Jere Lull wrote:

WHOA! I wouldn't diagnose that one long distance, though I believe I
know what you're saying.

Get a surveyor or, better, naval engineer to take a careful look and
recommend the method. Perhaps (probably?) he'll recommend a change to
the rigging and attachments.

Our surveyor (also a NA) told us how to do ours, and how serious it was
("maybe next year, perhaps" In other words, not an issue unless I saw
certain indicators). One factor is that very little load is carried by
our deck; it's almost all carried internally.

It may be problematic to find a good surveyor in Austin TX since it is
so far from the ocean. We do have a fairly active yacht club so I'll
ask around. I'm a licensed engineer, and I do have a good feeling for
the loading. IMHO, the catalina rig design is weak in this area from the
factory. Thats why I suspect that the best fix is to take the load down
to the hull, and relieve the deck. I agree that it would be good to have
and experienced surveyor or naval engineer scope it out as well.

I don't believe yours is trivial. Frankly, I think you've been lucky.

So far, so good ;-)

The area can be stressed to several tons under certain conditions. Doing
it right will probably be a once in a lifetime fix if you correct the
original error(s). Doing it wrong could lose you a rig at exactly the
wrong time.

Yep. We plan on selling her eventually and moving to a larger blue water
capable boat, but I don't want to pass the problem on to the next suc... uh
owner.

[is there a good time to lose the rig?]

No. Only worse times ;-)

Thanks for your input Jere,

Don W.