bit, he called when his buddy went down for another beer and was ankle deep in water. Fortunately I had replaced the packing the previous season so it only took a couple turns of the nuts to stem the flow.
Amazing how much water can come in from such a small leak.

CHeers, enjoy your new boat.
If you have any questions regarding the 30 feel free to contact me, I pretty much went through that entire boat when I owned it, including dropping the keel to rebed it. There wasn't much I didn't do to that boat, fortunately they're relatively straightforward boats so most maintenance is fairly easy.