Used Catalina

[gpshephe]

Originally Posted by night0wl

At a minimum:

1) Adding fuel tanks. I believe the Catalina 38 holds 35 gallons of fuel stock. Assuming 1/2 gph consumption @ 6 knots cruising, thats only a range of 420 nautical miles under power. You'll want 100 gallons of fuel or more...and then jerry jugs in case you need more.

2) Adding water tanks. Stock, the Catalina 38 has only 35 gallons of water capacity. That is unacceptable for such a boat. Assuming 1 gpd per crew and a 45 day crossing with a crew of 3, you should have *AT LEAST* 135 gallons of water in tanks. You will be taking sponge baths and not smelling great with this limited amount of water supply. Do *NOT* count on a watermaker working. If you have a watermaker, great...but then where will you power it from if you only have 35 gallons of diesel fuel? Generator wont be able to run too long with that little fuel!!!

3) I'd make sure all the standing rigging was inspected and if there is *ANY* wear/tear...replace it with upsized wire. I'd be inspecting those chainplates and knees and beefing them up accordingly.

4) If you have in-mast furling on this boat...consider dumping it and going with a traditional lazy jack sail. Offshore is no-where good to deal with a main jammed halfway out

5) Strongly would consider adding a baby-stay (if the foredeck can handle it) to fly a storm sail.

6) Make sure your aft and mid-ships cleats are strongly supported with backing plates or reinforced in order to trail a storm anchor or drogue. Buy a drogue if you dont have one

7) Upgrade your lifelines from the crappy stock ones (aka knee-clippers) and supplement by putting lifeline netting

8) VERY IMPORTANT - inspect living areas for handholds. I dont know the interior of the Catalina 38, but if its anything like most production boats (even racer/cruisers), there will be a decided lack of handholds. Install with proper backing as necessary.

9) Make sure you have an area that can be set up with a lee cloth for a proper sea berth. Aft and forward cabins are usually too large and have too much motion while underway. Ideally, you would have a 5-6 foot length straigth settee with anchorable points at both ends to attach a lee cloth to

10) Check all your thru-hulls and add backing plates. Most production builders go cheap on this step...god knows why, only a few extra hundred bucks when they're doing the installation but thousands to upgrade after the fact

11) You probably have an autopilot, but you'll also want to have some non-electrical self steering system. Monitor wind-vanes are the gold standard...and priced accordingly. From what I recall, C38s have a traditional transom, not the sugar-scoop more modern boats have. This will make the wind-vane installation easier actually as there is less supporting metalwork required to make it fit

12) Beyond wind-vane, you'll likely have to upgrade your auto-pilot. If you have a wheel pilot...dump it on ebay and get a direct drive unit mounted to the quadrant below.

13) Electronics for offshore...make sure you have at a minimum a Radar. . A top tier VHF that is networked to your GPS for DSC calling. Make sure that prior to going offshore, you've gotten your HAM license and are well versed in HF communication. You'll want to have an SSB for long range communication....with associated grounding plates and copper for proper antennae tuning. At a bare bones minimum, you'll want to have a good SSB capable of receiving long range weather forecasts and some way of downloading the grib data to your laptop. You'll be outside of traditional weather forecasting range...so this is what will tell you if you're in trouble or not. AIS would be good as well...in another year or two I would say that this will become required for offshore like the radar.

14) Some kind of power generation. Solar is best, IMHO. Wind as a backup/backstop. Generator as a backup. Honda EU2000 is a good cheap way to keep batteries topped up. You'll be sucking down amps between autopilot and likely refrigeration.

***edit*** forgot a couple key things

15) This likely should be much higher on the list. In fact, it would be one of the first things I do. BILGE PUMPS!!! Your stock bilge pump is probably very undersized. Install at least 2 automatic bilge pumps such that they trigger automatically at varying water levels. One should trigger as soon as there are a few inches of water in the bilge. The second should trigger when there is even more water in the cabin. When wiring them, make sure your battery bank can handle the amperage draw of 2 of these pumps going simultaneiously. Theoretically, the second should turn on after you power up the engine alleviating the amperage draw (its your "Oh $hit" pump that will power on when things really go bad) but still have the amps. Lastly, add a 3rd manual bilge pump that can be operated remotely

16) Make sure your cockpit can drain effectively and quickly. Considering upgrading the scuppers and/or adding more drainage. Consider also adding your manual bilge pump controls in the cockpit itself.

17) Consider adding several tether points in the cockpit that are STRONGLY backed up with plates.

Thanks Nightowl, very well thought out, I will keep this post for future use, guaranteed.

[gpshephe]

Originally Posted by Doodles

For what its worth, Lin and Larry Pardey like the Catalina 38 ... An Interesting and Affordable Cruising Boat Choice | Sailing Blog | Lin & Larry Pardey

Interesting. Larry and Lin are mentioned quite a bit in works by John Vigor. He seems very impressed with them, so they must know what they are talking about.

Regards, Gary